The 7 Times I’ve Heard “It’s a Boy!”

There have been seven times in my life I’ve personally heard the words, “it’s a boy!”

1. In July 2002, following a painful, long delivery, after fearful words were spoken about meconium and the baby didn’t breathe for a long while, I heard, “it’s a boy!” as an afterthought before the NICU team whisked him away.
2. With our second pregnancy, I heard “it’s a boy!” while seeing him for the first time on the ultrasound screen.
3. The third time (with our fourth child), the words “it’s a boy, isn’t it?” spilled from my own mouth, after the OB took the ultrasound down to the nether regions for a quick peek, thinking I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was a boy or girl (we’d wanted to be surprised).
4. The next time, it followed the words, “there is something unexpected between the legs.” We’d spent the 2 weeks prior thinking it was a girl after a 14-week ultrasound had left the doctor “90% sure” it was a girl. The 16-week ultrasound proved otherwise. With a nod and a smile, she confirmed, “it’s a boy!” 
5. During our first ultrasound in a midwife’s office (rather than an OB), we saw her type “it’s a boy” just 5 minutes after she’d told us it looked like a girl. (Yes, this happened to us twice; thankfully this time the mistake only lasted for 5 minutes.)
6. And then about a year ago, the ultrasound technician asked, “can you tell what it is?” I tentatively spoke up: “it’s a boy?”

And then, I heard it again last week.

7. It was a throw-away comment, “it’s another boy!” said with a sickening laugh.

The woman who spoke this last confirmation of gender was sorting through a dead baby in a pie plate.

• They’d call him “fetus” at best.
• They probably told the mom he was merely “tissue” or a “few clumps of cells.”

But… apparently, even after being shredded and rinsed in a sieve, his private parts were clear enough to determine that it’s a “boy.”

And they laughed.

Do you see the sickening thing we are doing?

These words that are normally spoken with such excitement, surprise, and with such fanfare… are spoken in jest by a stone-hearted woman as she toothpicks her way through this little boy’s ripped-apart frame.

Our society has embraced wickedness and called it a “right.”

In this article, “So What If Abortion Ends Life?”, the author makes her calloused arguments, and ends by calling the aborted fetus “a life worth sacrificing.” Her words call to mind the ancient practice of child-sacrifice to the canaanite god, Molech. Indeed, it is quite similar.

In our chase for:

• money
• fame
• sexual fulfillment without responsibility
• education
• prominence in society
• lack of responsibility
• personal happiness
• no unexpected “twists and turns” of life (either through unexpected pregnancy or a developmentally disabled child)

we have become a society willing to sacrifice even our own children in pursuit of those all-consuming gods.

We have our idols, and because we love them better than our children, we will sacrifice the smallest among us in pursuit of what we value.

• We will toss our children into the fires…
• or into the pie plates for dissection…
• but we will not raise them.

We are happy to sacrifice them. We’ll march about it. Rant about it. Tweet about it. Write angry monologues about it. We’ll tell politicians to get out of our private parts (but heaven forbid anyone suggest we keep men out of our private parts until we’re ready to have a child).

We are a society that blithely says, “it’s a boy!” while denying that boy’s personhood, dignity, and life.

Our society prides itself on being well-educated and yet we turn our eyes away from the truth that, even after dissection, he was big enough to have a recognizable penis. Instead his mother, if anything, was probably told he was “just a clump of cells.”

We are a society that embraces the murder of children and calls their lives “worth sacrificing.”

Even if you are pro-choice, ask yourself:

• Could there really be 3,000 American babies a day worth sacrificing?
• Really? When there are waiting parents– waiting, loving parents who are aching to embrace a child of their own– could there really be a reason to murder a child?
• When will it be enough?

Will you have the courage to not look away from the truth?

• It’s a boy!
• It’s a twin!
• It’s a leg.
• It’s a beating heart.

It’s a human being.

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.” ~Dr. Seuss

No matter what, when there is an unexpected pregnancy, sacrifice is involved.

In a humane, decent society, shouldn’t that sacrifice be sacrifices of:

• giving regularly to crisis pregnancy centers,
• opening our arms to wayward daughters who need love and support and wisdom poured in while they raise children they didn’t think would come,
• throwing showers for unwed and disadvantaged mothers,
• volunteering at food kitchens and thrift stores?
• young women willing to endure nine months of an unexpected detour in order to shelter a child’s life until the child can be placed for adoption?

Aren’t these a better sacrifice than the child’s life?

Because, no matter which sacrifices we make, this truth remains: “it’s a boy.”