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Canaan's father encouraged her to make a list of pros and cons, she says. "I sat down on the steps on the front porch and started writing the list. As I was going through the list, the pros of keeping the pregnancy kept getting longer and longer, and by time I got to end of the list, I was sobbing. I knew what I had to do, and I didn't want to do it. I thought of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he asked three times for God to take it from him." That night, when Canaan's husband came home from work, he told her he didn't feel they should go through with the abortion.

"We cried, because we had both come to the same place at the same time," Canaan says. The pregnancy was full of difficult moments, but Canaan says the hardest part came when her daughter was actually born.

"After they pulled her out, the OR was completely silent," Canaan says. "There was no sound. They didn't know what to say. She did not cry, and all you could hear was me, weeping. The neonatologist handed her to Tom, who held her up to me, and I just kept sobbing and saying, 'I'm so sorry.' She opened her eyes once, and Tom got to see her open her eyes."

The baby was placed on Canaan's chest. With her baby "all swaddled up, you couldn't tell anything was wrong," Canaan says. There the baby stayed until she died 90 minutes later.

During the time their baby was alive, Canaan and her husband baptized her and took a few pictures. After she died, they dressed her in a pink smock dress and said goodbye.

"Looking back, I'm very glad I didn't go through with the abortion," Canaan says. "Even though my heart is heavy from missing her, I have no guilt. I know I did everything I could for her, and now she's at peace in heaven."

Canaan says that despite her little girl's affliction and short life, "We always treated her as if she was a person. In fact, we sent out announcements."

The announcements read:

"Elaine and Tom sadly announce the birth and death of their daughter, Mary Katherine, March 17, 1999, 6 lbs., 11 oz. and 16 inches. Austin and Andrew will miss their little sister, but we will all hold her in our hearts forever."

Sheryl Henderson Blunt is a journalist in Alexandria, Virginia.

Visit the Advocate Christ Hospital and Medical Center homepage.

The hospital was recognized two years in a row as one of the Top 100 hospitals in the nation by HCIA, a Baltimore-based health care information company, and The Health Network, an Internet and media company focused on health information. The awards were given in 1998 and 1999 before the live-abortion debate at the hospital came into focus.

Concerned Women For America ran an article about Christ Hospital in 1999.

Read "Live birth during abortion process inflames passions" from The Cincinatti Post.

Previous articles about abortion from Christianity Today include:

RU-486 Uncovers a Lie—And It's Not Just About Abortion | Think the abortion pill is indicative of postmodernity? You're wrong. (Oct. 2, 2000)

The Abortion Debate Is Over | Pro-lifers overestimated the average American's allegiance to logic. (Dec. 28, 1999)

Abortion Advocacy Overseas Restricted for First Time since 1993 | Only $15 million of $385 million family-planning budget to go to organizations supporting abortion (Dec. 15, 1999)

Partial-birth Abortion Ban May Go to Supreme Court | Differing appeals court rulings increases chances of forthcoming decision. (Dec. 11, 1999)

Abortion Is Not a "Necessary Evil" | Why Americans oppose abortion but want to keep it legal. (May 24, 1999)

Abortion's Untold Story | How journalist Cynthia Gorney has helped both sides of the abortion debate to view the other side honestly. (April 27, 1998)

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13