2016
Baby Loss Week - a tragic disconnect
18/10/16 15:22 Filed in: Current Events
Last week was Baby Loss Awareness Week, with Saturday being a International Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. I had been wondering why the profusion of news items: UK MPs sharing their stories of loss in the House of Commons; an item about a Garden of Stones in County Armagh featured several times on my Facebook feed; and I turned on the radio on Saturday to hear a series of heartfelt stories. Interviewers and newsreaders alike were empathetic and sensitive, gentle and gracious.
And I was confused. Not simply because I didn’t know it was Baby Loss Awareness week. Not because I don’t know something of that intense pain of losing children to miscarriage and watching someone you love deal with a level of sorrow that, as a man, I can’t fully enter into, nor fathom its terrible depths. I know that pain—and it deserves all the tenderness and empathy and sensitivity we can muster.
I was confused, or more accurately, baffled. Baffled by the ability of the media to portray so sensitively, deal so tenderly, and acknowledge one week that what resides in the womb is a baby, while the previous week, and this succeeding week they will argue for the purposes of Repealing the 8th Amendment that it is a clump of cells.
Suzi spoke of Eli, “We found out at 21 weeks that Eli was sick, he was stillborn at 31 weeks.” She has had beautiful imprints made of his tiny chubby hands and feet, cast in metal and framed. “I felt, and still do feel numb, I have come home from the hospital with empty arms and don't know what to do with myself.”
Sarah lost her baby, Grace, only 14 weeks into her pregnancy. “I had already bought a comforter to bring her home from the hospital and was so excited to have her… the pain of grief was excruciating.”
Not once, did an interviewer say, “Sure it was only a clump of cells”—thankfully they had more humanity. No-one challenged the title “Baby loss week”, yet that is the very thing that is being denied day in day out in the abortion discussion—that it is a baby that is being lost.
UK MP Will Quince spoke of his son who was diagnosed with the rare chromosomal disorder, Edwards’ syndrome, at his 20-week scan. He told the Commons that his son was “an incredible little fighter” who eventually lost his life in the last moments of labour.
I love the way he spoke of ‘his son’—something all the accounts have in common—the absolute recognition that they lost a son or daughter. And not once did a reporter, or presenter ‘correct’ this—deep down we know that’s what we’re dealing with, a real human being.
Yet the same House of Commons, which was moved to tears, also legislates for the termination of such ‘incredible little fighters’. And this same son could have been aborted under the guise of the criminally misnamed ‘fatal foetal abnormalities’ provision currently being considered here in Ireland. I wonder if the MPs saw the incongruity of their tears? Their hearts are better than their heads; but tragically their heads made the laws.
The sensitivity with which baby loss week was handled was utterly commendable, but how quickly will we see a return to the denial of life in the womb? Was all that sensitivity simply crocodile tears, or is there a tragic disconnect in our minds? We need to keep the dots joined up. We can’t be a nation that grieves the loss of babies in the womb and simultaneously denies that what is in the womb is a baby. Yet that is what we are in danger of doing.
And I was confused. Not simply because I didn’t know it was Baby Loss Awareness week. Not because I don’t know something of that intense pain of losing children to miscarriage and watching someone you love deal with a level of sorrow that, as a man, I can’t fully enter into, nor fathom its terrible depths. I know that pain—and it deserves all the tenderness and empathy and sensitivity we can muster.
I was confused, or more accurately, baffled. Baffled by the ability of the media to portray so sensitively, deal so tenderly, and acknowledge one week that what resides in the womb is a baby, while the previous week, and this succeeding week they will argue for the purposes of Repealing the 8th Amendment that it is a clump of cells.
Suzi spoke of Eli, “We found out at 21 weeks that Eli was sick, he was stillborn at 31 weeks.” She has had beautiful imprints made of his tiny chubby hands and feet, cast in metal and framed. “I felt, and still do feel numb, I have come home from the hospital with empty arms and don't know what to do with myself.”
Sarah lost her baby, Grace, only 14 weeks into her pregnancy. “I had already bought a comforter to bring her home from the hospital and was so excited to have her… the pain of grief was excruciating.”
Not once, did an interviewer say, “Sure it was only a clump of cells”—thankfully they had more humanity. No-one challenged the title “Baby loss week”, yet that is the very thing that is being denied day in day out in the abortion discussion—that it is a baby that is being lost.
UK MP Will Quince spoke of his son who was diagnosed with the rare chromosomal disorder, Edwards’ syndrome, at his 20-week scan. He told the Commons that his son was “an incredible little fighter” who eventually lost his life in the last moments of labour.
I love the way he spoke of ‘his son’—something all the accounts have in common—the absolute recognition that they lost a son or daughter. And not once did a reporter, or presenter ‘correct’ this—deep down we know that’s what we’re dealing with, a real human being.
