The World of Grandpa Don

Praying for the Unborn by Name

The following is from a posting in the Guestbook of the St Julie parish web site. It is a concept worth following. 

The Pastoral Plan of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for “a public information and education effort to deepen understanding of the humanity of the unborn”. In order to foster society’s understanding of the humanity of the unborn, I postulate that it needs to become common for Christian women to give temporary, prenatal names to their CHILDREN IN THE WOMB. Then, in the same way that we pray for other members of the congregation when they are ill or otherwise in need, the church would pray for its unborn children BY NAME. This would be a powerful way for us to demonstrate that we believe that a fetus is an individual human being who deserves the right to life. 

There is a psychology behind this, call it the “psychology of a name”. A name forges our identity as individuals distinct from others and is central to the formation of the bonds we make between us. Understand that every member of every human society has a name and if we want society to think of an unborn child as one of its members, we need to take the lead in giving names to the unborn.

The idea that an unborn child would have a name is not foreign to Judeo/Christian thought. God called Isaiah BY NAME from his mother’s womb (Isaiah 49:1) and both John the Baptist (Luke 1:13) and Our Lord Jesus (Luke 2:21) were named before they were even conceived.

Since the prenatal name is temporary and can be changed at birth, the sex of the child need not be considered even if an engendered name is chosen. Of course there are many names that are not gender specific and even nonsense names would be perfectly acceptable. The idea that one’s name can be changed has been embraced by both God the Father (Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah) and Jesus (Simon to Peter).

If giving a name to her unborn child helps a mother understand the humanity of that child then she will not likely seek an abortion. Although we might try to prevent an abortion by attempting to convince someone who is about to enter an abortion clinic that she should stop and give her child a pre-natal name, it seems that earlier exposure to this concept would be a more effective way of preventing the abortion. We need to make prenatal names such a part of society’s fabric that a women who would never consider going to church would embrace the idea of giving a prenatal name to the baby in her womb simply because it has become common to give unborn children the dignity and benefit of a name.

Naming the child is even beneficial if there should be a miscarriage or the child is stillborn because it is an important step in the grieving process. In fact it is an integral part of Project Rachel and other programs aimed healing after the loss of an unborn child.

If this idea makes sense to you then I ask you to do three things.

• First, pray about it. If it still makes sense to you then proceed. 

• Second, implement it in your church. Talk about it to expectant mothers, put a notice in your church bulletin, and pray for the unborn of your church by name when you bring your petitions before the Lord.

•  Third, disseminate the idea to others. Send this idea to others who in turn can pray, implement, and disseminate. If you have editorial skills or can otherwise express this idea better, feel free to make whatever changes you see fit. Print it out for those who don’t have e-mail and forward it to those who do. 

Dan Stockdale 
dstockdale@neo.com
Canton, OH USA