Is love enough?
Recently I read two articles in the internet. First Contact by Sarah Watts and In a World Full of Cruelty and Injustice, Becoming a Mother Anyway by Eliza Margarita Bates. Both are about having a baby.
Sarah, the former writer, finds her baby who is still into her belly has a serious problem: “spina bifida. Right after he was conceived, on some muggy day back in July, the neural tube that would become his spinal column failed to fuse together completely, leaving a hole at the base of his spine. The hole had caused a cascade of other defects in his tiny body, and Hydrocephalus. Bilateral clubbed feet. I can’t even see his cerebellum.” Furthermore, the baby would likely be paralyzed from the waist down.
It goes without saying, she chooes to be a mother, to keep the baby. She thinks that she’s doing right.
Eliza, the later writer, 35 years old, has a serious disease Rheumatoid arthritis herself. She’s fighting with it. The whole article is full of her pain and struggle, but she still wants a baby and hopes to be a mother in a world full of cruelty and injustice. She believes love is all. She even tells the high-risk obstetrician that she doesn’t want to do the 12-week tests to find out if she’s carrying some sort of mutant baby, or perhaps one with Down Syndrome, or another disability because she doesn’t care. She wants the baby no matter he is healthy or not. She said: “don’t get me wrong… I have chosen this baby. We have chosen each other. No one is going to take this baby away from me by telling me there is something terribly wrong with it and I should terminate. I know that I will love this baby if it lives for one day or a hundred years.”
She further asks: “who am I to say what kind of body is worth living in?”
Both mother think they made a right decision. They are great. They love their baby and they respect life.
I am moved by them a little bit, but mostly I have another voice. I can’t get rid of a question from my mind: Have they considered the baby? Have they ever put themselves in the baby’s place? Does the baby want to be paralyzed from the waist down for his whole life since born? Does he want to have genetic disease? If the babies have a chance to choose, do they want to be born to this cruel and injust world? Is love enough? Sarah and Eliza, have you ever imagine what they’ll feel when they grow up, when they are aware of the difference between their friends and them, when they hope to run, to jump, to make love with his loving one, but they can’t? Do you want your baby experience the pain, the envy, the despair and the hopelessness?
I can’t help but call them selfish. They merely think about what they want, but ignore what the baby wants. Maybe I am pessimism, in this situation, I by no means won’t consider to have this baby, not mention the burdens put in the society.
It reminds me the Bible. “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (Matthew 3:10) “…but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3: 12)
How cruel is this! This world is cold and cruel that I am confused what is right and what is wrong. Is love enough? Am I too cruel, too cold blood? Why do we bring a life to the world to suffer?