I READ about a teenage girl who tried to flush her newborn baby down the hospital toilet in the newspaper yesterday. The underaged girl somehow managed to keep her pregnancy secret from her parents through the nine months. And last night she complained about a diarrhoea and her mother sent her to a hospital at 2.00am. The caring mother also rushed to check on her after she was in the hospital toilet for more than an hour.

What is missing from this picture? I saw a caring mother who rushed her daughter to hospital at 2.00am. I also saw a teenage girl who is too afraid to let her parents know about her pregnancy. It is also possible that she had such strict parents that she knew that breaking the news to them would do more harm than good. She probably also realised that the society would never accept her baby into this world. She murdered her baby to save herself and the baby.

This innocent baby is a victim of our unforgiving society. Our religions and cultural values taught us that pre-marital sex is a sin. Pregnancies out of wedlock is wrong. But we are also taught to forgive each other. And most values teach us that everyone deserve a second chance. We are not here to encourage pre-marital sex, but we are also here to guide those who has committed these sins to repent, and to accept them when they have turned over a new leaf. And to give the innocent babies a chance to see the world.

We see many single unmarried mothers who raised their children successfully in other countries. These children deserved the chance of survival, and to live the life that God has granted them, be it with or without a father.

But our society in general cannot accept this. We are too quick to judge, and this fact create such a fear in these pregnant teenagers to get rid of their babies in any ways that they could. Flushing them down the toilets, or abandoning the newborn babies at the dumpsters to be eaten by the stray dogs. These innocent babies became the victim of a society who have rejected them even before they were born.

If only we could be more forgiving and speak about sex to our children more openly, we may be able save many of these innocent babies. We could stop cruelty to babies by accepting them into this world.

Teenagers with pre-marital sex probably deserves punishment, but innocent babies definitely deserves survival.

Think about it.