Reading George Weigel’s article in the March 25 edition of The Catholic Messenger, “A legal travesty in Poland,” I found myself beginning to wonder: who will be raising this child and, will this child grow up with an understanding that he/she ought “rightfully” to have been aborted?
Self-assessment of one’s personal worth begins early in life, as messages (harmful and helpful, verbal and nonverbal) are assimilated in the course of one’s nurture. (A child will wonder, “Should I ever have been born?” for instance, when the parents do not love each other or become divorced.)
Reading the article, too, and contemplating the plight of the Polish mother who successfully sued for the “wrongful birth” of her child, I wondered if in carrying her pregnancy to term, she had experienced a negative impact on her pre-existing visual condition (and spiritually symbolic diagnosis) of “severe myopia?”
At least one, unmistakable positive outcome from this “wrongful birth,” is that this mother will never have to suffer, as post-abortive mothers overwhelmingly do, the aftermath of suppressed guilt, rage and depression over never having known and protected their child.
There are many who would gladly trade in their eyesight for a single opportunity to feel that child snuggled in loving embrace.
Dear George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C., is there anything we can do here in the U.S.A. to help the case of your friend Father Gancarczyk?
Surely the Katowice Appeals Court may be instructed on the true definition of Christian love, that this love is based on looking at reality as it is, and making any and all sacrifices necessary to uphold the truth of things.
Leslie Constance Holmes
Wellman
