In the early 1990s, I began to sidewalk counsel abortion-bound mothers and fathers. This outreach offered encouragement, support, and real-life alternatives to the abortion of the person in the mother’s womb, her own child. They are supported, beginning with letting each know that they are not alone in a decision against abortion and keeping their child. This support includes help in medical, financial, housing, and whatever else is needed. The offer to assist in telling the mother’s or father’s parents about this pregnancy is included. This help is available from the sidewalk through to the raising of the child. Referral to pregnancy resource centers is the most often followed-up offer as such places with their professionals can help assess the actual needs and match them with the appropriate means. Such professionals can also help in the counseling of choices to be made for this new family.
One of the goals of outreach on the sidewalk is to provide the mother with a brochure that contains the most salient information and referrals for her to follow up. Often the sidewalk counselor may carry in hand an attractive model of the person in the womb at between 8 to 10 weeks along. This is just as the person’s development has grown beyond the embryo stage to the fetal stage. The model is of actual size and developmental appearance as the person then in the womb. An ultrasound of the mother’s own child has proven to be the most persuasive encouragement to keep her child and to choose against abortion. The fetal model can sometimes be quite effective despite being less than an ultrasound.
One morning in the early 1990s, I stood on the sidewalk outside the Preterm abortion facility in Brookline, MA. I was on the lookout for a mother in need of outreach when I looked down at the model in my hand. I was focusing on how much such a person had already taken on a birthed infant’s bodily appearance even when only 8 to 10 weeks old since conception. This thought was enriched with remembering that, even at this and earlier stages, such a person is made in the image and likeness of God and is worthy of Jesus’s passion and sacrifice. Then occurred a thought that brought me to a moment of awe.
This model is as much a model of Jesus at 8 to 10 weeks as it is of the person in the womb being brought to the abortionist. It was a model of me so many years earlier. It is a model of all of us as God intended at 8 to 10 weeks with Jesus sharing His image and likeness in both his bodily and spiritual nature. The fetal model is of each person, and each is destined to be a member of the Body of Christ with Jesus as Christ’s head. This model was of the Preborn Christ.
Peace of Jesus in the womb of Mary be with you.
© 2023 Patrick A. O’Donnell All Rights Reserved
