We held a new assay contest on a pro-life topic “The value of human life” among the seniors of local high schools. The essay-winner is offered to your consideration.

Today I want to tell you the saddest story of my life. I think that it will stay in my heart forever and will never, hear me, never happens with the unborn child.

The night… The darkness was all around. It has captured me and pressed, my thoughts were confused. I had no ideas when I’d get out of that gloom. But, suddenly, the lonely spark of the light began to shine. I was not alone, not alone! I saw those sparks around me… Mother, father… “My heart, please, don’t cry. You see how many helpers I’ve got! And I’m happy!” I wished the gloom that seized others to be destroyed, but it didn’t listen to me because I was just a little drop in the big sea. My soul was locked. Sometimes it tried to get out of those limits, but bars stopped it…The unfortunate groan of my younger sister brought me to the life. I had got fields with the amazing flowers, unlimited space of the sky with the sun on it. I would escape any desert and darkness! But what about my unborn sister? “Please, my heart, don’t cry, and tell me about your pain”.

My sister… Her life began at the mother’s womb when I was four months old. My parents didn’t guess about that. I was the first who had felt the occurrence of the new life. Suddenly the milk at mother’s breasts became tasteless and the feeding turned to sufferings. My mom gave me her breasts with no ideas why I refuse to eat. I cried and my young mother cried together with me asking the Lord to rescue her child. She thought I was ill. “I am not ill, why don’t you understand this?” those words I wanted to cry out at that moment. And the sister had already started to grow up but she was still very small and helpless. Our mum did all for us though she didn’t know yet that there were two of us, that she was pregnant with my sister.

Mom didn’t even suspect that she was keeping alive both of us. She was so kind! Suddenly my grandmother had found something unusual in mom’s behavior. For some reason the silence reigned in our house that evening. There was neither grandfather’s voice, nor daddy’s. Only mom with the grandmother was sadly talking about something, having closed the door in the room. Next morning was cheerless. Mom had gone to the doctor and he informed her about the pregnancy. She surely should have been happy. But nobody was pleased with at the news except me. Only I was happy about my little sister. I even gave her the name Oksana. I was proud that I was the elder sister. Every time when mom took me on her hands I bent closer to her stomach and talked to my younger sister. Oksana said that she was almost able to see even despite the darkness all around her. I told her about different things, about the sun and about our mom and Oksana’s greatest desire was to see her mother, to know what a person she was and whether she heard beatings of her daughter’s heart?

March 25th, 1993… The sad date. My mom killed my sister... What else am I to add? That small child had the right to be born. It’s clear that every child has the right to live in this world. Then why adults decide instead of us whether to be born or not?

Life is the most valuable thing we’ve got. Life is given only once and everyone has their own life - long or short, happy or unhappy. Life of each person is like a kind of an atom of unlimited immense eternity. And life is like a real atom, I mean complete. And as atom it is also immensely small in comparison with the eternity. Very often it is said that life is similar to the spark which lighted up for an instant moment in the darkness and than blew out at once. Such comparisons help us to realize the sad fact that human life is transient. We’re all like travelers who are moving from the point “B” (birth) to the point “D” (death), there’s only one way. In the same way the sparkle of my unborn sister has blew out. The mother has chosen abortion. What a terrible word! The woman who decides to kill her child makes the big sin. We’re crying for those who were killed at wars, those who died because of the terrorist attacks, but we never pray for those who were killed by their own mothers. No one of those women who are going on abortion think about the fact that the small embryo has the living soul too. There are millions of women as my mum. There are millions of women who voluntary kill their unborn children. My mother prays to the Lord to forgive her sin. I think God will forgive her because my mother is a shining star who will always shine during my whole life.

Life is a great miracle and treasure! And we must appreciate it. That’s why I believe that protection of the human right to live is the most essential. May be because of the abortion many women become prostitutes and drug addicts. And probably because of the same reason marriages nowadays are short-termed because the woman who should safe her calmness and tranquility of her home is not able to be patient, is not able to love and respect the family hearth.

Today the woman is going to get rid of not desired embryo of unsuccessful love. Stop! Don’t do the step to a cruel act. Small body shudders from a terrible crying in the womb, it doesn’t want to die. You should hear the shout of the new life. Do not deprive it the most valuable – the right to be born, to be alive.
I say “NO!” to abortions because they cripple souls of young women; bring no healing wounds, the feeling of fault, and devastation. As for me I’d forbid abortions and then millions of lives would be saved.

Every person has the right to live and no matter who he is and what kind of a person he is. This is the most important right of all human rights. And it should be respected by others and provided by the society. If the human right to live is limited or not realized then such society cannot be considered humane and perfect.

Julia Atamanchuk