Genny C. loses a product of conception

Genny C, an elephant at Rochester’s Seneca Park Zoo, went into labor Tuesday.

The community had been eagerly waiting for this delivery for years.

But it soon became clear there were problems.

Animal doctors flew in from across the country.

But the baby became stuck in the womb, and died.

Our County Executive made the announcement. She had to struggle with tears to get the words out.

Several people at the press conference did openly cry.

The local newspaper had an article about how to tell children about the death.

The zoo has announced that it will have free admission today and tomorrow to give people a chance to “deliver expressions of sympathy.”

I don’t want to dismiss the sadness of the death. All unnecessary loss of life is to be lamented.

Nor do I want to mock the genuine feelings of grief people are experiencing.

But something struck me.

Tuesday, the day this drama began, is one of the days our local Planned Parenthood office performs abortions.

Even as doctors were going to the zoo to save a baby, doctors were heading to Planned Parenthood to kill babies.

As I saw and read about people crying over the elephant baby’s death, I wondered if anyone cried for the dead babies at Planned Parenthood.

Perhaps some of the mothers did as they left or when they got home and felt the loss, the sorrow, the anger. Maybe they will later in life when they think back to that day. Or when they discover that they can no longer have children. Or when they look at their future children and realize there could have been one more.

I view these women as victims, not pro-choicers, by the way. I think in many cases they felt they had no choice. Many of them have been sold a bill of goods by radical pro-choicers.

And maybe some of the pro-lifers who gather across from Planned Parenthood to pray also cried. (Well, maybe not the woman with the bull horn. She’s too busy making pro-lifers look bad.)

I long for the day when we will see an elected official choke back tears as he or she talks about the aborted lives.

And did anyone explain to the women how they might explain what they did to their children (if they have any)? Or how to explain it to future children (if any)?

Will anyone get to show them “expressions of sympathy”?

I also thought of the irony of the pro-choice position.

The infant died in Genny’s uterus, so by the pro-choice version of the English language, it was not a baby.

It was a product of conception.

In fact, the pro-choicers could even have a gripe in this case.

Genny was pregnant by artificial insemination.

Genny had no choice in the matter. No one asked her if she wanted to be pregnant. She did not “want” the baby.

So no need for tears.

At least not openly and publicly. Not in a radical pro-choice world.

As for me – I wish Genny well. I mourn her loss.

I sympathize with those who weep for her.

And I cry for the women who entered Planned Parenthood that night as mothers and left empty, and for the children who will never be able to go to a zoo to see wondrous creations like elephants.