An it harm none

The Anchoress has two stories of parents who resisted medical advice and refused to terminate a pregnancy. In one, the baby lived for half an hour after birth; in the other, a baby diagnosed as hopeless was born almost perfectly healthy.The healthy birth followed prayers for a miracle. Maybe there was one, or maybe the doctors came to the wrong diagnosis based on the ultrasound images. The other case rubs noses in issues of birth and death.

Birth and death come at a time not of our choosing, and all the anxiety of pregnancy and the shared work of childbirth and child-rearing, all of the agony and the shared work of death, they have to be meant to teach us something. Otherwise, what’s the point? Do we just go through life anesthetized? Feeling nothing, but “fine?” .... Perhaps the pain of childbirth and death, besides being natural, are meant to humble us a little, to make an impression on us, to make us breathe deeply, and look inward and get quiet enough to hear these words: Behold, something greater than yourself!

The Wiccan Rede says, "If it harms none, do what you will." Wiccans are quick to remind us that hurt and harm are not the same. The same applies to the flip side of the coin."Healing" is not always the same as "curing". Wiccans frequently work for healing. Sometimes, a person will die anyway. Those who insist that healing must be the same as curing may fail to see where healing has, in fact, occurred.