“Save the baby.”

Those could have been the last words I spoke thirty-one years ago when my son Matthew was born by emergency cesarean section due to placenta abruptio, when the placenta detaches from the uterus prematurely. I’d been walking the hospital hallway in active labor, when I suddenly experienced a sharp pain that felt so different, I knew something was wrong. I must have started hemorrhaging right then but took time to grab the phone on the wall and call my mother to ask for prayer.

I still remember the look of horror on the nurse’s face when she glanced down after helping me up on the bed. Everything happened so fast after that; her running to the door, calling out for the doctor. His face turning white, frantic orders for an ambulance because the hospital had no surgeon on staff. I’d have to be transported for surgery. A surgeon visiting his patient that afternoon heard the commotion and stepped into the room. With one look at me, he said “I’m Dr. Anthony. I’ll do the surgery.” Did he help push the bed down the hallway to the operating room or was he walking alongside it? All I remember is the chill of the operating room, and my eyes meeting his. “Save the baby,” I pleaded, willing him to understand that if he had to choose, he would choose the baby. I could feel the first cut of the knife before I went under.

Save the baby.

My doctor would later say it had been the closest he’d ever come to losing a mother and baby and he didn’t want to think about what would have happened in the ambulance if Dr. Anthony hadn’t been walking down the hallway at that crucial moment. I believe my mother’s urgent prayers had something to do with that.

I cannot face my son’s birthdate without being reminded of how close I came to death on that day. How close we came to losing him. I never take the gift of my son for granted, or the tremendous blessing of each of my eight children.

Two years ago on this date, nearly thirty years after that traumatic delivery, I faced a surgery that would remove the uterus that had seemingly betrayed me in 1993. The same uterus that carried three more babies after Matthew Anthony’s birth now held cancer.

Dr. Anthony was able to save both me and my baby, which I am extremely grateful for. Ultimately, he didn’t have to choose one life over another. Still, I don’t regret my words in the least. “Save the baby.” It was motherly instinct to put my child first. I would say the same words today.

“Save the baby.” Doesn’t that seem a natural response from any adult, female or male, to instinctively protect the most vulnerable of human beings?

Which begs the question: What kind of world do we live in where the natural instinct to protect the smallest and most vulnerable human beings now has become a political battleground?

It’s no secret in this election that one party is running rampant on a platform of reproductive rights and a woman’s right to control her own body. That much is blatantly clear. What’s not so clear is how we got to the point of ignoring that there are TWO bodies to consider in the abortion issue. Or, when we do acknowledge the biological reality of a human being growing inside the woman, how did we decide one life has more value than another? How did we get to that point?

This is not a religious issue. It’s a moral and ethical one. It’s much too easy to dismiss issues and ideas when one rationalizes that they are simply a religious belief that must not be forced upon others. I know more than most on the topic of abortion. I’ve been studying the issue since I was thirteen. I’ve done the research, studied the laws, followed the personal and political stories, and read the survey results of women obtaining abortions. I know the campaign rhetoric doesn’t match the reality. No, this isn’t a religious issue though it should be a concern to any Christ follower. The Bible is clear on the value of every human life and protection of the innocent.

Abortion is a human rights issue. One of the humans just happens to be smaller, and inside the other.

And unwanted.

My lament today is the same as it was in 1973. If only I could save the babies…I would.