Saturday, September 14, 2013

Being Baptist, Single, and Pregnant

Ayaanah Gibson was starting her first year of college in South Carolina at Benedict College--private and affiliated with the American Baptist Church.

But she gave birth in her dorm room over Labor Day weekend, alone and apparently too scared to go to a hospital.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-south-carolina-ayaanah-gibson-20130906,0,7329633.story

Ayaanah died after losing consciousness, probably from loss of blood.  The baby may have been stillborn.

Her crime?  Being female and having intercourse.

The baby's father is no doubt alive and well, perhaps unknown.

Last December, probably about the same time she was filing her college applications, she made a mistake.

This tragedy is a modern replay of the biblical scene recorded in the Gospel according to John, chapter 8: religious leaders planning to stone a woman in Jesus presence.

In this case those who would stone her were present only in spirit: family? friends? her church back home in Sacramento? the college administration, which might cancel a scholarship or kick her out of the dormitory?

We don't know the details, but we do know that it was not safe for her to be female and pregnant as a student entering college.

Apparently she wouldn't give up her dream of going to college, and she did not give up the pregnancy during the first trimester.

Two lives were lost.



No comments: