A quiet stand for life

Sept. 11 is a day of remembrance. For New England Patriots tight end Eli Raridon and his wife Anna, it will forever be doubly so.

In the months leading up to the beginning of Raridon’s rookie season with the Patriots, doctors diagnosed the couple’s preborn son, Peter James, with anencephaly, a condition in which parts of a baby’s brain and skull do not form properly while the baby is in the womb. The condition is fatal and has no cure or treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The pro-abortion crowd would no doubt argue that mothers in Anna Raridon’s position are completely justified in aborting unborn babies with conditions like Peter’s. Why bother going through the birthing process, they say, when the baby is all but guaranteed not to survive the aftermath of being born?

Eli and Anna didn’t see it that way, which is why Anna carried little Peter to term. He was born on Sept. 11. He died soon thereafter.

In a Sept. 29 Instagram post, beneath a picture of two inked footprints on a Bible page next to the opening chapter of 1 Peter, Anna wrote the following: “While we are absolutely devastated that we were unable to bring our baby boy home, I am grateful to have loved him deeply, kept him safe, and had been his home for the past 9 months before he was called back to Heaven.

“I have often found it easy to glorify the Lord when life is going well, but it is in our deepest trials that we are drawn closest to Him. We may never understand the why behind this journey, but one thing we know with certainty is God promises to care for His children.”

Peter was Eli and Anna’s first child. The couple—who, now in their 20s, met in high school in their native Iowa—married in May 2025, when Eli was still suiting up for the University of Notre Dame. They announced in March of this year that they were expecting.

“Half me, half you—fearfully and wonderfully made, thank you Jesus!!! Baby Raridon arriving this fall,” the couple proudly posted on Instagram back in March.

The Raridons learned of Peter’s anencephaly at the 20-week mark. Yet despite the grim diagnosis, they believed Peter’s life wasn’t theirs to take.

“I believe our little boy was lovingly knitted together in the womb by God, knowing how deeply he would be loved by our families, our friends, Eli, and me,” Anna wrote on Instagram. “Though his time with us was brief, his life [was] still precious, his purpose [was] still meaningful, and he will be forever a part of our story.”

For his part, Eli has somehow managed to play through what must be incalculable grief. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound rookie, whom New England selected in the third round of this year’s National Football League Draft, caught a touchdown pass in his NFL debut mere days before Peter’s birth—and did it against the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. He’s caught two more passes since then, though he’s missed one game with a thigh injury.

Eli already had his Christian faith tested significantly before he joined the Patriots. According to Crosswalk.com, he endured two anterior cruciate ligament tears in two years at Notre Dame. While sidelined, he came to recognize just who was in charge of his life and football career, and it wasn’t him.

“Gave my life to Jesus, surrendered to Jesus, knowing I’m not in control, and that was extremely important for my mental health and just for me as a person,” Eli told Crosswalk. “That’s completely changed me as a person.”

The most surprising part of the Raridons’ story, to me at least, is the sensitivity with which the mainstream media have treated it. When Googling—or, to be more accurate, Yahoo-ing—the Raridons’ story, I didn’t stumble across one article from any news outlet arguing that the couple should have aborted baby Peter. One, TotalProSports.com, even hailed the couple’s decision as courageous.

I’ve lamented in this space that too few pro sports figures—even Christian ones—openly take a stand for the pro-life cause. That makes the Raridons’ decision to share their story all the more remarkable, especially since they shared it amid indescribable emotional pain. I don’t know whether they would have stood up for life the way they did had little Peter not passed, though I’d like to believe they would have. What I do know is that medical miracles sometimes happen, and even though one didn’t happen in Peter’s case, the Raridons loved him enough to give him as much of a life as they could, then let God do the rest.

“I have loved you every second of your life & will miss you every second of mine,” Anna wrote in her Instagram post. Her conclusion is precious: “What a sweet sweet reunion ours will be!”