Look, Westley, She Always Was Your Little Sister

In the August 8th post, Look Westley, it really is a watermelon, I shared a conversation that I had with my two-year-old great grandson about the day he would meet his baby sister for the first time. Here is a picture of Westley meeting Melanie for the first time.

I was working on the post, Look Westley, It’s a Watermelon, and Westley was spending the day with us. He was sitting on my lap at the computer while I shared that I was writing about his baby sister that was inside his mommy’s tummy. She was out of sight like a watermelon seed inn the ground. But she was alive and one day he would see her and hold her for the first time. She was very, very small like a watermelon seed that would someday grow and some day it would be a real; watermelon.

I suspect that conversation about his sister and a watermelon may have influenced Westley more than I anticipated. Whenever anyone asked Westley the name of his little sister, he responded “Watermelon.” Now, there is similarity in sound between melon and Melanie.

Mary and I anticipate meeting Melanie for the first time today. Our hearts are overflowing with joy at her arrival. At the same time, there is heavy grief in my heart knowing that thousands of little babies like Melanie are being discarded like an uprooted vine tossed into a compost pile.

Harsh? Yes! But it is reality today when the debate is no longer about the right of a baby in the womb, but about personal freedom and reproductive choice. At this point in history, we have lost the battle over abortion as evidenced by the overwhelming victory to make abortion a constitutionally guaranteed right in Ohio. I would never have considered that possible in once conservative Midwestern Ohio.

It appears, that any candidate committed to restricting abortion is at the mercy of an electorate that reflects the Book of Judges where everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The violence and eruption of anti-Semitism across the globe is shocking. But, what should we expect when the only law is “don’t tell me what to do!”

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