The members of the Tanner family were extremely excited for the upcoming birth of their third child – their second boy, Jaxon. However, at only 18 weeks, Charity went into labor. Baby Jaxon was coming, and much too early.
Unable to stop the contractions, the doctor told Charity to push, and tiny Jaxon was delivered. He was alive; his heart was beating, and his tiny chest rose and fell with his short breaths.
Jaxon’s due date was this month, September 2015. In his honor, his parents released a video, showing him alive, breathing, and loved after birth. (Editor’s Note, 7/5/22 – that video has been removed from YouTube.)
Tiny Baby Jaxon illustrates – bravely and beautifully – the reality of human life in the womb. At a very young age, preborn babies are extremely developed; they are always growing; and from the moment of their first beginning, they are 100% new and unique humans – worthy of life and basic protections. Jaxon illustrates the need to protect living babies by defunding Planned Parenthood.
While Planned Parenthood claims to be a women’s health care provider, its focus is chiefly on abortion. Under Cecile Richards’ leadership, Planned Parenthood’s abortions have increased, its affiliates have been forced to provide abortions, and its breast exams and cancer screenings for women – as well as adoption referrals – have dropped significantly. The abortion focus of Planned Parenthood is just one reason millions of taxpayer dollars need to be redirected to the more than 13,000 comprehensive health care clinics around the nation that provide basic health services for low-income women and their families – all without aborting babies like Jaxon.
Planned Parenthood affiliates and executive Deborah Nucatola have announced their intention to increase late-term abortions – a violent and inhumane procedure that would have targeted Baby Jaxon.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Charity revealed that she had placenta previa during her pregnancy with Jaxon:
Doctors told Charity that she had a complication called placenta previa in which her baby’s placenta had attached to the wrong place in her uterus, covering her cervix. They told her that in many cases, the problem often corrected itself, and that in worst cases, they might have to do an emergency cesarian section once the baby made it to at least 24 weeks, at which point the baby would have a good chance of surviving.
But the bleeding only kept on getting worse.
“The doctors did not understand why I kept bleeding, and bleeding, and bleeding,” she said.
In fact, one doctor was so confounded by Charity’s constant bleeding, that he suggested she could have an abortion to end it. Charity and her husband were entirely blown away by this comment, knowing that they wanted to keep this precious child as long as they could.
Charity told LifeSiteNews that she was “shocked with how casually the option to have her child killed had been offered.”
“My husband and I were like, ‘No that’s not even an option.’ There was nothing at all wrong with this baby. He was perfect. He was completely, perfectly, and beautifully formed. I was going to do everything in my power to keep him alive,” she said.
Charity remembered thinking at that time that abortion simply wasn’t a choice that she felt was hers to make.
When Jaxon was born prematurely at 18 weeks, the Tanners knew in the midst of their sorrow that it had been entirely worth it to keep their son with them as long as they could. While the medical personnel thought the tiny baby would probably be stillborn, he was actually born alive.
His family was able to hold and caress him, and a nurse laid him on a bit of plastic that would protect his fragile skin. The Tanners knew their experience was an inestimably precious one, and they caught it on video.
While the Tanners still grieve their tiny son, they know that his life was not in vain. Like Noah, Nathan Isaiah, Annabelle, Riley, and many others like them, Jaxon is giving a face to the preborn children of this world, showing how valuable, living, and precious each of them is.
Each child deserves the chance to live, and it’s time America recognized it.
Editor’s Note, 7/5/22: This post has been updated to reflect a removal of the videos of baby Jaxon from YouTube.
