Grandmother Devastated by Death of Makayla Rose

By Billy Wetterer

Editor's note. This first appeared in the March 8, 2000, edition of The Grand Island, Nebraska, Independent.

"A cry was heard at Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation: Rachel bewailing her children; no comfort for her; since they are no more."
Matthew 2:18

The phone call from my friend was a surprise. We had not had a chance to visit for three or four years.

"It's great to hear from you," I told her. "What's going on in your life?"

"I wanted to tell you about my granddaughter, Makayla Rose," she said.

"You have a granddaughter? That's wonderful. How old is she?" I asked.

My friend began to cry, first in sniffles as she started to tell me about Makayla Rose, then in sobs.

Stunned, I waited until the sobbing subsided. Then with tears still in her voice, she said, "The doctor killed my granddaughter."

I waited for more, but she was silent. After a few moments, I asked, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Her story was one many parents hear these days. My friend said her son and his girlfriend learned she was going to have a baby. Though they had been friends, they did not plan to be married.

Friends of the girlfriend -- I'll call her Jane, although that is not her name -- encouraged Jane to have an abortion. My friend's son -- I'll call him John -- was opposed to killing their baby.

The couple talked about marriage, but neither was ready for the commitment. The pregnancy continued with no complications. My friend and her family, including the baby's father, were supportive of the mother-to-be. If Jane didn't want to raise her baby, perhaps adoption would be an option. However, Jane's friends continued to tell her that she was foolish to have the baby. It was no one else's business, they said. It was, after all, only a fetus and didn't really matter. Jane was told it was her body and she could do as she chose.

Apparently, Jane had not had a happy childhood and didn't want to have a baby that would also be unhappy.

The discussions about abortion went on until Jane was six months pregnant. It was too late to have an abortion in Colorado, where the couple lived. Jane would have to go to another state for what she was told was a simple procedure.

Without telling John, Jane went to Kansas, where late-term abortions are legal. At the abortion clinic, she was told she would have no problems. The "procedure" would cost $4,000, by the way.

Still believing that abortion was the best choice, Jane allowed the doctor to inject a substance into her baby's heart, which soon stopped beating. Then, he delivered a perfect, tiny baby girl.

When Jane realized the "fetus" was a baby, she became hysterical.

To calm her, the attendants at the clinic preserved the baby until her father could get to Kansas for a burial service. My friend doesn't know if the baby's body was put in a freezer or what they did. When John arrived in Kansas, they named the baby Makayla Rose, and she was buried in a cemetery there.

As she told the story, my friend cried several times, and I cried with her.

She had driven to Kansas to visit the cemetery, she told me. Also,

she bought a headstone for her granddaughter's grave, with her name, Makayla Rose, on it. She also obtained a copy of the death certificate that shows the baby "died at birth." Makayla Rose would be a year old in June. My friend says she gets tears in her eyes whenever she sees a little girl and thinks again of the granddaughter she will never have a chance to hold, although she is loved so much.

But what about Makayla Rose's mother and father? They are both grieving for their baby. Jane is inconsolable, knowing she allowed others to persuade her to choose to let the doctor kill her baby. John feels there must have been something more he could have done to save their baby.

Too late, Makayla Rose's mother learned her baby was a child, not a choice.