To Me, It’s Black and White

I’m sitting here, with A laughing and giggling in the other room with her daddy and a sweet babe growing inside my womb. A sweet girl that I can’t imagine the last 28 months of my life without and a growing boy that kicks and moves and fills up my heart more and more every day. The love for both of my children is unable to be measured and I know that any mother will say the same – a child inside or out of the womb still has an unbelievable amount of love.

I keep news stories off of my blog usually. There are so many stories I can’t wrap my mind around and that break my heart. So much brutality that my gentle nature just can’t grasp and comprehend. I’ll never understand how someone can hurt another human without doing it to protect themselves or their families. The recent story in our local news I can’t say the same for, it hits so close to home and breaks my heart so much I can’t help but write about it. The pregnant mother who thought she was going to purchase baby clothes on Craigslist only to find out that the woman on the other side of the listing had every intention of taking something from her, rather than giving her something. The intention of beating her and removing the seven month old baby from her womb with a knife.

The story breaks my heart out every time I read a new story about it. I read about it the day it happened, I’ve read updates throughout the way and tonight I read the headlines that the DA said the suspect, the woman that brutally removed the baby from it’s mother causing it to die, will not be charged for murder.  I’m disappointed in the state that I live in, and I’m heart broken for that mother. The mother that’s already had everything taken from her, who won’t see justice served to the person that is responsible for her child’s death.

This post isn’t about choosing life, that’s a different topic completely and one I don’t care to have a debate here about, and not right now. The mother already chose life, the mother already chose that she wanted that sweet baby girl and was counting down the months to welcome her into this world.  The mother that was just trying to provide clothes for her baby girl. The mother that I’m certain felt her sweet girl kick moments before the attack happened.  There is no doubt that the mother already made that choice, the choice that she didn’t make was having someone attack her and lose her baby.

There shouldn’t be a debate over whether or not the woman murder the child. She took action causing a fetus, that would have been born normally in just a few month, to lose it’s life. She made the decision to take it from it’s mother, a baby that would be living right now with medical support had it been delivered in a hospital. That growing fetus was as alive as it could be, using it’s lungs to breathe amniotic fluid in and out, building up it’s lungs as they grow.  All of this and there are no murder charges. Why? Because the state that I live in doesn’t recognize a fetus at any month as a human unless it breathes air for a certain amount of time. 

The story hits home for so many reasons. It hits home where it happened is a mere 45 minutes away from us. It hits home because I’m just weeks behind that mother in my pregnancy. It hits home because I have used craigslist a variety of times. It hits home that even though Ryan and I have always been cautious and made sure we text our location and when we arrive somewhere in case something does happen – had I been in a similar situation it wouldn’t have saved me, it would have been too late.   It hits home because I know that if someone made a decision that would take the life of our growing, thriving, loved son, in the state that I live in, the person wouldn’t have consequences for taking the life that I am reminded many times a day and night is very much alive.

I’ll never be able to wrap my head around something so brutal, I’m far to gentle hearted to grasp something so evil. So tonight I’m trying to wrap my head around something that is so blatantly black and white to me, but somehow it’s a gray area to others. I’m praying that this heartbreaking incident is a mark for change, change that will give mothers and their fetuses protection for justice within our state system. And praying for that mother who went through more than I can fathom and while her body while heal the emotional and mental trauma she endured will never fade away. Tonight my heart is heavy for a mother I’ve never met.