Friday, March 2, 2007

THE RIGHT TIME

Over the years, Sonia asked her birthmother Jane several times if the "right time" had yet come to meet Jane's daughters, Sonia's half-sisters. But the time was never right.

First Jane maintained that the girls were too close to puberty. Knowing their mother had been with someone before marriage could color their choices.

Later, the fact that Sonia was living with a boyfriend to whom she was neither married nor engaged served as the excuse.

Finally, Jane pointed to Sonia's eventual relationship with a woman as a reason she could not allow her girls to know of Sonia's existence.

Though Jane emphasized Sonia's life choices as the reasons to deny her daughters the chance to meet each other, there was another explanation that rings truer to me. Jane was embarrassed to have had a premarital relationship.

Her church condemns such behavior. The fact that Jane had chosen to honor her denomination's presumably more important teaching to elevate fetal life did not seem to provide any sort of "Get Our of Hell Free" card.

Those who want to outlaw abortion would do well to pay attention to Jane's example. It is hypocritical that a movement which calls itself "pro-life" treats women who are unwillingly pregnant as pariahs.

Mired in this belief system, it is likely that Jane would never have found the right time to tell her daughters about Sonia. But the truth has a way of finding the light of day. And around the time Jane's younger daughters were approaching the impressionable age of 30, circumstances made Jane's facade crumble.