My Personal Abortion Question?

When I was 25-years-old, I gave birth to my second child, a son named Jesse, who was born with the most severe urological birth defect one can have. Ten years, 36 surgeries, and a million dollars in insurance payments later, along with the loss of my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health for having been a caregiver 24/7/365, Jesse reached a point where he could live a normal life. He has since had a dozen-plus more surgeries, but is currently living in Denver with his wife, where he is happily married and functioning as a healthy, successful adult.

This story of pain and loss, and my never-ending search for all that is lost in the ashes, is chronicled in my first book Outer Edge of Grace. In that book, I ask many more questions that I attempt to answer.

However, there is one question I asked and to which I found the answer in Scripture. Did God make Jesse like he was born? My paraphrase of Psalm 139: 13-14 says, “For Thou didst form my inward parts when I was yet in mother’s womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” That was and is enough for me. Jesse, and all that he is, was never an accident.

God in his faithfulness and his mercy that is new every morning gave me, as Jesse’s mother, the strength and courage to do what I never would have dreamed to do as a very young woman. I am who I am today because of the challenges and the victories I’ve experienced over the course of my life.

Bladder Exstrophy with Epispadius Complex, the birth defect that Jesse had, is a neural tube defect, occurring between five and six weeks of gestation, although it is not until twenty weeks gestation that the bladder fills and empties and can be seen on an ultrasound. Subsequently, many are being aborted because it’s so expensive and time-consuming to care for these children.

Why this long commentary? Because I ran across a powerful video tonight about abortion.

I have known women who have had abortions. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” My goal in this post is not to in any way judge. My goal is to inform and educate. If one woman reads my post, watches this video, and chooses life for her child, it is worth my time.

The video is narrated by Anthony Levatino, MD, who is a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist. Dr. Levatino performed over 1200 abortions. The video is very graphic and disturbing. It should be. It is a video demonstrating the brutal murder of unborn children, some of whom could survive outside of the womb.

Why am I sharing? Because after Jesse was born, his father and I decided to have a third child. On the day I found out I was pregnant Jesse had the first of twenty surgeries in fifteen months of time. My oldest daughter, Joy, was only four-years-old. During that first trimester, I lay on the cold tile of our bathroom floor, blaming my ex-husband for getting me pregnant, bitter in that moment for the desperation I felt, as the vomiting of my pregnancy seemed to never end.

I remember finding my feet while wiping my mouth and leaning my weak body against the door jam. In that brief moment I thought to myself, “I know why women go to the abortion clinic,” which was not a mile from our home in Jackson, Mississippi. In that same moment, I learned how very human I am. “But by the grace of God go I.” And, in that same moment, I knew that I carried life inside of me and she was worth the cost. I have my sweet Hannah today because of my conviction. That moment shows only how very weak I am and that moment demonstrates how powerful the Word of God is.

Please take four minutes to watch this video. While it is gruesome in nature, it is no more gruesome than what we watch on our televisions each night. Terrorists who kill en masse are rampant in this world, while abortion clinics are open for business en masse each day, everyday in the United States of America. The difference? Terrorism is illegal and abortion is legal.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. And thank you for taking the time to share this post. Remember: If one life is saved, it is worth my time and yours.

Sarah Beaugez