Hail Mary…

I am the oldest of nine kids: three boys and six girls. If you were to look at any McMorris family photo album, however, you would notice that there are only eight children standing beside my mother and father.

Full of grace…

You will not find my little sister Mary Elizabeth sitting on my father’s knee or learning to take her first steps. The only photo you will be able to find of my sister is a photograph, which my family snapped in the delivery room of the Norwalk hospital; it shows a beautiful eight pound baby girl in a peaceful sleep. That picture was taken on the Fifth of December in 1997 when my family was blessed with our sixth child.

The Lord is with thee…

This child, however, was not meant for this earth. God had other plans for my little sister. Mary Elizabeth, you see, is more than just my mother’s child, my father’s daughter or my younger sister. She is a child of God, who He called from the earth before she had the chance to bless it with her first breath. And this is why December 5th marks my little sister’s date of birth, as well as the anniversary of her death.

“Sudden infant death,” the doctors in the delivery room solemnly explained. “She was a completely healthy and normal infant … there is no medical explanation for this sort of tragedy,” the coroner tried to explain to us. And in my anger, I turned my back on God and the world around me. I had descended into atheism; this was, after all, the easiest and most simple path for an angry twelve-year old to channel his grief.

The words of the hospital staff rung loud and clear through my head … it was God’s fault that I could not ever hold my baby sister or tell her how much I loved her.

Blessed art thou…

“Your sister died without sin,” Father Palmer said at the funeral service. “A saint,” Father Michael told me over a pizza dinner several weeks later. “God called her to his kingdom because she was too good for this earth,” the priest explained.

The clouds of anger and rage that had consumed my immature mind began to part; there was light in my world again. The words of the hospital staff finally became clear to me. “There is no medical explanation,” for such a profound miracle. There was nothing sudden about Mary Elizabeth’s death; it was all part of the gift that the Divine had given my family.

Amongst women…

“I will not lie in your bed,” she told him. She was martyred shortly thereafter. She is now celebrated as the patron saint of pregnant women and childbirth. Saint Margaret, however, has not been able to protect all of God’s children. In fact, some of these infants have shared her fate in the name of an invented Constitutional “right.” The patron saint of women in labor was beheaded by the Romans for her refusal to lie with a Roman prefect. This year, the Supreme Court will decide if unborn children will share her fate.

And blessed is the fruit…

“Why are you against reproductive rights,” they ask me. Apparently, liberals feel that partial birth abortion is a Constitutional right. Delivery room doctors, they contest, should have the ability to stab a baby in the back of the head and suck the infant’s brain out.

Of thy womb Jesus…

“You must be exaggerating, there is no way such a cruel and barbaric process could exist,” they say. Partial birth abortion, however, has existed for decades and perfectly normal and healthy babies have been intentionally terminated in this manner. Our society (and Sandra Day O’Connor) has allowed for the continued existence of this practice.

Holy Mary…

“It is my body,” they will scream. Babies that are as healthy and normal as my little sister are being murdered in the name of convenience. The doctor or expectant woman can decide to terminate the child whenever they find it appropriate. Talk about a sudden infant death.

Mother of God…

“Abortion should be safe, legal and rare,” a philandering former governor of Arkansas told the United States voters. Right around the time of Mary Elizabeth’s death, however, this same man vetoed a bill that would have made the practice of partial birth abortion illegal. The value of life was thrown out the window.

Pray for us sinners…

“By abortion the Mother does not learn to love, but kills her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women to the same trouble. So abortion leads to more abortion,” Mother Teresa said. Rarity, you see, is not enough for our society, abolishing such a hateful practice is the only path.

Now…

The Supreme Court of the United States is hearing a case challenging the ban on partial birth abortion. The majority of Americans seem to think that sticking a fork in a baby’s head is not morally justifiable. Thankfully, the new majority of Supreme Court justices agree.

And at the hour of our death …

“I’ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born,” a Hollywood actor turned statesman once explained. Man was intended to preserve life, not advance death.

Amen.

Billy McMorris is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at wjm27@cornell.edu. John Manetta Once Told Me appears alternate Tuesdays.