One evening this past November, I was driving back to my apartment. As I came to a stoplight, I saw a young girl sitting on the curb with her head tucked into her knees. I immediately pulled into the lot to see what was going on. It turns out she was about eight or nine years old.
“Are you ok?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. I asked her where her home was, and she said it was a few miles away. She said she hadn’t eaten in days. I asked her if she wanted something to eat, and as someone who has probably never been looked at with care and compassion, she looked joyfully surprised. I ran across the street to get her some food from the nearest house. Once I was headed back to give her something to eat and drink, her foster parents had found her and were getting ready to take her back to her home, and she was safely transported back home and was able to be nourished.
This situation was somewhat of a crisis situation. I had to quickly figure out how to help her in the time of distress that she was facing. When I saw her sitting there with nobody else there for her, I knew I had to help her. A lot of ideas went through my mind of how to help her. Should I call the police? Should I get her to somewhere safe? Should I go and get her food? However, there’s one idea that never once went through my head: killing her. There was nobody there for her; she was in a worse scenario than I will probably ever be in. However, I knew killing her would never be the best option. Which is probably obvious.
How should we treat the unloved? Every day, there are several thousands of children who are conceived. Sometimes birth control doesn’t work, sometimes the mother is extremely young and sometimes the child is conceived through the terrible crime of rape. There are instances where the child is unwanted. Should we deny that child the right to life? I was posed with that same question during that November night. Even though she was unwanted, I was able to see that she was human, just like you and I, and she deserved love and respect. Although she was going through difficult time, I couldn’t just kill her to end her struggle. Which is sometimes the heartbreaking case for those in the womb. The pro-choice side believes that whenever there are pre-born boys and girls who aren’t wanted by their family, one of the best solutions is to abort the pregnancy, which ultimately denies the child the right to life.
The pro-life side has a better option: hope.
Be it through adoption or deciding to keep the child, we believe that violence should never be the solution for the unloved.
Jacob is a sophomore studying pre-law at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What do you do for the unloved? Let Jacob know by tweeting him @JacobHoback.
