{"id":470,"date":"2010-12-23T09:12:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T09:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html"},"modified":"2010-12-23T09:12:45","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T09:12:45","slug":"what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html","title":{"rendered":"What if Mary had wanted to choose her babies?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I read an article from the National Post: “When is twins too many?<\/a>” I hope to write more on this topic in the future, but for now, let me summarize: a couple with one child discovered they were expecting twins. They decided, in light of their age, financial circumstances, and career goals, that bringing twins into the world would harm their family. And so they sought an abortion for one of the babies. According to the National Post, this practice of “selective abortion” is becoming more and more common. It began when women who used in-vitro fertilization techniques found themselves pregnant with triplets or more and decided that carrying all the babies to term would jeopardize the health of everyone involved. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
We are approaching a season in which a young girl found herself unexpectedly pregnant. She didn’t ask for this baby. It was inconvenient, life-changing, shameful. Even the announcement of her pregnancy included a prediction that she would experience pain and grief on behalf of this child. But she submitted to the gift of the life within her, and the world has never been the same. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I read an article from the National Post: “When is twins too many?” I hope to write more on this topic in the future, but for now, let me summarize: a couple with one child discovered they were expecting twins. They decided, in light of their age, financial circumstances, and career goals, that bringing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-faith","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat if Mary had wanted to choose her babies? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What if Mary had wanted to choose her babies? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday, I read an article from the National Post: “When is twins too many?” I hope to write more on this topic in the future, but for now, let me summarize: a couple with one child discovered they were expecting twins. 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They decided, in light of their age, financial circumstances, and career goals, that bringing…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-12-23T09:12:45+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html","name":"What if Mary had wanted to choose her babies? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-23T09:12:45+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-23T09:12:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/what-if-mary-had-wanted-to-choose-her-babies.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What if Mary had wanted to choose her babies?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}