Susan Anne Catherine Torres came into the world two months early, weighing 1 lb., 13 oz., at 8:18 a.m. on Tuesday, August 2, 2005. Susan Michelle Rollin Torres died shortly after her baby was delivered by Caesarean section at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

Susan Torres was just 26 years old. She and her husband, Jason, had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of their second child when Susan collapsed and fell into a coma. Doctors said she had melanoma, a very aggressive form of cancer, which had spread to her brain, causing a severe stroke. That was in May.

With his wife just 15 weeks into her pregnancy, Jason made a decision with which he knew his wife would agree. He decided to keep her on life support long enough to give their baby what his wife no longer had: a fighting chance at survival. Life sustaining measures were terminated after the baby's birth, and Susan Torres died.

As I read this incredible, life-affirming story, I thought of the 4,000 babies destroyed through abortion every day in America. And I thought about Margie Janovich.

Margie Janovich was a very special lady from Omaha, Nebraska. She was the devoted mother of nine children who was told in the fifth month of her last pregnancy that she had thyroid cancer.

Her doctor prescribed immediate treatment, including radiation and chemotherapy, but Margie refused any treatment that might harm her unborn baby. Instead, she waited four months in order to give her baby daughter a chance to be born. By then, the cancer had spread to both her breasts and both her lungs.

Margie Janovich battled for another 20 months before finally succumbing to her illness on March 9, 1997, at the age of 44. Her husband, Ron, said of her, "If there was an angel on Earth, that was her."

The word "choice" has become code for the virtually unchecked right of a pregnant woman to abort her unborn baby. The callousness with which that choice is made and the self-centered reasons for making it are now commonplace.

Margie Janovich made another choice. She chose to pass on a legacy to her children like no other she could have given them. Yes, it is sad that little Mary Beth Janovich and her eight brothers and sisters are growing up without their mother. But what is sadder still is that Margie Janovich was an anomaly. She was by far the exception rather than the rule.

Most in our society would say that the Janovich family would have been better off with eight children and a mother than nine children and no mother. Margie saw it differently, and she made the ultimate sacrifice in order to give her daughter life. That was her choice.

For those who would nonchalantly defend the indefensible, including such procedures as partial birth abortion, the story of the Janovich and the Torres families should cause them to search their hearts for a shred of human kindness toward the defenseless unborn.

And for those in the great "moderate" middle, who have a vague uneasiness about abortion, yet think it should remain an on-demand option for American mothers, I recommend these two poignant stories as a way of coming to grips with the truth about the whole issue of life.

In this era of jaded, self-centered living, when women are told they can destroy their pre-born babies for the sake of mere convenience, it is inspiring to find a mother with such love that she would lay down her life for her child.

Mary Beth Janovich is now nine years old. Susan Anne Catherine Torres is a premature newborn struggling for life. Both have been given an incredibly legacy of life in a culture of death.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor for federal, state and local candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly column can be read in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including www.TheConservativeVoice.com and www.GOPUSA.com, where he also serves as the Nebraska editor. Write him at dpatton@neonramp.com