"If your mom would have had an abortion, you wouldn't be here to read this"

While on a visit home to the family last week, I was at my sister's house. She is taking care of my brother's kids for a few weeks this summer (they moved to Phoenix last winter and the kids apparently decided that after an Arizona winter, a Wisconsin summer was just the ticket).

My brother's oldest girl is 13, and acts like it -- typical wannabe-cool teenager of the secular era, with the too-tight wardrobe and the rolling eyes when any conversation turns towards boring things, like Mass. But when she handed my sister a copy of a paper she wrote for school last spring, my sister was very impressed -- it just goes to show that parents need to keep teaching, even if the kids don't seem like they are listening. Here's what she wrote:

"Abortion"

I am against abortion of all forms. It is wrong to end an innocent life just because you didn't want to commit to something. Even if you don't want to have the baby, you should deliver it and give it to an adoption center. If you get yourself into this mess you have to figure out how to get yourself out of it. When you figure out what to do, when you remember what is right for you and the baby, you will feel a lot better.

I think it should be against the law to kill a helpless baby. The baby didn't do anything to deserve to die. It was your fault if you got pregnant. If you don't want to get pregnant, remain abstinent. Killng a baby is just like killing anyone else. When someone kills someone else they get a punishment. Why is killing a baby any different?

Even if you don't want to have the baby, there are other options than killing it. This is one time that you shouldn't worry about what other people think. If other people say the right thing to do is to get an abortion, then I say think for yourself. If your mother had an abortion you wouldn't be here. You can always give your baby to an adoption center if you decide that is the right thing for you and your baby.

It is inhumane to kill someone just because you don't want to commit to something. When people get an abortion they are murdering their child. If you can't committ to your baby, then why did you mess up? Why did you have sex with your boyfriend in the first place, when you knew you weren't supposed to? This is the kind of situation where mother knows best.

I am against abortion of all forms. It is wrong to kill your baby because you don't want to commit to it. Just because you don't want to have it doesn't mean it is right to kill it. Give the baby to an adoption center. When you get yourself into a mess like this, figure out what would truly be best for both you and your baby. Think about it; if your mom would have had an abortion, you wouldn't be here to read this.

Not bad for a 13-year-old's school paper today, huh? And at a public school too!

Please, offer up a prayer right now for my niece, that she may continue to be a witness to her friends and classmates "in season and out of season," when it is so hard for anyone her age to withstand the peer pressure (and the teacher/media/society pressure) to "fit in". While you're at it, see if you do something about her clothes...