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Authors: Rick Santorum
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senators who had taken the lead in advancing the cause of the disabled, in retrospect it shouldn’t have. I knew that a very high percentage of parents who find out about disabilities through prenatal testing abort those babies. Some studies have put the abortion rate in such cases as high as 90 percent.
Let’s set aside the fact for now that, according to doctors who performed this procedure, 99 percent of these abortions were performed on healthy babies; let’s wrap our minds around the idea that dozens of US senators, including, later on, Hillary Clinton, opposed the partial-birth abortion bill because it protected disabled children from death.
I don’t recall any of these senators during the course of six debates over eight years ever citing the case of a healthy baby to rationalize their opposition. This bias drove me to respond: “Think about the message we are sending to the less-than-perfect children of America and the mothers who are right now dealing with the possibility of delivering an abnormal baby. My wife is due in March. We haven’t had a sonogram done. We are hopeful that everything is fine. What message are you sending to me in looking at that sonogram in a week or two, if the doctor says to us that our child isn’t what we want?”
Even though we lost the fight, I felt certain I was following God’s will. I was devoting more time at home to Karen and our three little ones, and my prayer life was better than ever. Less than a week later, Karen, the kids, and I walked into that sonographer’s office, and that doctor, in fact, did tell us that Gabriel was going to die.
I had followed what I thought was God’s will to defend the lives of these little babies from a horrible death, and He kicks me in the head ? My son’s condition could have been an example used by Senator Feinstein as a reason to abort. I was now forced to decide whether I was going to be true to my words, which had been so easy to speak on the Senate floor. Was Gabriel indeed no different from any of our other children?
I felt God was putting me to the test. After going through a period of vacillating between disbelief, anger, and a resolve to fight, I had an epiphany. It struck me what an amazing opportunity God had given us. It was no coincidence that I had led the debate on partial-birth abortion a week before this sonogram. It was no coincidence that children with disabilities were being used to justify that procedure. And it was no coincidence that I had mentioned our soon-to-be-born baby as an example of accepting all God’s children into our human family, no matter what their condition.
I thought maybe this wasn’t a test at all but the perfect opportunity for God to show the way. He was going to use Gabriel’s condition as a sign for the world that He loved every baby in the womb. I was convinced God was going to save Gabriel’s life so I could tell the miracle of His love not just for the unborn but also for the disabled.
We were encouraged that the doctors could surgically fix Gabriel’s condition in the womb. They cautioned, however, that, should Gabriel survive in the womb long enough to be born, they weren’t sure he could survive outside the womb. And if he did, he would have serious health issues involving constant care, expense, and stress. I was ready for a miracle, but was I ready for all that Gabriel’s life could bring?
Frankly, I never faced that possibility in my mind. I was convinced Gabriel was going to be the miracle boy. I could seeGod’s hand everywhere in this saga. He was not going to pass up the chance to let the world know of His glory!
I dove into my plan for God’s glory, but there was no water in that pool. Gabriel died, and with him, my plan for revealing God’s glory.
As God revealed His plan through Karen’s book Letters to Gabriel , I saw how faithful He had been in the end. I also saw how living through this pain of having a baby in the womb with a severe problem gave me a
Let’s set aside the fact for now that, according to doctors who performed this procedure, 99 percent of these abortions were performed on healthy babies; let’s wrap our minds around the idea that dozens of US senators, including, later on, Hillary Clinton, opposed the partial-birth abortion bill because it protected disabled children from death.
I don’t recall any of these senators during the course of six debates over eight years ever citing the case of a healthy baby to rationalize their opposition. This bias drove me to respond: “Think about the message we are sending to the less-than-perfect children of America and the mothers who are right now dealing with the possibility of delivering an abnormal baby. My wife is due in March. We haven’t had a sonogram done. We are hopeful that everything is fine. What message are you sending to me in looking at that sonogram in a week or two, if the doctor says to us that our child isn’t what we want?”
Even though we lost the fight, I felt certain I was following God’s will. I was devoting more time at home to Karen and our three little ones, and my prayer life was better than ever. Less than a week later, Karen, the kids, and I walked into that sonographer’s office, and that doctor, in fact, did tell us that Gabriel was going to die.
I had followed what I thought was God’s will to defend the lives of these little babies from a horrible death, and He kicks me in the head ? My son’s condition could have been an example used by Senator Feinstein as a reason to abort. I was now forced to decide whether I was going to be true to my words, which had been so easy to speak on the Senate floor. Was Gabriel indeed no different from any of our other children?
I felt God was putting me to the test. After going through a period of vacillating between disbelief, anger, and a resolve to fight, I had an epiphany. It struck me what an amazing opportunity God had given us. It was no coincidence that I had led the debate on partial-birth abortion a week before this sonogram. It was no coincidence that children with disabilities were being used to justify that procedure. And it was no coincidence that I had mentioned our soon-to-be-born baby as an example of accepting all God’s children into our human family, no matter what their condition.
I thought maybe this wasn’t a test at all but the perfect opportunity for God to show the way. He was going to use Gabriel’s condition as a sign for the world that He loved every baby in the womb. I was convinced God was going to save Gabriel’s life so I could tell the miracle of His love not just for the unborn but also for the disabled.
We were encouraged that the doctors could surgically fix Gabriel’s condition in the womb. They cautioned, however, that, should Gabriel survive in the womb long enough to be born, they weren’t sure he could survive outside the womb. And if he did, he would have serious health issues involving constant care, expense, and stress. I was ready for a miracle, but was I ready for all that Gabriel’s life could bring?
Frankly, I never faced that possibility in my mind. I was convinced Gabriel was going to be the miracle boy. I could seeGod’s hand everywhere in this saga. He was not going to pass up the chance to let the world know of His glory!
I dove into my plan for God’s glory, but there was no water in that pool. Gabriel died, and with him, my plan for revealing God’s glory.
As God revealed His plan through Karen’s book Letters to Gabriel , I saw how faithful He had been in the end. I also saw how living through this pain of having a baby in the womb with a severe problem gave me a
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