Rachel had recently climbed into her daddy’s lap as he was preparing the next day’s lesson for his ninth grade biology class. Together, they watched rare footage of very young unborn children, captured using a technique called embryoscopy. Unlike the sonography of the time, these video images were crystal clear. They watched the heart beating through the semi-transparent skin of the embryo. They saw the young fetus move her hands and legs. They watched unborn children open and close their mouths. Rachel was electrified.
As JFA’s founder, David Lee, paraphrased the story years later, here’s what happened next:
Soon after seeing the video with her father, Rachel told her preschool teacher that she had seen babies in their mother’s tummies. She described them in detail. Of course, her preschool teacher knew that wasn’t possible and gently scolded Rachel: “While that is a fun story, it is not really a good thing to make up stories.”
When Rachel’s mother came to pick her up, the teacher felt it necessary to inform Rachel’s mother that she had scolded Rachel for not being entirely truthful. Rachel’s mother replied, “On the contrary, she did see that, sitting in her father’s lap, because he was going to be showing it to his biology class.”
Of course the preschool teacher felt awful. But what might have been the end of a slightly embarrassing story was only the beginning. Not long after, the teacher was entering her apartment, unlocking the door, when she was tapped on the shoulder by her neighbor in the apartment building who was holding a pregnancy test. The neighbor said, “Can you help me read this? I’ve never done this before.”
The teacher was a little embarrassed by the situation, but as a Christian, she decided she must help. She welcomed the young woman into her apartment. Together, they read the test. Her neighbor was pregnant.
The neighbor could only say, “Would you help me go to get an abortion?”
The preschool teacher was shocked and said, “I could never help you do that. I couldn’t help you kill your baby.”
Then it was time for the neighbor to be shocked as she said, “What do you mean, a baby? I’m just four or five weeks pregnant. How could it be a baby?”
