"If you say, "Look, we did not know this."--does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay all according to their deeds? -Proverbs 24:12"
I've held my tongue on social media on the topic of abortion for the most part. Though, in the past I've written a paper on stem cell research and read books, studies, and articles on abortion regularly, I have kept quiet on Social Media because this is such a personal topic. I know people who have had abortions. I know even more people who are strongly Pro-Choice. I love and respect these people greatly. So if you're reading this and you're one of them, please know this is in no way directed against you specifically. I'd much rather have this conversation over coffee in my living room. Those conversations can be much more calm and personal I've found.
As the news broke Tuesday that Planned Parenthood strategizes their abortions in such a way as to end the life of the baby while also keeping specific body parts as intact as possible so as to sell them for higher value, I decided it was time - time to break my Social Media silence on the topic of abortion. God created all human beings with value. Planned Parenthood does not believe this - at least when it concerns an unborn, partially born, or possibly even just born baby, and it has proven to lead to quite grotesque consequences. (If you haven't watched the video in the link above or read a corresponding article, do that now.) That's why I'm writing. To be one of the many voices who calls attention to WHY we should be bothered by this. Dismembering an unborn child and selling its parts is not ok just because the mother didn't intend the pregnancy or want to parent the child.
We all value human life when we choose to.
I have had an unplanned pregnancy. My first baby was conceived while using contraception quite carefully during the first year of our marriage. Andrew and I planned on having our first baby after Seminary was complete. God had other plans.
Though the pregnancy was unplanned, our baby was not unwanted.
We rejoiced. And then we mourned. We miscarried the baby - "Kid" - very early on, which I wrote about here. Of course our friends and family rejoiced and mourned with us.
However, what should be so strange to us in a society where Planned Parenthood is often lauded for the way it aids women through abortions is that the medical community we encountered mourned with us. All of the doctors and nurses we saw said that they were "sorry for our loss," even though the pregnancy was only 4-6 weeks along. They were quite kind, and I am thankful, don't get me wrong, but it shows that we as a society place value on unborn life according to the value the mother (and in some cases father) place on it.
We don't do this (anymore - since slavery was abolished) with people who have a voice. But those who have no megaphone to shout outside of the womb "I am here! I hear my mother's voice! I feel safe here..." get left out of the conversation because it's easy to leave them out. They can't speak up.
Well, what if you don't love the idea of abortion, but you see it as a sort of necessary evil, and what if abortion is only a small part of what Planned Parenthood does? I've heard a statistic from a few sources that abortions are only 3% of what they do. For the sake of argument, let's go with it.
So, they offer other services such as mammogram referrals and contraceptive. Some people view them as a safe medical option for poorer women. So IF they are largely involved in other practices over killing and dismembering babies, then what? How should we feel about a company that supposedly does so much good with just 3% bad?
Would we be ok with a large company selling or using slaves as only 3% of their business? What if the other 97% of time and resources was spent on giving back to their community - serving as leaders in the public forum, fathers, deacons in the church? We already answered that question and fought that battle. It was called the Civil War.
Planned Parenthood is selling baby limbs, livers, lungs, and heads. They'll go to pretty great lengths for the head, according to the video that was released.
If we agree that dismembering a full-term human baby for money is wrong and evil, then the company that does it is wrong and evil. Even if they spend 97% of their time offering philanthropic medical services in difficult neighborhoods, the 3% is still enough to say they must be investigated and stopped. Slavery is wrong even if it's only a small part of what you do on your plantation. Abortion and the selling of human parts is wrong even if its only a small part of what you do at your clinic. Focusing on the "good" only puts a veil over the horrific holocaust of human life that is taking place in these clinics.
I think we all could agree that we don't want to end up in the same league with the WW2 era German citizens who lived near concentrations camps and could smell the burning flesh but claimed not to know what was happening.
You only "don't know" if you choose not to know.
It's bad enough to think of human life ended and thrown away in a trash can, but for it to be pre-planned to do the abortion in such a way as to potentially even turn a profit on its dead body parts... that's pure evil. And we are putting ourselves in line with the citizens from WW2 era Germany if we turn a blind eye and go on thinking that abortions are philanthropic, clean, and help more humans than they harm.
Most of us think of our society as sophisticated, moral, and definitely less barbaric than cultures who offered child sacrifices to their gods. We're not. Our society's gods are just different: convenience, self-fulfillment, education, self-preservation, money, selfishness, to name a few. We offer the babies who come from "unwanted pregnancies" on the altars of these gods.
"In the U.S., abortion is the blood sacrifice we make on the altar to the goddess of unfettered sexual behavior."
**A small note on the issue of "women's reproductive rights": If it weren't an abortion and the doctor turned the baby breach INTENTIONALLY, (s)he'd be brought to court for putting the mother and baby at risk (rightfully so). But because the mother has asked that the baby's life be ended, the doctor now also has the right to put the mother at risk? I can't even wrap my head around the insanity.
