http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8599220.stm

The pretender

Kristin
Kristin
Nov 3 · 3 min read

He smiled for the camera and they ate it up. Especially when he kissed the babies. It was his idea, the Life Bill. Every child deserved a chance. No life should be wasted. Every person was precious in God’s eyes and should also be in ours. He made us believe that it was for the best. That having these unplanned pregnancies taken to term would turn into success stories.

He found so many women to share their experiences. The videos were professionally done. Even the stoic among us were moved to tears. All kinds of women from different walks of life talking about how accidentally getting pregnant had changed their lives for the better. Besides a more generous maternity leave, we saw moms who were promised a “birth raise” to help with the cost of another mouth to feed. There were also the adoptive moms, smiling and praising the new law, while snuggling infants in their arms. Even the dads were shown rejoicing over positive pregnancy tests and pledging support. Quite the opposite of those old TV reality shows where the men would celebrate when they were declared- “Not the father”.

It seemed like baby fever had taken hold of the entire community. At least that’s what they wanted us to think. Really, it was just a big lie. None of the stories were true. Longer maternity leaves or a “birth raise” was left up to the employers to provide. I bet you can guess how many actually followed through on it, since there was no penalty for non-compliance. No one was adopting because the economy was in the toilet and those who had fertility issues and were rich enough, used a surrogate.

Babies were being left in increasing numbers at fire stations and then it was rumored that they were being housed in large warehouses until a solution could be found. For you see, we bought into all of those images of happy babies and happy families and we gave away our right to choose. Abortions weren’t performed anymore. No one dared to risk the fine or prison time that we didn’t realize came attached to the Life Bill. Unlike the “birth raise” it was strictly enforced.

Some desperate women turned to the old ways. If they were found out, they were stripped of their job, their bank account, their right to vote and their social security number. They had access to nothing that citizens take for granted. Small groups banded together for safety as persecution of these “baby killers” was not considered a crime. The same people who whipped us up into a frenzy over saving lives, now pointed to these women as an example of how our society was failing. They received the blame for things that if we had only stopped to think for a minute, instead of hastily pressing like on a post or jumping in to add to the hatred, we could have seen that we were being distracted away from the true problems of our nation.

It was all because he was so good. We fell in love with everything that came out of his mouth. But no one knows him like I do.

He is the pretender.

He was my first love in college. When I accidentally became pregnant, he drove me to the clinic. “We have to think about our futures,” he said. “We will have children one day,” he said as he held my hand and kissed my forehead, tenderly. And he was right. But replace we with he. I found out later that it was a miracle that I had ever conceived and it wasn’t going to happen again. But I get to watch him from afar. With his wife and his four handsome sons. Telling us all how abortion is murder, with a tear in his eye.

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