At our last Legion of Mary Curia meeting, one of our members brought with her a poem written by a young girl she used to baby-sit who I’m told is pretty seriously mentally challenged or developmentally disabled somehow. The girl was 16 or 17 years old when she wrote it and she told my friend that she wouldn’t mind if she wanted to publish it in the newspaper or something. After keeping it to herself for a good number of years, my friend decided it was time to share Rebecca’s poem with the rest of the world. I copied it just as it was written:

The Person Inside of Me (Let me Live)
by: Rebecca Jurd

I came to you as an egg.
They call me a fetus

I am no bigger
Than a garden seed
But like a garden seed,
I grow
I get bigger everyday
I am alive

The first month
That I am here, I have a
heart, lungs and a brain
I am alive

The second month
That I am here, I have
Arms, hands, fingers, legs, knees
ankles and toes
I am alive

I am getting so big,
I am moving around now
Even though you may not
feel me
I am alive

Now I am so big
You can feel me move,
I also have a heartbeat
can you hear it? I am here
can you feel me move?
I am alive

Now I am no longer a
fetus, I am a baby
I am fully developed
I am ready to come out
and meet the world
I am alive

Not bad, huh? For being “mentally challenged”, Rebecca sure has more common sense than some of our leading scientists, philosophers and “bioethicists”.