They will call her Emma Noel, which sounds like the “God with us” of the Gospels: Emmanuel.
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Her name is Brooke Martin, and she anchors a program on the Wish TV channel in Indiana. On TV, she announced with the courage and self-dominion typical of a mother, both sad and happy at the same time, that she received grave news about the baby in her womb. The baby’s (a girl) brain has not developed. This means almost certain death, either in utero or shortly after birth. But then she made another, even more serious statement: the baby is a gift, its soul is immortal, and they are sure that they will embrace her some day in eternity.
Looking more closely, this was the most important message: we are born to live forever. We can get sick early on, or at the age of 102, but everyone will pass through the narrow passage of death. Yet, since that time when the Angel said that the Son would be “God with us,” we can no longer live in terror and anguish. We can suffer, cry, and feel sad as Brooke does, but we need not despair, precisely because of this timeless “breaking news”: Jesus is the Savior, and since he has already suffered, died, and has risen, He is mysteriously with us to make sure that the way to Heaven will remain open. He will be with us in the world until the world’s end.
For this reason, she and her husband have refused to have an abortion. They already have a child, Max, who is two years old. I know from experience that this older brother will always be proud of his little sister.
“We have found out that she is a girl, but she has zero chance of survival,” Brooke said, adding that “we have decided to carry the pregnancy to term or as long as she survives.” They’ve decided to name her Emma Noel, because it sounds like the “God with us” of the Gospels: Emmanuel.
The key element of this story is that Emma Noel will have her life in full, up to where God — and not the statistics — has established that it should end.
This is why we can’t help but suffer along with this couple at the thought that cases of anencephaly are used to promote abortion. Why should they be in such a rush to end these fragile and harmless lives?
Perhaps that priest who described the fight against abortion as a real exorcism is right …
