Planned?

I have always been pro-life; over the years I have refined my position. When I was in junior high, I had a crush on a boy in my class. I knew he was adopted, but it never hit home to me until he casually mentioned that his mother could have aborted him instead of giving him up for adoption. That first solidified my pro-life position.

When I was younger I thought it was not great, but marginally acceptable to abort a baby if the life of the mother was at risk. Then I met some wonderful people who proved that one can work to save the life of both mother and child is the best option, and let God determine the outcome.

Recently I was mortified by my doctor. I took a pregnancy test. She came in, told me that the results were positive, then asked if this was planned. This question caught me off guard, as I wasn't sure what to say. It was not a matter of consciously trying, so I responded that it was not planned. Her next question was, "Do you want to continue?" Um, excuse me? Talk about being caught off- guard! I was hard-pressed to avoid saying, "Well DUH!" Later, I did make a comment about when the Lord choooses to send a gift, it's His timing. I don't remember exactly how I said it, but that was the main point.

I have mentioned this to other women who said they've had similar experiences, although mostly when they were older and considered an "at-risk pregnancy." Another person told me that OB-Gyns in Minnesota are required by law to inform the woman that she has two options--continue or not.

This got me to thinking: How many pregnancies are truly planned? There are those pre- and extra-marital relationships which result in "unwanted" pregnancies; however, there are those instances inside the proper boundaries of marriage where a pregnancy isn't "planned". It happens. The marriage rite addresses procreation of children. Even the child's verse says, "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage." Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions in The First Four Years that Rose was not planned, yet even she knew that it comes with the territory. Yet today's doctors are required to tell women that if a baby is not planned, not obsessively anticipated, it doesn't have to be part of love and marriage.

It flows from our post-modern thinking, I guess. Marriage is being redefined. Sex is separated from marriage. Babies don't have to be an outcome of sex if anyone doesn't want them to be. It makes me quote Lost and Found: You see the kids are wild, we just can't tame them, do we have a right to blame them?
We've done our job well. Remove everything from its intended purpose and what's the result? I think we're seeing the answer.