NEW YORK - Horrified bystanders banded together to lift a 5-ton school bus off a pregnant woman pinned underneath, enabling doctors to save her son. Donnette Sanz, 33, a traffic agent for the city police department, was pronounced dead Thursday, shortly after her baby's birth by an emergency Caesarean section. The 3-pound, 6-ounce boy was in critical condition.
Sanz was walking across a Bronx street around lunchtime Thursday when she was struck by a van that pushed her in front of the bus.
"I ran out of my house to join 10 people trying to lift up the bus," said Cheryl Brown, 47. "At first, we couldn't get it up, so then another 10 people ran over to help, and we got the bus up and the lady out."
The van's driver, Walter Walker, was arrested on charges of criminally negligent homicide and driving without a license, police said.
"My brakes went out," said Walker, 72. "The light turned red, and I couldn't stop. ... I tried to miss her."
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Walker had 20 suspensions to his driver's license.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with Sanz's husband, Rafael, at nearby St. Barnabas Hospital.
"It's a terrible poignancy that Donnette's son's birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Sanz's sister, Beverly, said the baby was named Sean Michael.
St. Barnabas Hospital spokesman Fred Winters said Friday that the baby, while still in critical condition, "shows some signs of improvement and is basically healthy."
Through this story I see a triumph and a tragedy.
Triumph:
I love these stories of amazing heroism. To see people join together to attempt to rescue this woman shows courage, love, and God's common grace in the lives of humanity. All those people should be applauded for this gracious act on behalf of that poor woman. A baby was saved and these people risked their own safety on behalf of another. Sounds very gospel like to me and should be celebrated.
Tragedy:
This poor woman died and we have a window into the horror of abortion. I don't want this to come across an angry pro-life rant where I insensitively use the death of this woman to make my auxiliary and unrelated point about abortion, but I think this might be important to think through. See what you think:
Through this tragedy, we can see that the value of human life is determined by subjective preferences and not by objective standards. I believe this story can help us see the inconsistency of those who embrace abortion.
Consider the double standard:
What if all the able-bodied people who witnessed this terrible accident shrugged it off because helping to lift the bus off the pregnant woman would be "inconvenient" and "and an infringement on their choice"? I would hope we would be appalled.
Why are we not as appalled with abortion then?
If pro-abortionists were consistent, they would have to say that we have no right to be appalled at an able-bodied person calmly walking away from this accident because it was not what they had planned on, it was inconvenient, and even put them at risk.
That seems pretty backwards to me.
May life be determined valuable based on the image of God stamped on every person and not by what seems most convenient in the moment.
1 comment:
Zach, first off, I apologize for yet another lengthy comment here. I think that this issue does warrant some extended thought though. I understand what you are saying with this post (I think). I am definitely pro-life, so we have no disagreement there.
One possible problem with your argument, though, is that with abortion, it is the woman herself, carrying the baby, who doesn't want to be "inconvenienced." (in many cases, that is) With the theoretical situation you propose though, it would be the passers-by who didn't want to be inconvenienced, and not the pregnant woman herself. To many pro-choice people, the argument seems to be that since it is the woman who physically carries the baby (or "fetus," in pro-choice language) to term, it should be her choice as to whether or not to do so. Other peoples' involvement in the life of the baby is viewed as a distant secondary matter (for example, the father who might not want the baby to be aborted).
All of this is only to say that your argument is thought-provoking, but I'm not sure that it would hold much water with many pro-chice people. Maybe it *should*-- I'm inclined to think so. I'm not sure that it would though.
For the pro-choice people whom I have talked with, the hinges of their arguments seem to be three-- the pregnant woman's quality of life, the child's eventual quality of life, and a general materialistic worldview (meaning, only that which can be easily seen, heard, or touched is truly real).
For example, on the quality of life issue, I have a good friend who believes that babies who are "likely" to not have a good "quality of life" should be aborted, as a supposed act of mercy. He mentions the cases of babies born to crack-addicted mothers. In his mind, these children will likely have horrible lives, so the mothers should be free to have them aborted (killed). It's interesting to me that he makes this argument as *my* friend though, given that I was born with a physical disability to a manic-depressive mother who did not always control herself well! I'm working on helping him to see the inconsistency between his friendship with me and his argument that babies who will likely have rough lives should probably be "aborted."
Please pray for me in speaking with him-- the main difficulty in these conversations, I believe, is not at the level of the mind but the heart. It's a form of spiritual warfare, and it must be waged with *love* for the other person. Even right, good passion can become twisted by sin and end up being expressed in an unloving way though. I don't want to sin in this way with my friend.
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