The skulls of children
Gene Veith – not long after referring us to the concept of culling as an allegedly appropriate one for the murder of children in the womb – points us to an abortion horror story in which a young woman went for an abortion, and the doctor was late. Her child was born alive and well. An unqualified individual cut the umbilical cord, dropped the infant into a biohazard bag and disposed of it.
Irony of ironies, the mother is now suing the doctor and the owners of the clinic. For what? Killing her baby? Where did that shift in thinking take place?
On a similar note, I watched a documentary about Comic Relief, the regular British charity ‘laugh-a-thon’ (or whatever it’s meant to be called) in which we cut back and forth between images of starving children and battered wives and AIDS-ravaged communities and celebrities on varying alphabetical grade lists doing things of varying comedy and vulgarity and the juxtaposition somehow persuades us to part with millions of pounds each year.
Parts of the documentary were profoundly harrowing and deeply moving. In one, a gentleman gazes at rows of skulls in Rwanda, and cannot help but notice and draw attention to an infant’s skull among the mangled adult specimens, many showing bullet holes, machete cuts, and blows with heavy, blunt instruments.
“What a waste,” he says. “What a waste.”
What if all the skulls crushed and mangled in abortions were piled together? How high would the shards reach? How many millions are being slaughtered at a fearful rate in our nations that are so disgusted by suffering in other places? Where does this illogical leap get made?
I don’t know the man’s stance on abortion, but I imagine that many if not most of those involved in such programmes would fight tooth and nail for “a woman’s right to choose.”
The moral inconsistency is shocking, grievous.
We are moved by celebrities clicking their fingers at three second intervals to represent the deaths of starving people. Would you be moved if I beat a drum several times each minute, each blow representing the death of a child, conducted perfectly legally in most instances, among the very nations that rise up in moral outrage because others elsewhere are suffering?
Will future generations look back and wonder at the moral blindness, the blinkered vision, that allowed us to contribute millions to save children starving elsewhere (no bad thing in itself) while slaughtering wholesale our own?
Very moving. The war against abortion will not be won by legislation, the battle is with individuals that must be reached with the Love of Christ. God forgive us for what we are doing.
willohroots
Saturday 7 February 2009 at 14:24
So, abortion is wrong, is it? What if a sixteen year old girl is out with her friends, is attacked and raped? Is it wrong for her to have an abortion as well????
Rebecca
Wednesday 25 February 2009 at 17:27
Rebecca -
I wasn’t sure at whom your indignation was directed (myself or the earlier commenter), or what lies behind it, but I thought I would undertake to respond, at least in part. In doing so, I have sought to put myself as close to the situation as I can imagine, and I can see at least something of the anguish, anger and desperation that might result.
First of all, let me assure you that such a young woman, if I had the opportunity to speak with her, would receive all the care that I could offer as a shepherd of souls. I would not want you or anyone for one instant to imagine that I would be dismissive of or careless about such a situation. I would want that poor girl to know of the cleansing of Christ’s blood, a cleansing that addresses sins done against us as well as by us, and assures us that we stand pure and perfect in the sight of God, made clean through the blood of the Lamb. I would also do all in my power to ensure that – were that young woman to become pregnant – she would receive all the advice and support that I could provide and conjure.
However, with regard to the principle of your question: we will not argue the likelihood of a pregnancy arising from such an awful event, but we will presume that this young woman discovers herself to be pregnant as a result of this repugnant crime.
[However, as an aside, I do wish that abortion were entirely abolished as a legal option for pregnant mothers: I think that is the only consistently pro-life position. However, given the level of incidence, I should consider it a massive step toward abolition if abortions were permitted only in instances in which pregnancy were the result of rape. That is not enough, but it would alter the whole landscape of the issue at a blow.]
I would begin by sensitively saying that hard cases make bad precedents. Without for one instant dismissing the possibility and difficulty of such hard cases, they are not to be the basis for our principles. Our ethical response is not to be governed by situation and circumstance. We do not underplay or dismiss the situation and circumstances, but we cannot allow them to determine right or wrong.
