“Kate Middleton is pregnant with her second child,” announced Vogue Daily last Monday. Headlines in London papers and the news bulletins around the world all read the same. Prime Minister David Cameron congratulated the happy couple: “I’m delighted by the happy news that they’re expecting another baby.”
It seems fairly normal until you realize that Kate has not yet reached the critical 12th week of pregnancy (and speculation is rampant that she is only six to eight weeks pregnant). Under no other circumstances would the world at large so unequivocally refer to the life inside her as a baby, a child.
Royal babies are special. I was in London when Prince George was born, and the city came alive. I waited with the celebratory crowds on the steps outside Buckingham Palace, hoping for a glimpse of the royal birth announcement and relishing the historical moment. Prince George was the only baby who made the front-page headlines. “It’s a Boy,” the Daily Telegraph scrawled happily in blocky script. George was greeted with gun salutes. The bells of Westminster Abbey rang for him. Canada lit up Niagara Falls with blue light in honor of the prince. Royal babies are special because, from the moment their arrival is anticipated, they are treated as babies and celebrated with the abundant joy of welcoming a new life into this world.
Can you even imagine a headline proclaiming anything other than the impending birth of a royal child? What if Kate were to miscarry or, even less thinkable, she decided to exercise her right as a woman to terminate her pregnancy? After all, she suffers from hyperemesis gravidarum, a rare and acute form of morning sickness that left her hospitalized when she was expecting George. Yet imagine if she adopted the “health of the mother” rationale. Niagara Falls would run black.
But the reality is that in no other circumstance would the world be so bold in labeling this baby as a baby. A landmark case in Britain earlier this year questioned whether mothers could be charged with misdemeanor or abuse for consuming alcohol while pregnant. The Times reported that “[t]his appeals tribunal agreed there had been ‘administration of a poison or other destructive or noxious thing, so as thereby to inflict grievous bodily harm.’ However, it decided a crime could not have been committed because the girl was unborn at the time and therefore ‘not a person.’” Even more explicitly, “The ruling said: ‘If [the girl] was not a person while her mother was engaging in the relevant actions . . . as a matter of law her mother could not have committed a criminal offence.’” That is why it is so incredible that Prince George’s sibling-to-be is a baby, a person, a child with rights.
Royal babies are special, but they reveal what we all know to be the truth, by stripping away our artificial constructs and causing us to forget our cultural notions about what life is and when it begins. We all know, deep down, that every baby is a baby. So even those among us who are no fans of the Royals should join the rest of us in giving three cheers for this newest prince or princess and the message they subconsciously telegraph around the world. Let us hope that one day, the world will recognize that every baby is as special as this royal baby.
