This week marks the 40 year anniversary of our country’s war on unborn babies. It is tragically poetic that the most pro-abortion President in our nation’s history took his oath of office, for the second time, this same week. The man who was re-elected this past November serves as a glaring reminder of just how broken our culture is. Many in the Republican party who have taken this election to mean that it is time to throw in towel on abortion. I would like to argue that this fight has never been more important than it is right now. We need not wait for 2016. We don’t need a politician to save us (they tend not to be the most reliable guys anyways). What we need is cultural change. Our problems with the economy, education, violence, and almost anything you can think of are mere symptoms of the complete moral decay that is taking place. How foolish of us to think that we might better fix the other problems by ignoring the greatest injustice of modern-day America. For four decades, legalized abortion has played a destructive role in almost every facet of our society. Today, on a day when many will join the March for Life in DC, I ask that you would consider the importance of standing up for the unborn and fostering a culture of life in our nation.
The biggest child killer out there
Before we go any further, let’s get this out of the way. Yes, abortion kills babies, not skin cells, not clumps of tissue. Babies. With 3D imaging, neural mapping, and the countless other medical advances since Roe, it is no longer debatable. Even people representing the pro-abortion groups out there, like NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the Democratic Party don’t make that argument anymore. They make lots of silly arguments about viability, “forced pregnancy,” and whether or not a child would be “better off” having been aborted than being born poor/unwanted/the daughter of a crackhead/etc. But the only time they even try to use the dead skin cells argument is when they are talking to scared little girls, behind the closed doors of an abortion clinic. Among reasonably informed adults, it is a settled issue. As far as the loftier argument about quality of life are concerned it’s really pretty simple. Would anyone argue that we ought to round-up everyone, regardless of their current age, who was born poor, neglected/abused, born to drug addicts, raised in foster care, adopted, sick, or handicapped and execute them? Surely, if death in the womb is preferable to a life under those circumstances then those people have suffered enough already. We should do the merciful thing and kill them, without asking for their opinions on the matter, and put them out of their misery. Of course, if you think that is a grotesque suggestion, than you really don’t believe that whole “better off having never been born” idea at all. So let’s drop the charade. There is only one issue on the table here. We must decide whether or not a woman should be allowed to kill her baby because she doesn’t want to be a mother. Everything else is just misdirection.
Since 1973, just over 55.8 million American children have lost their lives at the hands of a “healthcare worker.” To put that in perspective, the Holocaust claimed the lives of somewhere between 11-17 million. On average, we kill 3,500 babies a day with legal abortions. That’s one every 24 seconds. The number of children killed by guns in the US is about 115 each year. According to abortion advocates, 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her lifetime. That means that the likelihood of a child dying at the hands of his mother is higher than his odds of being killed by a kidnapper, terrorist, drunk driver, cancer, AIDS, or any of the other terrible things that lurk in our world. Mothers top them all. We saw the President of the United States brought to tears (well, in that teary-eyed politician sort of way) over the Sandy Hook shooting. He trotted out a bunch of kids who had the pants scared off of them by some liberal parent on a gun rant. They pleaded for the lives of other children. And yet, the President (and I’m willing to bet their parents too) supports policies that lead to more child deaths than if there was a Sandy Hook shooting every single hour of every single day. If we want to get serious about protecting innocent life, than we have to start with the largest threat to innocent life. If every weapon in the world magically disappeared, if EPA regulations gave us the safest drinking water imaginable, and if cyber-bullying was a distant memory, we would still be guilty of doing nothing to stop the one thing that is really killing children in droves.
It hurts women
The first time that I remember grasping the true horror of abortion was when I was a teenager. I was at my after-school job and out of nowhere one of my coworkers burst into tears. She was in absolute hysterics. After a while, she calmed down enough to tell us that she was pregnant. She was in her early thirties and already had one boy, so like the teenage idiot that I was, I blurted out “so, what’s the big deal?” She said she was thinking about how she was going to tell her son that he was going to have a new brother or sister when it hit her, he had another sibling whom she aborted more than a decade earlier, while she was in high school. She said she had never really thought of the first baby that way before, an older sibling to her son. As the thought replayed itself in her mind that day, she also started to think about the sonograms from when she had her son. That was the point where she became completely overwhelmed. She kept crying “I can’t believe I did that.” That conversation has stuck with me all these years, partly because I regret that I was so young and didn’t know what to say, but mainly because I remember trying to put myself in her shoes. A scared teenager who doesn’t want to tell her parents, she doesn’t want her life to change and a smiling adult in a lab coat says, “We can make this all go away. It will be like it never happened. Don’t worry, you aren’t doing anything wrong.” I can see why a frightened girl would make such a choice. I can’t understand why any responsible adult would offer it.
