Thomas Griffin 6/26/24 (For National Catholic Register)
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You did not have to be here.
This is a truth that we might be familiar with. If your parents never met, you would have never been born. If one of your ancestors never met their respective spouse, you would have never been born. If one of your ancestors did not express the depths of their love with their spouse on a particular day and at a specific time, you would not be here.
Life is always a gift.
My wife, Joanna, and I have been blessed with two children — and one on the way this fall. There were challenging health circumstances revolving around the pregnancies and deliveries of both of our sons. There were varying levels of seriousness, but the process and experience revealed troubling trends within the medical profession, specifically when it comes to the life of the unborn. First, however, this was seen in the story of my own birth.
Even though I did not see it clearly when I was younger, I am blessed to have a twin brother, Mike. We probably spend much time together, working in the same school and visiting our parents together with our own kids. Neither of us, however, had to be here. I mean that in the fullest sense of the phrase.
When I was in high school, we learned from our parents that the early stages of pregnancy were very difficult for Mom. At first, the doctors did not know that she was expecting twins. Because of this, there were many tests to discover why the readings were off regarding the health of the baby, as doctors thought there might be serious developmental disease.
During one prenatal appointment, the doctor told my parents that they might want to consider “alternative options” — by that he meant abortion. My father was enraged and told the doctor they would never do such a thing — and they left the office and went straight to St. Barnabas parish and prayed. In that church, the one that we grew up attending Sunday Mass in and the one that I was married in, my parents made the commitment to keep the child no matter what might happen.
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Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine.
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