The Very Long Wall

On the day before Thanksgiving, Joel and I discovered, to our delight, that I am pregnant! We are overjoyed at the prospect of welcoming a little one into our lives sometime around August 4. Each and every week, I eagerly look up the development of our baby, proudly announcing his* progression from poppy seed- size to lentil-size to kidney bean-size to grape-size and now to fig-size.

My baby causes me to reflect on an experience I had, eight years ago, on my first visit to Washington D.C. It was Father’s Day, and I stood in front of a great black wall that stretched in front of me in an overwhelming expanse, reflecting my solemn face right back to me. Two walls, really—both 246 feet, 9 inches long, with each wall starting just above my ankle and ending several feet above my head. I cried as I read the names of the men who had died or went missing in the Vietnam War—58,272 lives cut short. Covering the bottom of the memorial, and overflowing into the walkway, were hundreds of notes, cards, roses, and mementos—heartbreaking tributes to daddies by children who had barely known their heroic fathers. I’ve never forgotten that day.

I reflect again on our baby, growing inside of me, our own personal miracle of life! Everything I read about him speaks of him as the unique person that he is—developing and growing, fully alive, fully human, and already completely adored. But if I was to google "11 weeks pregnant abortion" instead of “11 weeks pregnant development,” I’d suddenly find a host of the same exact sources no longer using the personal pronouns “he” and “she” but “it.” These sources no longer describe the miracle of a thriving human inside of me who, at but a few months into his existence, already has every part of his basic physiology in place. No, now they pontificate about a blob of tissue as though he doesn’t already have a spirit and a soul.

And somehow this thought, which has always hit me hard, overwhelms me now that God has put this precious baby inside of me, now that January 22 marks the 42^nd year since the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, and this Sunday is Sanctity of Life Sunday. Now, at this moment, I can hardly bear to fathom the enormity of the situation.

In my imagination, I am standing in front of another great black wall that stretches in front of me in an overwhelming expanse, reflecting my tear-stained face back to me. This wall looks exactly like the other one—it is sobering and simple, made up of two walls that each start small and join at the apex, above my head. But this wall is also different. It bears upon it, not the names of thousands of brave servicemen who died for their country, but the names of millions of babies who were murdered before they ever drew a breath. This wall is also 1,000 times bigger. Each part is 246,750 feet long, and I cannot see the end, for together, the two walls are be 93.4 miles long in order to contain each and every name of the 56,662,169 babies murdered in the US since January 22, 1973. I have never walked this far in my life. It will take me at least two whole days—probably three—to walk the entire length of this wall. There are very few cards, roses, or mementos to break up the vast stretch of ghastly black. I put my hand on my stomach and think of my own baby there, and I mourn for the loss of these babies. I begin my walk. Whether it takes me three days or three weeks or three decades, I will grieve the death of these innocent people, and I will never, ever stop fighting for an unborn baby’s right to live.

*We’re not planning to find out his gender until the birth, but I refer to the baby as a “he” for no other reason than ease of communication (grammatically speaking, the masculine pronoun is always used when the gender is unknown).