The problem is, something does happen in an abortion and most women realize one day or another that they did do something very wrong. Speaking openly and honestly about the brutality of abortion isn’t rude and it isn’t obscene. It is the best way to stop a vulnerable woman from making a terrible decision. Teenage girls who have had abortions are 10 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers. Studies show that 60% of women who have had abortions become suicidal at some point and they are 6 times more likely to actually commit suicide than women who have had live births and/or miscarriages. A 2010 study of post-abortive women showed that 52% of those who underwent early-term abortions and 67% of those with late-term abortions were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder according to the official American Psychological Association standards. There is nothing good that can come from the emotional trauma of an abortion. Post-abortive women must either come to terms with the guilt of taking their child’s life or harden their hearts by denying the reality of what happened. Either way, exercising one’s “reproductive rights” comes with a hefty price tag.
It Keeps Getting Worse
If there’s one argument that liberals hate the most, it’s probably “the slippery slope.” To them, it is just a way for us to frighten people into agreeing with us. But the thing is, it’s true. Societies are not stagnant. They are continuously in motion. The decisions we make set our feet on one path or another, and legalized abortion has sent us down a pretty dark path. Before the Roe v. Wade decision came down, it was estimated that as many as 10,00 women a year might get an abortion, were it legal. In the US today, that number sits at about 1.2 million a year. 40 years ago, many people bought into the idea that they were just removing some tissue in the early stages of pregnancy. They rationalized that surely a baby only a few weeks old didn’t count. Today, only 36 states have restrictions on abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy (usually about 24 weeks). Of those 36, 27 allow for exceptions to the ban if a woman’s “mental health” (which includes stress and depression) is at stake. Only 9 states require that late-term abortion be medically necessary. Some of the still legal methods include: Induced Labor- where labor is induced prematurely so that the child will die, and the more common Dilation and Evacuation- where a woman’s cervix is dilated and the abortionists uses tools to dismember the baby and remove him piece by piece (there is no anesthesia for the baby even though they are past the age of “viability” and capable of feeling pain). The only difference between the legal methods and the banned Dilation and Extraction method (partial-birth) is that in a partial-birth abortion the baby is dismembered after birth. President Obama has been a long time supporter of legalizing this brutal practice in which a baby is born breach with all but the top of his head out of the birth canal before the doctor punctures his skull and remove the brains (also without anesthesia). The official Democratic Party Platform states their unequivocal support for abortion at any stage, without restriction, and without exception for partial-birth. Even with the ban in place, some states refuse to enforce it. One famous example is in Kansas where (under the direction of our current Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius) officials refused to prosecute Dr. Tiller who once joked about the “sloppy medicine” of live babies “slipping out” during abortions. He professed to have killed 60,000 babies and openly performed partial-birth abortions on underage girls, citing reasons like they didn’t want to miss prom. He even used these procedures to cover up the abuse of girls, as young as 12, without ever reporting their rapes to the authorities. Far from being seen as the monster he was Dr. Tiller received numerous awards, was honored at a gala with the governor, and, since his death, has become an iconic hero of the left. This week alone there were several articles in major newspapers chronicling the “brave” doctors who carry on his legacy. Every pro-choice group like Planned Parenthood has at least one page of their website dedicated to his memory. There’s even a Dr. George Tiller Courage Award given each year. Idolizing someone who was very open about the fact that he was killing viable babies, is a pretty far cry from the “safe, legal, and rare” standard that we used to hear. Now, the more brutal and inhumane the methods are, the more “brave” and “courageous” the doctor is.
There also used to be a time when feminists said, “if you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.” But we are no longer free to keep abortion out of our homes. Only 22 states require a parental consent before an abortion is performed on an underage girl. Of those 22, most have a near 100% record of “judicial bypass” to parental consent. This process consists of a girl requesting a form (available at her local abortion provider) and then appearing in a private meeting with a judge and a clinic worker to show that she is mature enough to make a decision without her parents. The whole process, from application to abortion, typically takes no longer than four days. There is no requirement that the girl’s parents be abusive, neglectful, or otherwise unfit. The only requirement is that she doesn’t want to tell them. I can’t think of a greater threat to the sovereignty of adults in their own homes than the government interfering with their ability to parent their children.
But, that isn’t the only way the government forces abortion into our lives. To many of us, the good stewardship of our money and resources is a responsibility that we take very seriously. The Obama administration has poured millions of our tax dollars into abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, the new healthcare law requires pro-life business owners to check their freedom of religion at the door, by requiring them to provide coverage for abortifacient drugs. Businesses like Hobby Lobby are now facing fines of $1.3 million a day for refusing to cave on their beliefs. And the current official Democratic Party platform echos the President’s desire to provide abortions for all women “regardless of ability to pay.” Which means that we will be paying for it. There is no such thing as “personally pro-life, but publicly pro-choice.” Every day that abortion is legal we go further and further down this awful road. It leads to increased barbarism and decreased religious freedom. We can’t afford to stay on it any longer.
It Destroys our Culture
Is it any wonder that a society that says it’s OK to kill another person because their existence would be inconvenient raised a generation of envious little narcissists? Just think about it for a moment. With one court decision, we sent the message that a.) we should not have to suffer the consequences of our own bad choices, b.) we have no obligation to anyone but ourselves, and c.) we are entitled to be “happy” even if comes at the expense of another person’s life. Why should the self-entitled brats of the Occupy Wall Street movement or the “spread the wealth around” Obama-voters surprise us? We taught them it was OK to kill someone to get what they want. And we’re surprised that they feel entitled to someone else’s money? They think that they’re entitled to take someone else’s life! The effects of legalized abortion are far-reaching and can be seen in many aspects of our society.
