A photograph that accompanied the top headline on the Drudge
Report at one point Monday looked very familiar to me. It showed
two tiny feet peeking through the fingers of a hand, and I
thought at first that it was a typical anti-abortion photo that
marchers carry at pro-life marches.
In fact, it was a photo of Amilia Taylor, born four months ago at
22 weeks gestation, weighing only 10 ounces. She is believed to
be the only baby born at less than 23 weeks to have survived.
Amilia now weighs four pounds, and doctors are preparing to
release her from Baptist Children's Hospital in Miami. She is now
being called "the miracle baby."
Last Saturday, I held a baby that looked very much like tiny
Amilia. She was just as much a miracle - she had escaped being
aborted thanks to Father Benedict Groeschel. The world-renowned
Catholic priest was the guest speaker at a fund-raiser for Good
Counsel Homes, which he cofounded with Chris Bell in 1985 to help
single pregnant women choose life for their babies and
themselves. The group's five residences have provided shelter for
more than 3,500 women and children.
One of the house managers from the Rosebank Good Counsel Home
brought the tiny baby to me and pointed to her smiling mother
sitting at one of the tables. I looked down at the perfect
sleeping child only weeks old and knew her fate had been just as
precarious as Amilia's. Thanks to the founders of Good Counsel
Homes, her life is now filled with hope.
In 2004, Father Groeschel was hit by a car and gravely wounded in
Orlando, Fla. He miraculously survived, but none of us at the
luncheon knew how close he had come to dying. Looking somewhat
frail but with a strong voice, he said: "The night of the
accident, I had no blood pressure, heartbeat, or pulse for about
20 minutes. The doctors were understandably going to give up, but
the priest with me, Father Lynch, begged them to go on and after
a while, they found a heart beat and kept me going. A few days
later, I almost died of toxins that spilled into my system. Then
two weeks later, I suffered heart failure while I was on a
respirator."
Then he laughed and continued: "The doctors said I wouldn't
live and I lived. They said I wouldn't think, and I think. They
said I wouldn't speak, and I speak, They said I wouldn't walk,
and I walk. They said I wouldn't dance, but I never could anyway,
so that was all right." His survival is truly a miracle.
Father Groeschel then grew serious and started talking about why
we were all there. "It's necessary for all of you to speak
out strongly about abortion," he said. "I was close
friends with Mother Teresa, who said, ‘Any country that
accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use
any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest
destroyer of love and peace is abortion.'"
He then expressed dismay about what is happening in our Catholic
institutions, which no longer seem very Catholic, and Catholic
politicians who are opposed to everything the church teaches. He
mentioned Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who considers herself to be a
devout Catholic but supports abortion rights. " You can't be
a Catholic and support abortion," Father Groeschel said with
emphasis. But rather than rail against Ms. Pelosi and the other
Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, such as
Senators Kerry and Kennedy, Father Groeschel expressed concern
for those who abandon their faith. As an example, he cited the
first Catholic Supreme Court chief justice, Roger Taney, who went
against his religion and joined his colleagues in the awful Dred
Scott decision, which declared that blacks were property.
"That decision precipitated the Civil War, which cost the
lives of more Americans than all the wars put together, including
World War I," he said. He then asked the crowd to join him
in a prayer for these politicians who "I'm afraid are in
danger of losing their souls."
Those of us who respect life are frequently maligned as being out
of touch with the "real world," so it's rather ironical
that the miraculous birth of Amilia Taylor and the picture of her
minuscule feet is creating such a shocking response. Father Peter
Byrne, moderator of the Staten Island Respect Life Vicariate,
told me that Amilia's survival "brings attention to the
reality of life within the womb because it forces us to realize
that babies of this age and size are regularly killed."
Legally, I might add.
Visit a Good Counsel home. Miracles happen there all the time.