Out of the mouths of babes

I had a really good discussion with Clare a couple of nights ago...about abortion.

One of our daily Rosary intentions is always, "for an end to abortion." So as I was tucking her in the other night, she asked, "Mommy, what's abortion?" I took a deep breath and figured that since she's been exposed to what it looks like with Tom's signs, it was time to explain it to her as best I could.

I told her that abortion is when a mommy has a baby in her tummy but she decides she doesn't want the baby, so she has a doctor take the baby out before it's ready to be born, and most of the time the baby dies. I explained that the pictures of bloody babies on Daddy's signs is what it looks like when the baby dies during an abortion, and how sad it makes Jesus and Mommy and Daddy that some people make this bad choice.

She said, "Oh, that makes me sad too. But are they bad people?" I said, "No. They're not bad people, but sometimes people make bad choices, so we have to pray for them."

I continued on to tell her that it makes us so sad when bad things happen to babies, that's why Daddy and Mr. Andrew (St. Hilaire) work so hard doing protests with their signs so that people won't be able to make this bad choice any more.

I told her that Mommy and Daddy and Jesus love our babies so much that we would never, ever make this choice, and we hope that other people don't either.

That was it. She understood completely. She now prays for an end to abortion, knowing in her little 3-year old heart that by praying and acting to end it, we can have an effect on the bad choices of other people and make Jesus happy.

So, for any of you out there wondering about the effects of graphic abortion imagery on small children, I would say that we don't need to complicate the issue. We just need to simply explain it to them in ways they can understand (and really, a picture of a bloody baby is not complicated to a kid) and reassure them that we love them, and Jesus loves them, and that we need to work hard to end such a bad thing.