When I was growing up, my mother’s mother, Grandma Baldi, was a remarkable woman who I loved dearly and have only fond memories of, even to this day. She was everything that one pictures when visions of the perfect grandmother enter the psyche. Grandma Baldi was loving yet firm, and she affirmed life in every way from the manner in which she conducted herself with her own four grown children to the loving way she took care of my grandfather and, of course, grandchildren like me.
So when our grandchildren started coming along I recalled my vision of her in the hopes that my own grandchildren would one day remember me with joy and a smile. Sadly, however, not all grandmas are as sweet and loving as mine was.
The story of one such woman came to my attention this morning when our staff shared an incident report from Kansas Coalition for Life. KCFL’s chairman, Mark Gietzen asked us to spread the story to everyone we knew, and that is precisely what I plan to do. So as you read this report, focus your attention on the grandmother and ask yourself – how could any preborn child’s grandmother do what this woman did?
A sixteen-year-old girl from Andover, Kansas, was brought into Tiller‘s [abortuary] today by her mother, in a car with Butler County, Kansas tags at about 11 am.
The girl was two months pregnant, and the mother (grandmother) had scheduled an early-term abortion for her daughter. The teenage daughter did not want the abortion, but her mother was forcing her into it.
KCFL did not receive actionable evidence that the daughter was being forced to have this abortion until after the unborn child was killed.
In the early afternoon, in a separate vehicle, the father of the child, a young man named Dillon, also sixteen years old, came into Tiller’s parking lot, driving a car with a personalized tag, (tag information is on file) in an attempt to save the life of his child.
Dillon came to the gate to get help and advice from the pro-life counselors on-site. He told Jennifer [of KCFL] that his parents were willing to raise the baby, adopt the baby, or do whatever they could to help him and his girlfriend. Dillon said that he planned to marry the mother of his baby as soon as they graduated from high school, and that his parents were supportive of this idea.
Dillon said that it was only his girlfriend’s mother who wanted her to have the abortion. Her mother had threatened to disown her if she did not go through with the abortion.
Jennifer sent the boy into Tiller’s [abortuary] to talk to the girl, to let her know that all she had to do was to say that she did not want to have the abortion, and at that point, KCFL could call the police and that the police would intervene on her behalf.
However, about thirty minutes after going into Tiller’s building, both the mother and daughter and Dillon came to the gate, leaving Tiller’s parking lot in their cars. The young girl was crying, but the mother who was driving did not stop at the gate.
Dillon stopped at the gate and he was crying too. He said that he had gotten there just a few minutes too late. The baby was already dead when they finally let him talk to his girlfriend.
Dillon went from crying to sobbing as he talked to Mary LaFrancis at the gate. Dillon has asked KCFL to dedicate one of the crosses on-site to his baby, as a memorial.
We will do so, when he gets back to us with the name of the baby.
The situation was upsetting to all the KCFL volunteers on-site all afternoon. There were tears and prayers all afternoon because of the mean-spiritedness of this abortion.
Unfortunately, in the past KCFL volunteers have witnessed similar variations of this story – at least four times since starting the continuous presence on Mother’s Day, 2004. It is not an uncommon scenario, and most young girls simply do not know their rights in this regard.
If you want to receive Mark Gietzen’s notices and incident reports, you may contact him at his e-mail address:mgietzen@sbcglobal.net.