Defending Life

A few weeks ago my husband and I attended our local pregnancy support center's annual fundraising banquet. Afterward, we rushed home to take care of our grandkids so their parents could work their respective night shift jobs. As I put those precious grandbabies to bed, I began to ponder anew the existence of abortion in our world. I had been a pro-life zealot in the past, fighting the battle with prayer, protests, and relentlessly giving family and friends the facts about abortion. Over the years, complacency set in, and I gradually lost my zeal, giving up the battle and letting others shoulder the load. That night, however, I was reminded that as long as we humans kill our own, we have not outgrown the barbarism of slavery, racism, and sanctioned murder. We are still the same people who enslaved and brutalized African Americans, lied to, stole from, and murdered Native Americans, burned women at the stake under the guise of Christianity, just to name a few of our nation's past atrocities. And now, the blood of our discarded children cries out from the ground for justice.

Pro-Choicers cite compassion for women in difficult situations as the reason for their stance, some even claiming to be personally opposed to abortion for themselves. The bottom line is that they believe it's a woman's right to choose what goes on with her body. But what about the other person whose life is at stake? These same people have great compassion for animal rights, humanitarian causes, and starving children in third world countries, but are incredibly blind to the sanctity of the unborn's life, and to the fact that abortion has two victims-the child and the mother. She is forever scarred and guilty, as much as she tries to justify her actions. My heart bleeds for the mothers who have aborted their babies. They were sold a bill of goods and believed the lie that they made the best choice under the circumstances. Thankfully, they have a merciful God who forgives and heals their sin, just as He forgives and heals all our sins. Their sin is no greater or worse than any other. It just bleeds more.

I ran across the following on the Association of Pro-life Physician's website, and as it is so powerfully and eloquently worded, I have taken the liberty to share it.

"One can rarely engage in a discussion over abortion without one of the rare cases being brought up to justify abortion:

“What if the woman is raped?”
“What if a thirteen-year old conceives through incest?”
“What if the fetus is deformed and unlikely to survive anyway?”
“What if the mother’s health is at risk?”
“What if the mother’s life is threatened by her pregnancy?”

We would be remiss to deny the emotional sway of these rare scenarios that would pull at the heart-strings of any compassionate physician. We grieve with our patients who endure such tragedies in life, and want to provide the best healthcare possible to them. But do these dire circumstances justify an abortion?

It is easy to prove that these objections to the pro-life ethic are insincere. What if someone brought up these arguments to justify the killing of an infant: “The baby was conceived through rape” - “The infant is deformed and mentally handicapped” - “The mother’s health is suffering as a result of her baby.” Would anyone who endorses abortion in the womb openly justify the killing of an infant using these excuses? No, they would not. This proves that these objections are insincere and that the heart of the matter is whether the fetus is a living human. If it could be proven that the human fetus is just as alive and just as human as the infant, then these objections would not justify aborting a fetus any more than an infant. (For a thorough scientific argument proving that life begins at conception, please see the article on our website or the APP tract “When Does Human Life Begin?”)

We must respond to all tragic circumstances of pregnancy from the unshakeable foundation of two indisputable premises: human life begins at conception, and it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. The unborn child’s right to life and liberty is given by his or her Creator, not by his or her parents or by the state. The right to life is inalienable: that is, not to be trespassed upon by another. In tragic circumstances such as rape or incest, we want to care for both the mother and her unborn baby. We want to relieve the suffering of the mother and her unborn baby. It is never right to intentionally kill an innocent person, even if it does relieve another’s emotional or physical suffering. It’s not up to a vote, and our obligation to submit unto divine judgments does not sway with our circumstances." (http://www.prolifephysicians.org/rarecases.htm)

Cloaked and anesthetized in pseudonyms like choice, pregnancy termination, "morning after pill", and even the necessary-sounding word, abortion, the snuffing out of a human life becomes abstract and clinical. It's easy to endorse something without fully understanding the horror taking place thousands of times each day.

Abortion is the act of murdering a human being in cold blood. It doesn't erase or rewind, it tears, maims, shreds, crushes, assassinates, butchers, slaughters, executes, destroys and massacres. Depending on the method, it also decaptitates, eviscerates, poisons, disembowels, suffocates, garrotes, burns and dismembers. It isn't a nice, neat, clean way to remove an unwanted growth.

I have marched with fellow pro-lifers who carried pictures of aborted babies, much to the shock of observers. We were treated as if WE were the artists responsible for composing the heinous sights. To quote from the website http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_pictures/, "Though pictures of aborted embryos and fetuses are shocking, they are no more shocking than the act of abortion itself. Until you see what abortion does, you will never accurately understand what abortion is. There are some things for which words alone fail to accurately communicate their brutality."

Now to shift from referring to abortion as the cause of death, I want to place the tools of slaughter directly into the hands of the perpetrators, and to be honest, it is us. We are guilty either by passively allowing, as a society, this atrocity and horror, or we are deceived into thinking it's not really murder-more of a medical procedure-and anyway, shouldn't each woman decide? I propose that if the murder of deformed 3-year-old children began to take place, we would rise up in horror!

Not only do we all corporately share in the slaughter of the innocent, we also share the guilt of the loss of great talent and the extraordinarily gifted. Just as Tim Tebow's mother was encouraged to abort him, other mothers pregnant with fantastically brilliant individuals have been tempted with that same choice, and sadly, thousands have succumbed to the pressure. Gianna Jessen, an aborted baby who miraculously survived a saline abortion, and who now suffers from cerebral palsy as a result, speaks out powerfully for life. I have included a must-watch link to her speech to the Australian parliament: http://youtu.be/BrPuOrEMNwE

In this video, she says, "Some day we will stand before God and we will ask Him "Why did you let so many people die of cancer, AIDS and war."
God will answer:
I sent you someone with the cure for Cancer, but you aborted them.
I sent you someone with the cure for AIDS, but you aborted them.
I sent you the Prince of Peace, but you hung him on a cross.

At what point will we Christians rise up and defend the unborn child's right to life? What will it take to mobilize us from our complacency? The blood of the innocent cries out from the ground, and we don't hear it.

Check out: http://bound4life.com/