Furthermore, I would change the nature of your question from “Is it wrong for this girl to have an abortion?” to “Does rape make murder right?” It is not trite to remind ourselves that ‘two wrongs do not make a right.’ While no-one in their right mind would condone or excuse an act of rape, an act of rape cannot in itself condone or excuse an act of murder. We must consider the act of abortion apart from the situation and circumstances, however grievous: it is not right to kill an unborn child. Neither would the child be the only victim; you would be heaping guilt upon shame if this young mother were then to have an abortion. To have her dealing with the fall-out of an abortion as well as of the rape would be the height of cruelty, even though many might imagine that having the pregnancy come successfully to term would be the worst of all possible outcomes.
And what of the long-term consequences? I do not know. But I know that God can give grace for situations that we might imagine to be unconscionable and impossible, and he is the God who knows how to bring good out of evil (Genesis 50.20). Please do not dismiss the healing and sustaining power of God just because you might not have experienced it: God’s loving care of his people is not a throwaway, happy-clappy, pious heal-all, and all those who come to him in repentance and faith find true peace for their souls, the joy of sins forgiven, and the assurance of his tender care through every trial and blessing, through every grief and sorrow as well as every happiness and delight.
Rebecca, please do not understand this necessarily brief answer as dismissive, casual, or crass. It is merely a sketch of principle, not an exhaustive treatment of principle in practice. The precise situation might lead to all kinds of nuances in my response, but the fundamentals would be the same, because those things are unshakeable, and it is a matter of obedience to the living and true God, a God of mercy and grace to the undeserving, but also a God of justice who will not allow the wicked – including rapists and murderers – to go unpunished.
Jeremy Walker
Tuesday 3 March 2009 at 21:04
Abortion is wrong no matter what the circumstances are!!! I was raped as a teenager and I decided to keep my baby. He is a biracial 18 year old who is doing very well for himself. God has plans for all babies no matter how they have been conceived!!!
Jannette
Tuesday 31 March 2009 at 16:33
Thank you, Jannette. It is a privilege to hear from someone who can testify to the righteousness of those convictions worked out through profoundly painful experience. I very much appreciate your making this plain declaration.
Jeremy Walker
Thursday 9 April 2009 at 12:29
Sir,
I’m sorry and I have to take point when you try to compare the unborn with people who are already viable. If you care so much for children why are you not in Africa or indeed in our very own cities caring on a daily basis for the children born to women who opted not to have abortions. Why are you not chronicling the courage of these woman to bring babies into already desperate situations where they may be born crack addicted or the last in a long line of mouths to feed? Why are you not calling out for a socialization of health care so that all of these babies you want so badly to be born can receive all the care they deserve as viable human beings? Why are you not running underground facilities for women trying to get out of abusive relationships with the babies they gave birth to? Are you in the women’s shelters? What are you doing to prevent abortion? Are you passing out literature to teenagers about contraceptives? Are you passing out contraceptives? Are you attempting to demystify sex to teenagers? Are you teaching boys and girls about body issues and are you attempting to encourage parents to take an active interest in an open way towards their children and indeed their children’s sex lives so that when they have questions about sex they can go to someone who actually may know something rather than the internet and their peers? Are you paying for prenatal care, for delivery services, for postnatal care?
Are you putting your very life in jeopardy for a child that was forced upon you by an act of brutality (and I am not knocking anyone’s choice to keep a child in this circumstance, I’m just not comfortable asking or requiring someone who is in that situation to do it)? Are you putting your life in jeopardy (bc pregnancy is risky business indeed, although it may not seem like it most of the time in our society but women die all the time from childbirth) for a child (planned or unplanned)?
Sir, I understand that you feel abortion is immoral but I have to say that every society had some form of it. In many cases it was not nearly as humane as ours. We have many children in this world in need of your care and your sympathy and I urge you to go and help them. Be an advocate for children who are already born, bc it seems more and more everyone is interested in my uterus and what happens in it, but not in the outcome.
We can reduce the number of abortions but not through scripture and shame, through knowledge and opening our society, past shame. Girls and boys should not be ashamed to properly identify their body parts, girls and boys should not be ashamed of masturbation, and we should take all the emphasis off of ‘chastity’ for all its creeptastic side effects and move towards a healthier alternative of sexual awareness and respect (of others and oneself, and that means knowing when to and when not to engage in sexual activities).
I fail to see how baby skulls and shaming is helping the issue and I urge you to do real good in the world through action AND word, but mainly action.
Respectfully,
MB
Maria
Friday 5 June 2009 at 03:57
Powerful and thoughtful post, Wanderer.
Thanks for posting!
treeoflifelondon
Friday 21 August 2009 at 01:55