Help Not Needed

A poor mother must face the judgements of others for her suffering.

“We came to help,” they believed as they waved their picket signs. “Save lives!” “Speak for those who cannot speak!”

The grieving young mother held a hand over her womb, staring at the jeering faces, hearing them call her a murderer. She wanted this baby more than words could say. She had a name picked out for her and everything.

But the baby’s heartbeat couldn’t be heard.

They’d confirmed, she’d quit growing.

They needed to scrape her insides out, steal what many considered a bundle of cells. Make sure she lived even though her baby died.

Yet, here people condemned her. How quick they were to judge her, to lay claim to a life she couldn’t save.

A woman got in her face. “Don’t do it. Don’t kill your baby!”

The mother’s shoulders dropped as she began to sob. She hugged her stomach tighter, feeling the barely started curve of her baby bump.

“We can offer you other options,” the woman said, mistaking her tears for a change of heart.

Her wasted sympathy broke the mother further. Outrage at her loss, at these people being cruel in honor of misguided beliefs, at the world for being unjust, all bubbled up. She said in a voice seething with fury, “No one can help my baby now.”

“No, we can,” the lady insisted.

“She’s already dead,” the mother hissed. “She died a few days ago and now they have to take her away from me. You got options for that?”

The woman’s eyes widened and she stepped back. The mother finished pushing through those who called her killer.

The only help she needed now was the doctor who would cause her less pain than the hatred of their judgements. They didn’t have a clue but they told themselves, “We came to help.”