545. 545 children remain separated from their families. 545 and likely more parents, mothers and fathers, grieve the loss of their children today. They join the over 5,500 families that have been separated since 2017, some children as young as four-months old at the time of separation. This was not by accident; it is the result of a systemic and intentional government policy, our government’s policy, designed to separate families at our southern border in order to cause this very harm: family separation and child loss.
These children are lost at the hands of the same U.S. federal government that designated last month Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. Established in 1988 under President Reagan, October is dedicated to remembering the children that do not live. In the United States, about 15 to 20 in 100 (or 15-20%) of babies are miscarried (lost before 20 weeks of pregnancy); about 1 in 100 (or 1%) of babies are born stillborn (lost after 20 weeks of pregnancy) and the overall infant mortality rate (death of a child before their first birthday) as of 2018 is 5.7 (per 1000 live births). The rates of stillbirth and infant loss are even higher for people of color.
Last month’s designation is a small gesture of acknowledgement of the heartache that the parents of these children – the “babylost parents” – feel; parents who carry their children with them long after they have died. I would know; my oldest daughter died when she was two-months old and I lost my second daughter in the middle of pregnancy. They were a part of me – I carried them, birthed them, fed and rocked them and held them in life and after their last breath. I feel their absence every day; the space that their very living created in my heart still aches with longing for them and I carry that with me too, an acknowledgment that they lived.
It never should be the policy of any government to intentionally impose this type of loss – family separation and child loss – on anyone. Though still living, these 545 children and their parents are lost to each other because of the intentional and inhumane federal government policy of detention and separation. When did their lives, their humanity, become not enough that our government could ever justify such a policy?
Remember these lost children when you remember mine because they are the same; like each of us they are born into the same humanity, broken and imperfect, but with infinite possibilities redeemable through love of each other regardless of political party or race or religion or national origin or any other characteristics that bring color and richness to our story, the human story.
Democratic government is of our making, as we have been so reminded in the days leading up to the election. This government, acting in the name of the American people, did not live up to the values at the core of American democracy: a belief in the people, in us, and in the fundamental value of every person. As we commemorate Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, let us remember the children lost at the hands of our government and vote remembering them too.
(I originally wrote this as an oped, which I want to share with this communinty. It is not lost upon me that today, the day after Halloween and the last day of the month honoring children that do not live, is All Saint’s Day, a day in the church where we also remember people who have died. Babylost parents like me enter November, at least for today, as part of a larger community of people who remember our children, lifting them up with their loved ones lost, all part of the same community. But this truth does not change even as the days and months that we honor them as a community pass.
May each of you, babylost parents and those who have lost, feel the embrace of this community, for we all are a part and may no loss be forgotten.)