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fact check

On Mother's Day, a friend of mine posted a link to this blog post that made me both sympathetic and mad at the same time.

I've read many articles, most by Moms, a few by nurses, addressing the whole medical terminology of "abortion".  Bascially, the term abort means "to stop", so an abortion means a stop or termination of the pregenancy. Medically, it has always been used to define a miscarriage. After the 1970s in America, it also came to mean a voluntary ending to a pregnancy, often labeled as a "selective" abortion after numerous women began complaining after learning their miscarriage was on their medical charts as an abortion. My heart goes out to any woman who has to deal with such a situation, especially in the case where something was medically coded incorrectly.  But I fear the author of this post is totally ignorant when it comes to our country's history, specifically in cultural matters.

Women who lived prior to Roe v. Wade will tell you that people didn't discuss sex back then - period. The word pregnant was simply not used, at least not by polite society. The term "with child" or "expecting" was most often said. I've heard countless women in their 80's talk about their shock or horror the first time they heard a preacher or Christmas program refer to Mary as being "pregnant" with Jesus.  It was revolting, crude, and scandalous to them.  (and people certainly didn't tell their other children they had babies in their tummy or wear clothes that revealed your "condition" to others...that subject will keep my mother-in-law talking for quite a while!) And just as pregnancy in and of itself wasn't discussed, neither was a miscarriage. I've heard more than one older woman tell a young woman who was grieving or hurting after a miscarriage "At least you can talk about it. When I was your age, it was never, ever mentioned. I lost two (and at this point their son's or daughter's mouth would drop open in shock) and it was never mentioned by anyone, except my husband who said something once or twice in private." And the irony of some of those settings was that prior to that elderly person coming in and saying that, the young, grieving mother had just moaned that no one seemed to care, not realizing the fact that a) people knew and b) she could publicly state that was monumental in and of itself.

Yes, there is a small degree where America's abortion industry has destroyed the right to mourn the loss of a child. But I think the larger reasoning behind that is because historically people have not mourned the loss of children who didn't survive the birth process...children died far too often and easily to mourn one who had never been held, fed, or legally named (ie, one that didn't exist by community or government standards). That's cruel and hard to read/write, but it's true. I've heard many, many older women say after hearing about a miscarriage, "Well, that's God's way of taking care of things" (or those not Christians would say "nature's way") and I think those statements, while perhaps true, are even worse to tell someone than not saying anything at all.

How do you grieve or express sympathy for the loss of someone you've never met, never held, never clothed? For all but the mother and father, that child was simply an unfulfilled hope and promise. No one (on earth anyway) but the parents had felt that child kick and grow; no one but the parents (or grandparents) had begun to dream or plan for that child's life.

My heart hurts for anyone who has suffered in this way. But despite the suffering, we can't say our refusal to mourn or grieve in these situations is a result of the abortion industry. Neither history nor reality supports that social theory. And I think we as Christians, especially Christians, need to continue to "provide things honest in the sight of all men". (Romans 12:17 -KJV)

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