I’m watching my biological daughter and my respite foster daughter, “Sally”, count plastic lids. They are going through our recycling bin looking for lids my wife can use for a school art project. I promised the girls 2 cents apiece for every lid they found, whether my wife needed them or not. Those she doesn’t use will go back in the plastic bin to be taken to the recycling center next week. No cash value, just trying to save landfill space.
Unlike plastic lids, all kids have immeasurable valuable in God’s eyes. I think about the plight of girls the age of my own bio daughters right now doing tricks for nameless johns mere blocks away. How were these children tricked into this hell of a life? Was it the promise of rare love turned into the most garish nightmare of degradation by a pimp, barely older than “his” girls, who had also experienced abuse and violence and hatred that turned him into a fiendish abuser?
But didn’t the girls’ disappearance into the streets, my sheltered heart cries, didn’t it create alarm in the minds of their parents? Weren’t the police called when at the age of 12 or 13 these girls didn’t come home on time after middle school? What about neighbors or friends or teachers? Didn’t anyone in this vast city notice, other than the pimps and their obsessed johns?
Some of these kids – the girls and the pimps both – come from homes where parent or parents have to work all kinds of hours for subsistence wages to keep food on the table and a roof overhead. Somewhere support services and community involvement alike have broken down or been stretched far too thin.
Sadly, far more of these girls come from abusive homes to start with. The reason the pimps are able to groom them is because they already have extremely low self-esteem. Girls who God values beyond measure are treated like trash at home and as worthless pocket change on the street.
I watch my Sally and my bio-daughter playing on our back deck. They are counting up their newfound wealth in pennies. 402 lids = $8.04 each for a special trip to a craft store tomorrow.
Sally is one of several children who call the same woman “Mommy”. Mommy, an overwhelmed soul, is a former foster child herself, who way too young was thrust into parenthood without much warning and even less training.
I’m reading a book about the plight of foster kids who age out, meaning they turn 18 and are suddenly on their own – no family, no support services, nothing. As Martha Shirk and Gary Stangler describe in On Their Own: What happens to kids when they age out of the foster care system, some states do have helpful laws that provide for foster children who want to remain under foster guidance until age 21. But most states don’t. I can’t imagine my own kids suddenly released from protection at age 18 or even 21, let alone these foster kids.
I read the rumblings in today’s paper, those who complain about deadbeat dads and welfare moms. Who decry American socialism. Who insist that social services be cut for “the least of these”. I understand. When there is no money, there is no money. And where we live, almost all state funds already go to public security, education and social services. You cut one and you exacerbate the problem with all three.
So, I ask, why not promote abortion? That seems to be a logical answer. It would solve the problems of unwanted kids, too many kids, street kids, and underage pimps and prostitutes, and in turn it would save all these kids a whole lot of misery. It would also save untold billions in taxes.
I think of the effort going into caring for Sally. We met her counselor recently, a sharp young professional woman who loves Sally and does a lot to help her. There are all kinds of people involved in Sally’s life – and lots of tax dollars and private contributions as well going to make sure that Sally grows up healthy, wholesome, and happy. Whole teams of workers fight to keep the Sallys of this world from those hellish pimps and johns.
Sure, abortion would save money, oodles of it. So would cutting Sally’s support services and abandoning her to the fate of the streets. We do profit when the pimps steal these girls away – we save lots of money in taxes and nonprofit fundraisers. Let the johns who’ve abandoned their own kids provide for these poor girls with their pocket change.
Abortion would be the easy answer if it were not for the fact that these “fetuses” are children God dearly loves. Devalue life at that stage and you go on to devalue life at every other stage, too. Moreover, you cannot work to preserve lives before birth and then abandon them to hell after birth. At least that is what I as a Christian believe with all my heart.
I listen to my girls laugh and watch them lug their coins to their bedrooms and thank God they are both alive and well and brightening my day with their joy. And I shudder to think that anyone could ever abandon or harm them – before birth … or after.
No comments:
Post a Comment