We see the headlines all the time: Baby Found in Dumpster. Every time we hear another story, we wonder: who could do such a horrible thing? It is a horrible thing, there's no doubt about that, but what is it that we think is so horrible? Is it because we have empathy for this little, discarded, unwanted life because there's a little piece in each of us that feels unloved and unwanted? Or are we more horrified by the act of a mother tossing away this precious part of her as though it were no more than a soggy old dish rag? Perhaps it's a combination of both, but rarely is it a concern for the pain and suffering of the child whether it lives or dies.

It is disturbing that each time another baby is found in a dumpster, there is such an outcry of anger and hostility unleashed upon the mother. For some reason, western culture upholds the image of mother as a sacred identity by virtue of the word itself. Motherhood is synonymous with saintliness. Even the most atheistic among us feels the need to uphold the sanctity of this divine ideal. We can attribute this affectation to the Christian icon of the Virgin Mary as being the ultimate ideal of motherhood, the standard by which all mothers are judged, but more importantly, we can attribute it to fear. Inside each person is a desire to be loved and to love.

In a cold world where poverty, hunger, and cruelty are evident all around us whether in our own backyard, or as images on the evening news, each one of us fears the idea of being cast away. But we expect this from war, we expect it from losing our jobs, we expect it from the leaders who fail to provide us with adequate health care, but we cannot accept it from our mothers.

What's interesting about the Virgin Mary is that the Christian Church de-sexualized her in order to make her divine. When a woman is visibly pregnant she is automatically sexualized by society, in other words, we all know how she got that way. But once she has given birth she is stripped of her sexual identity, and thus her humanity, and idolized as an image of perfection and purity. We expect that because she was able to grow a human life, she is capable of nurturing, and guiding, that life, which is the closest we may ever get to God as mortal beings on this earth. When that mother fails to achieve the height of our ideal, she is demonized becoming the very image of everything we fear. The only way we can rationalize the brutality of casting away human life is to equate her with evil. Even if a mother who abandons her child in such a cruel way is deemed to be mentally ill, she will not be forgiven. We still cannot feel pity for her because she has crucified our ideal. It is much easier for us to imagine her sane and evil, than scared and human.

Being reproductive is not synonymous with the ability to be a mother, so we wonder how she could have allowed herself to get into such a predicament. Hadn't she ever heard of birth control? Of course, this is a valid question. But even the most self-sufficient, responsible adult makes mistakes. Then what about adoption? This is not an alternative for a person who probably has never accepted her pregnancy. It is not an alternative for someone who is frightened when her body seems to take control defying all that is rational. What about abortion? This is the argument that disturbs me the most. Why is it okay to kill a fetus at three months of growth versus nine? Is it okay to kill what we can't see as long as it's neat and clean and hidden from our view, in the same way that we buy a lamb for dinner that comes neatly packaged in cellophane and Styrofoam. It would be a whole different scenario if we sophisticates of the modern age had to go out and slaughter our own. If we were hungry enough we probably would. What if we were desperate enough? We would do what we deemed necessary, at that moment, to survive.