A federal court in the United States gave an undocumented minor who crossed the border into Texas illegally the right to kill her traveling companion. That companion died this morning.
If you think this sounds implausible, think again.
A teenager from an unnamed Central American country arrived in Brownsville, Texas, where she learned that she had not been alone on her trip; she was carrying a child in her womb. The girl said she made the decision on her own to abort her child, and a court, going against the wishes of the executive branch of our government, granted her that right.
We know what happened to the baby this morning. The pregnancy was in the second trimester, so the child might have been torn apart in a dismemberment abortion, or the nascent human being might still have been small enough to die while being suctioned from his or her mother’s womb. Anyone that child might have grown up to be has become a moot point. This child will never be held, or feel the warmth of sunlight, or come to know the mother who nurtured his or her life in her womb until the brutal final moments.
But what will happen to this child’s mother, still a child herself? Certainly “Jane Doe” – as we have come to know her – had plenty of time to think about the child in her womb as her case bounced from one court to the next. This child could not have been a remote concept, nor can the mom believe that, at 15 weeks, her child was a mere clump of cells. The baby who died was about the size of an apple now. The air sacs in her lungs were developing and she was forming taste buds. She could sense light and move her limbs. The abortionist will have had to piece together her tiny body after the fact to make sure all of it was removed from her mother’s womb.
We know that the mom was taken to a pregnancy resource center for an ultrasound, and we can be confident that pro-lifers at the center did their best to help this girl fall in love with her baby. Maybe she could have, but the abortion ideologues who insisted on death for her child might have brainwashed her because they recognized her potential to become the poster child for their cause.
This case of Jane Doe has a familiar ring.
In Texas in the early 1970s, a young woman, hungry and on the verge of homelessness, was invited to lunch by some attorneys who wanted to help her legally abort her baby. Norma McCorvey went along with them but Norma quickly became an afterthought as “Jane Roe” grew in prominence. Norma gave birth to a baby girl and made an adoption plan for her. Jane Roe won her case and 60 million children have been killed by abortion since. Norma read about the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in the Dallas Morning News, which is where I read about the teenager’s abortion today.
Jane Doe could still find herself at the center of a Supreme Court case seeking the constitutional right to abortion even for those who are not bound by the U.S. Constitution. But like Norma McCorvey, who mourned every child killed in her name until her death earlier this year, this teenager also might come to know that her victory carried a great personal cost.
Like Norma, she might first be convinced she did the right thing, the important thing, but later, away from those who pretended to have her best interests at heart, she will grasp the enormity of it. As thousands of women from the Silent No More Awareness Campaign will tell you, it is not an easy thing to abort your child and live with that decision for the rest of your life.
The heart that beat just below hers has been stilled and hers has been broken.
Janet Morana is executive director of priests for life.
Perspectives expressed in op-eds are not those of The Daily Caller.