The holiday period between Christmas and the New Year is a time of tradition when we pass on stories and quotations that teach our best values.
From the beginning of our nation we have, by law and tradition, protected the life of every person from the time of conception to death. In our generation, however, the courts have legalized terminating life at its beginning through abortion and appears to be ready to shorten life through euthanasia at its end. Today we are faced with critical decisions about the value of life itself.
Clearly, God entrusts each mother and father with the care of a new life at the time of conception. If, for any reason, the mother decides that she does not want the child she has a legal right to kill it through abortion. The law even allows the baby to be killed at birth when the head appears but not after the body is delivered. The decision to let the baby live or die is in the hands of the mother and her doctor.
Dr. James Dobson shares the story of Dr. Loomis, obstetrician, who faced the question of whether or not to save a baby's life. He examined the mother the month before birth and noted that the baby was in the breach position with the head up and the feet in the birth canal. Expecting that it would turn around before the day of birth, he was not greatly concerned.
On the day of delivery, however, he was dismayed to find that the baby was still in the breach position. This is dangerous because the cord is often compressed by the baby's head when it is delivered and, unless it is delivered quickly, the blood is cut off, no oxygen reaches the baby's blood stream, and it dies.
When the baby started to come Dr. Loomis discovered that it only had one leg. The other leg from from hip to knee was missing. The doctor remembers his thoughts about the family as he held the life of that tiny baby girl in his hands. Don't bring this suffering upon them... This baby has never taken a breath -don't ever let her take one. You probably can't get it out in time anyway. Don't hurry. After making his decision he called for the towel in which to wrap the child. "I slipped my hand beneath the towel to feel the pulsations of the baby's cord...Two or three minutes more would be enough...the little pink foot on the good side popped out...and pressed firmly against my slowly moving hand, the hand into whose keeping the safety of the mother and the baby had been entrusted... It was too much, I couldn't do it. I delivered the baby with the pitiful little leg."
The parents took the little girl to different specialists for surgery and treatment. Dr. Loomis could not help but blame himself because he could have saved them from the ordeal. Several years later his guilt was erased when he attended the annual hospital Christmas program. He was especially impressed by the beauty and skill of a young lady with auburn hair who played the harp in unison with the organ, a cello, and a violin. After the program a woman rushed up to him with arms outstretched saying, "You must have recognized your baby. That was my daughter who played the harp... the little girl who was born with only one leg 17 years ago... She has a whole artificial leg on that side-but you wouldn't know it, would you? She can walk, she can swim, and she can almost dance."
The doctor described his response when the mother introduced them, I took the child in my arms. Across her warm young shoulders I saw the creeping clock of the delivery room 17 years before. I lived again those awful moments when her life was in my hand, when I decided on deliberate infanticide.
At his request the young woman went back to her harp and played "Silent Night" for him alone. Her mother sat beside me and quietly took my hand as her daughter played... And as the last strains of "Silent Night, Holy Night " faded again, I think I found the answer, and the comfort, I had waited for so long.
(The full account of this beautiful story is in the book "From Christmas In My Heart, Book2" by Joe L. Wheeler, Copyright Review and Herald Publishing Association, 55 W. Oak Ridge Dr. Hagerstown, MD. 21740 I was also included in the December, 1997 letter sent out by Dr. James Dobson from Focus On the Family, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80995)
Human life must be protected at its earliest stages because "...God created man in his own image...male and female created he them." Genesis l:27
©Copyright 1998 Dr. Stanley Watson and VideComp, Inc.
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"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace..." Isaiah 52:7.