One of the big selling points of abortion, is the belief that limiting the number of “unwanted” births would cure or at least greatly reduce many of society’s ills. In the early days of Roe, it was assumed that fatherless homes, divorce, generational poverty, child abuse, and many crimes were often consequences of unwanted pregnancy. The problem is, since 1973, all of those problems have gotten worse. Even those who worried about unwed mothers dropping out of high school were wrong. The dropout rate immediately increased after Roe and continued to increase until the close of the century. Shockingly, legalizing an irresponsible way to cope with the consequences of irresponsible behavior, did not magically make people become more sexually responsible either. The infection rate of STD’s, particularly non-curable viral disease like herpes and HIV, have exploded since Roe v. Wade. Currently, about 20% of the US population is infected with an STD and about 12 million more are infected each year (this doesn’t include HPV which affects about half of all adults and 80% of women in their lifetime). And far from eliminating single-parenthood homes, now almost half of all births in the US are to single mothers, with the majority (53%) of mothers under age 30 being unwed.
Still, there are other effects on society which are slightly harder to quantify, but no less disturbing. Consider that as abortion has increased in acceptance internationally, respect for the value of human life has decreased. All three Benelux (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) countries and Switzerland have legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide. The nation of Belgium just killed two twin adults, who weren’t in pain and were not terminally ill, because they didn’t want to be blind. Here in the US, things aren’t much better. Assisted suicide is legal in Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Our own President said on national TV, that once a person is past a certain age we should just “give them a pain-pill” instead of medical treatment…and then we elected him to run our healthcare system! Speaking of which, I don’t really have to mention all of the “end of life” planning, “quality of life” planning, and “cost-effective treatment” panels in ObamaCare, do I? And the growing lack of respect for life goes far beyond the elderly and infirmed. Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom all have maternal filicide laws which automatically decrease the penalty given to a mother who kills a child under 1-year-old. In the UK, largely the inspiration for our new medical system, there is no medical assistance for premature babies who are less than 23 weeks old (premature babies have survived as young as 19 weeks) or weigh less than one pound. There are heart wrenching stories of mothers begging for doctors to help their babies who were one or two days under the limit and survived for hours without any assistance. There is the story of one, now healthy six month-old little girl, who met the standard of 23 weeks, but fell short of the weight requirement. It was only because a nurse left a pair of scissors on the scale with her that her life was spared. And before we dismiss this as some other country’s problem, keep in mind that we just re-elected a President who personally voted against the Born Alive Infant Proctection Act citing reasons like, these newborns shouldn’t be considered “persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a – child, a nine-month-old.” Do we really believe that in a nation where states allow late-term abortions and assisted suicides and the people elect an anti-life President like Barack Obama, that we will somehow stop ourselves short of the UK system? We’re inches away right now!
The most rewarding fight
Some of the most firmly pro-life people I know have given up on the public fight to end abortion. If you find yourself in that mindset, I would like to offer some encouragement. It took over 200 years to put an end to slavery in this country. At that time, it was so taboo for politicians to talk about slavery that the now infamous “gag rule” was put in place in Congress where all motions regarding slavery would be immediately tabled, with no discussion. But as the politicians were flooded with petitions from citizens who prayed for an end to slavery, a few of them were encouraged to speak up. John Quincy Adams, mentor of Abraham Lincoln, took it upon himself to drive his fellow representatives mad by introducing a petition to end slavery every time Congress was in session. He once introduced 350 petitions in a single day, petitions that he knew would be tabled without vote or discussion. Congress fired back and attempted to officially censure him. After petitions from citizens poured in, the representatives backed down and dropped the censure. Adams responded by introducing another 200 petitions to end slavery the following day. I am sure that after 200 years, many people believed that the fight had been lost long before. How sad it is for us, should we give up after a mere 40. Furthermore, the people of that day did not just wait for the right President or the right politician to save them. They prayed, they talked, they wrote books, they sent letters, and they signed petitions. They worked to change the culture, despite having no guarantee that things would go there way. They did it because it was the right thing to do.
We don’t need to wait for the perfect President. We don’t need to wait until Congress is full of “our guys.” Those things are nice, but without a culture of life, they won’t matter. Most politicians are driven entirely by their desire to keep their jobs. A people that value life will produce politicians that at least pretend to value it too. And unlike movements to reform the way we think about taxes or big government which require a huge national shift to get any results, making the case for life yields results when just one person changes their mind. Even if we never live to see the day when legalized abortion is struck down in this country, we should be motivated to speak up because we never know who is listening. Even the most uncomfortable of arguments are worth it, if through hearing the truth, one mother decides not to take a life. And if we’re really pro-life, that one life should be reason enough to fight on.
