Planned Parenthood Says Abortion = Freedom. How is a Dead Baby Free?
Earlier this week, Planned Parenthood posted a graphic, a meme, across its social media platforms: large pink letters against a pitch-black background. Abortion = Freedom.
Crass, thoughtless, and grotesque. But that graphic and those words will not leave me alone. For the last five days, I have found myself coming back to them in quiet moments, asking the same question over and over again: Freedom from what?
So this morning, I sat down and started writing. I made a list of everything I could think of that abortion “frees” a woman from. The longer the list became, the more unbearable that slogan seemed. I’m hoping that by writing this down, I can escape the cold callousness of their message.
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An abortion frees a woman from:
The first flutter of her baby moving inside her.
The wonder of seeing a tiny face on an ultrasound.
Seeing her child’s face for the first time.
Holding a newborn against her chest.
Hearing the first real giggle.
Hearing the first belly laugh that makes everyone else laugh too.
Holding out both hands and whispering, “Come to Mommy.”
Seeing that first brave, wobbly step.
Hearing “Mama.”
Hearing “I love you.”
Watching a toddler run toward her with arms stretched wide.
Celebrating the end of diapers as if someone had won an Olympic medal.
Reading the same bedtime story for the hundredth time.
Watching a child discover Christmas.
Watching little feet race toward a Christmas tree.
Hiding Easter eggs.
Lighting one candle, then two, then five, then ten.
Packing the first lunchbox.
Buying the first backpack.
Holding a small hand on the first day of school.
Watching that hand reluctantly let go.
Fighting tears as her child walks into kindergarten.
Seeing the first school picture.
Hanging finger paintings on the refrigerator.
Watching the first soccer game, dance recital, piano concert, or baseball practice.
Keeping trophies that mean nothing to the world and everything to a family.
Seeing a child lose the first tooth.
Watching a personality unfold.
Discovering a child’s gifts.
Hearing laughter from another room and knowing exactly whose laughter it is.
Teaching a child to ride a bicycle.
Running behind the bicycle while promising, “I’ve got you.”
Letting go.
Watching a child become a teenager.
Watching that child pull out of the driveway alone.
Waiting for the text that says, “I’m here.”
Meeting the friends who fill the house and empty the refrigerator.
Hearing music through a bedroom door.
Watching a son become a young man.
Watching a daughter become a young woman.
Seeing glimpses of the newborn face that somehow remain in the adult one.
Shopping for a prom dress.
Straightening a tie before a dance.
Taking too many photographs before prom.
Watching high school graduation.
Hearing her child’s name called.
Watching the cap fly into the air.
Remembering the baby she once carried out of the hospital while watching an adult walk across a stage.
Standing in a dorm room trying not to cry.
Crying in the car afterward anyway.
Watching a child discover a vocation.
Celebrating the first real job.
Listening to dreams become plans.
Watching plans become lives.
Welcoming her grown child home for the holidays.
Realizing that the person who once needed help tying shoes now gives her advice.
Becoming friends with the adult her child has become.
Hearing, “Mom, you were right.”
Hearing, “Mom, I need you.”
Hearing, “Mom, I just wanted to call.”
Hearing the news of an engagement.
Straightening a veil.
Pinning a boutonniere.
Sitting in the front row with a heart almost too full to bear.
Hearing vows spoken by the person whose first words she remembers.
Dancing with her child at the wedding.
Receiving the phone call that says, “Mom, we’re having a baby.”
Becoming a grandmother.
Seeing her own baby hold a baby.
Watching another tiny hand curl around a finger that once curled around hers.
Hearing herself called “Grandma,” “Nana,” “Abuela,” or whatever beloved name a grandchild gives her.
Rocking a grandbaby while remembering rocking that baby’s mother or father.
Knowing that the child she once carried now carries part of her family into the future.
Experiencing the exquisite astonishment of loving a grandchild with a love that feels both entirely new and deeply familiar.
Watching her children care for their own children.
Watching the family grow.
Looking across a holiday table and realizing that all of these lives, relationships, stories, jokes, marriages, friendships and grandchildren began with one tiny human life.
That is the part the slogan leaves out.
“Abortion = Freedom” sounds simple because it reduces motherhood to a burden from which a woman must escape. But motherhood contains a lifetime of moments no slogan can measure.
Abortion does not merely end a pregnancy. It ends the life of a child, and with that child disappears an entire unwritten future.
No first smile.
No first word.
No first step.
No kindergarten.
No graduation.
No wedding.
No grandchildren.
No lifetime of being called “Mom.”
That is a terrible price to pay for freedom.
LifeNews.com Note: Raimundo Rojas is the Outreach Director for the National Right to Life Committee. He is a former president of Florida Right to Life and has presented the pro-life message to millions in Spanish-language media outlets. He represents NRLC at the United Nations as an NGO. Rojas was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba and he and his family escaped to the United States in 1968.