Yet the same House of Commons, which was moved to tears, also legislates for the termination of such ‘incredible little fighters’. And this same son could have been aborted under the guise of the criminally misnamed ‘fatal foetal abnormalities’ provision currently being considered here in Ireland. I wonder if the MPs saw the incongruity of their tears? Their hearts are better than their heads; but tragically their heads made the laws.
The sensitivity with which baby loss week was handled was utterly commendable, but how quickly will we see a return to the denial of life in the womb? Was all that sensitivity simply crocodile tears, or is there a tragic disconnect in our minds? We need to keep the dots joined up. We can’t be a nation that grieves the loss of babies in the womb and simultaneously denies that what is in the womb is a baby. Yet that is what we are in danger of doing.
Christian Compassion in a For/Against World
16/06/16 17:06 Filed in: Current Events
Another mass shooting takes place in the States. More innocent victims lie sprawled, dead and injured. Over the years of writing this column I have written about far too many mass shootings, and sought to provide Christian commentary on them. This time I want to let one group of Christians provide their own commentary.
American fast-food chain Chick-fil-A is famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) for being founded on Christian principles. In their 70 years they have stood over their policies of not opening on Sundays and being pro-family—even when the latter has meant boycott and hate for their lack of support for same-sex marriage.
Simplistic media-driven narratives paint them (as they do every other Christian) as narrow-minded, hate-filled bigots—re-naming them ‘Chick-fil-hAte’. Anytime they do anything that offends our easily offended culture, hash tags pop up all over the place. New York’s mayor claims they spread a message of hate.
So what happens when a gunman runs amok in a gay nightclub in Orlando in the early hours of Sunday morning?
Chick-fil-A, famous for not opening on Sundays, and vilified for its support of biblical marriage, opens up its doors on a Sunday to provide free food for those helping in the aftermath of the attack on a gay club.
Staff went to the Orlando branches and fired up the grills on Sunday. They cooked up hundreds of their famous chicken sandwiches, brewed dozens of gallons of sweet tea. Then they loaded up their vehicles and went to the shooting scene and the blood donation centre, to distribute the food to law-enforcement officials, medical personnel, and to all the people who had lined up to donate blood. All free of charge.
All I can say is well done. Chick-fil-A weren’t the only ones to provide such help, but in people’s expectations, they were perhaps the unlikeliest. Yet this is what Christian principle and compassion looks like—not the simplistic for/against attitude portrayed by the media and others. I don’t have to agree with you to care for you. Chick-fil-A gets this. Whilst the owners don’t approve of the lifestyle of many of the club goers, they recognise every one as made in the image of God, and as a neighbour to be shown compassion to.
Yet there seems to be little room in modern minds for this sort of nuance. It’s all or nothing; either I agree with you and therefore love you, or I disagree with you, and therefore must hate you. Christianity has no time, nor room, for this sort of shallow thinking. Christians owe their very salvation to a saviour who abhorred our God-rejecting ways, yet volunteered to come and show compassion to such an extent that he would even give his life to rescue the very people whose actions he loathed.
Jesus Christ teaches his followers to do the same.
American fast-food chain Chick-fil-A is famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) for being founded on Christian principles. In their 70 years they have stood over their policies of not opening on Sundays and being pro-family—even when the latter has meant boycott and hate for their lack of support for same-sex marriage.
Simplistic media-driven narratives paint them (as they do every other Christian) as narrow-minded, hate-filled bigots—re-naming them ‘Chick-fil-hAte’. Anytime they do anything that offends our easily offended culture, hash tags pop up all over the place. New York’s mayor claims they spread a message of hate.
So what happens when a gunman runs amok in a gay nightclub in Orlando in the early hours of Sunday morning?
Chick-fil-A, famous for not opening on Sundays, and vilified for its support of biblical marriage, opens up its doors on a Sunday to provide free food for those helping in the aftermath of the attack on a gay club.
Staff went to the Orlando branches and fired up the grills on Sunday. They cooked up hundreds of their famous chicken sandwiches, brewed dozens of gallons of sweet tea. Then they loaded up their vehicles and went to the shooting scene and the blood donation centre, to distribute the food to law-enforcement officials, medical personnel, and to all the people who had lined up to donate blood. All free of charge.
All I can say is well done. Chick-fil-A weren’t the only ones to provide such help, but in people’s expectations, they were perhaps the unlikeliest. Yet this is what Christian principle and compassion looks like—not the simplistic for/against attitude portrayed by the media and others. I don’t have to agree with you to care for you. Chick-fil-A gets this. Whilst the owners don’t approve of the lifestyle of many of the club goers, they recognise every one as made in the image of God, and as a neighbour to be shown compassion to.
Yet there seems to be little room in modern minds for this sort of nuance. It’s all or nothing; either I agree with you and therefore love you, or I disagree with you, and therefore must hate you. Christianity has no time, nor room, for this sort of shallow thinking. Christians owe their very salvation to a saviour who abhorred our God-rejecting ways, yet volunteered to come and show compassion to such an extent that he would even give his life to rescue the very people whose actions he loathed.
Jesus Christ teaches his followers to do the same.