I admit that I have not been following the Casey Anthony trial at all but of the little I know of it, it is sad that another young life was lost at the whim of her mother. I do have to wonder though, if it were just two years earlier, and the mother facilitated for someone to help birth the baby somewhat, then take a pair of scissors to the back of the baby's skull, then have the baby's brains sucked out before crushing the skull, Casey might have been heralded as a heroine activist for feminine rights.
Why should two years make a difference? why should 2 months or 7 months inside the womb make a difference?
I am confused by the Facebook posts of friends, whom I know to be pro-choice, who beguile Casey. They are dismayed at the brutality with which the baby was killed and the callousness of the mother who went dancing within a week of doing it. Somehow the irony is lost on them when considering how much more brutal an abortion is.
Maybe it took Casey a little longer to decide she didn't want the baby. Maybe she didn't feel the need to hire a doctor at that point since she could do it herself. How can one really decide if they are ready to start a family within 3 or 6 months of getting pregnant? It really takes a few years to make that decision after one has lived through all of the adjustments that are needed with a newborn. How about the terrible twos? Even if the mother survives the newborn phase, surely the government can't force her to go through the terrible twos if that is not her wish, and lets not even talk about the teenage years!
When you make life and death a personal decision, you have to validate all reasons that someone would have for doing it. It is their right to decide after all. You can't say that your desire to not want to risk birthing a child at your old age is any more valid than someone else not wanting to look "fat" for the prom. You can't say that waiting until 6 months is more or less responsible than deciding at 1 month to kill the child. How can we then cast judgement on a young woman who took 2 years (and 9 months) to decide whether or not she wanted to keep the baby alive? If we condemn her actions, then on what grounds do we not also condemn the actions of those who legally kill their children at a much younger age?
I have compassion for Casey. She lives in a world where the lives of our young are valued only on the basis of the mother's consideration of them. How can that philosophy not come to the next logical conclusion? I feel for all of the mother's out there who are, or have, faced this same dilemma. It has been drilled into us for decades that life and death are ours to decide. When there is no absolute basis or policy to regulate the action of that decision then the standard shifts from person to person. Life is meaningless but in the eye of the beholder.
We scoff at Casey's callousness but proclaim the value of abortion based on the mother's callousness and apparent lack of emotional harm. We marvel at the brutality of this child's death but find live dissection and burning of the unborn child to be "harmless".
God grant us the grace to submit the decisions of life and death to Your hands except where You have delegated that decision to us. May we have wisdom to bear that decision with the weight that it deserves. May we learn to value human life as You do. You value us so highly that You would send Your very Son to pay the penalty for our sin in order to reconcile our sin with Your holiness. If You died for this unborn child, how can we then devalue its life based on the whims of a wicked and foolish heart?
