Downtown wall to hold brass plaques

By Mary Maraghy
Times-Union staff writer

Mary Hubbard compares trying to forget her abortion to stuffing a beach ball under water.

"Sooner or later it surfaces," said the Jacksonville woman, who still cries over her decision 25 years later.

Today, Hubbard is eagerly waiting to post a plaque in honor of the unborn child she has since named Joy.

The plaque will be part of Florida's First Coast Memorial for the Unborn, an 80-foot, L-shaped granite wall planned for downtown Jacksonville.

The public memorial will have room for more than 10,000 1-by-3-inch brass plaques engraved with messages from parents to their aborted children. Plaques will cost $35 each.

The wall will be an affiliate of the National Memorial for the Unborn in Chattanooga, Tenn., a Christian ministry devoted to the sanctity of human life and the memory of aborted children. There are about a dozen affiliated memorials in the country, according to leaders of the ministry.

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Hitting home

For more information about Florida's First Coast Memorial for the Unborn, call (904) 262-6300. To learn more about the National Memorial for the Unborn in Chattanooga, Tenn., call 1-800-505-5565 or visit the National Memorial for the Unborn website

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The Jacksonville project will help women find closure, advance their healing and honor God by showing respect for life, organizers said.

The wall will be a place of mourning and healing for families who have lost a child through abortion or miscarriage, said Betsy Baker of Lakewood, a counselor at First Coast Women's Services, a Christian crisis pregnancy center in Mandarin that is organizing the $80,000 project.

Parents who have lost a child through miscarriage can purchase bricks paving a sidewalk to be built near the wall. The bricks can be engraved with messages. The price for bricks has not yet been set.

After a year of praying and planning, hiring architects and finding space, First Coast Women's Services is trying to raise funds. Several churches, Christian ministries and other crisis pregnancy centers have pledged financial support. First Baptist Church donated space for it on its campus. The wall will be part of a small park the church is building at Beaver and Laura streets.

Organizers say they have faced no opposition. An official from Planned Parenthood of Northeast Florida declined to comment.

Through tears, Hubbard said her plaque will read: "Joy, November 1977, Forever In My Heart, Forever In God's Arms."

"Being able to put a plaque on that wall dignifies my child and the loss that I suffered," Hubbard said.

At the time of her abortion, Hubbard said she was 25, single, and a child was not convenient.

"In a very selfish act, I aborted my child, then proceeded to stuff it down inside of me. I decided it was a chapter of my life I would never revisit," she said. "But you carry this guilt and a feeling that I will never be good enough. If anybody knew, I'd be an outcast. It's like having a scarlet letter."

About five years ago, Hubbard attended a fund-raising banquet for First Coast Women's Services. She was brought to tears by a speaker giving her testimony. She then took part in a 10-week Bible study at the center.

She's been a volunteer ever since.

"Putting a plaque on this wall for my child acknowledges that she was real," Hubbard said.

Staff writer Mary Maraghy can be reached at (904) 359-4611 or via e-mail at mmaraghy@jacksonville.com.