Why grieve?

From a San Francisco post-abortion hotline comes an idea:

Exhale’s electronic greeting cards range from the general—for instance, “As you grieve, remember that you are loved”—to the more explicitly religious: “God will never leave you nor forsake you.” In addition, Exhale is planning a magazine that will have stories, poems, letters, and rituals by and for women who have had abortions. Thirty years ago, prominent pro-abortionists predicted the disappearance of stigma and the acceptance of abortion as being no more morally problematic than fingernail clipping. Some things in human nature are irrepressible, you might well say, but there are also deep cultural differences. In Japan, for instance, things are done differently. Thousands of Japanese women visit temples every year to bring baby clothes, cookies, toys, and other offerings to their mizugo. The mizugo is a baby removed from the watery warmth of the womb by miscarriage or abortion. It is a “water baby,” and mizugo ni suru means to have an abortion. In temples there are thousands upon thousands of little statues representing water babies. Whole families, including siblings of the dead child, make visits, often pinning notes to the statues, signed by all the family members and expressing gratitude to the water baby. Many homes also have a shrine honoring the missing. Buddhists, believing in reincarnation, think the baby will have another chance, or many chances, at a better life. They do not have to work at convincing themselves that the baby was not a baby. The government agency that certifies abortionists in Japan is called the Motherhood Protection Association. In America it is very different. Thanks to Exhale, you can send an electronic greeting card: “As you grieve, remember that you are loved.” It is always in order to assure people that they are loved. That it is now assumed, also by some pro-abortion advocates, that there is a someone to grieve over is a fact not untouched by reasons for hope.

HT: First Things