The least of these

National: ABORTION: As technology advances fetal viability, will it also advance the case for protecting thousands of unborn babies at earlier gestational ages? | Lynn Vincent

Blake Boudreau was born early—very early. In their book Before Their Time: Lessons in Living from Those Born Too Soon, Ronald Hoekstra and Daniel Taylor tell of how Blake made his first appearance alarmingly ahead of schedule: The boy poked his foot through his mother’s cervix at 20 weeks gestational age. “The baby’s coming and there’s nothing we can do,” doctors told Marc and Leslie Boudreau. “It can’t survive at 20 weeks, but we can’t stop it.”

But they did stop it, aided, say the Boudreaus, by a friend’s fervent prayers. Physicians were able to coax the baby’s foot back into Mrs. Boudreau’s womb, then sew her cervix shut. But a severe infection quickly developed and doctors again warned the Boudreaus that the baby probably wouldn’t make it.