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Abortion kills an unborn child in the womb. Some people try
to justify this practice by arguing that victims of rape or
incest should not be forced to carry the baby to term. However,
although rape and incest are wrong, when the baby is aborted, an
innocent person, not the wrongdoer, is being punished. People
also argue that, in the event of a threat to the life of the
mother in childbirth, the mother's life should not be spared for
the baby. However, frequently the mother, having carried the
baby for nine months, would rather give up her life for the
baby's sake, as Rachel did for Benjamin, rather than have the
baby killed for her own safety.
Usually, the baby is killed for convenience's sake. In ancient
Greece and modern India, unwanted daughters are left, abandoned,
to die of exposure. Modern medicine has simply permitted people
to practice infanticide without the pain or child-bearing--even
though, due to modern drugs, child-bearing is not nearly as
painful as it was.
Some people say that abortion is kinder than letting an unwanted
child live a cruel or hungry life. But note that the child's
choice to live or to die is not consulted by those people who
speak so very persistently about their own right to choice over
what to do with their body.
Also, the same reasoning they use in saying that killing a baby
is kinder than letting it live unwanted could also be used to
legalize not only infanticide, but also the killing of
abandoned, lonely, ill and suffering older people. In fact,
people in the right to die movement, arguing for
physician-assisted suicide to be legal, use the same
"pro-choice" reasoning that pro-abortion people use, and more
consistently. So far, right-to-die movement has only used the
the argument widely for people severely or terminally ill, to
end their suffering by allowing them to die in peace. However,
recently, people simply sad and lonely, who want to die, have
already obtained physician-assisted suicide. If that is
considered moral (and people favoring abortion can't with
consistent logic oppose it), then why wouldn't people even
temporarily tired of life, disappointed in love, weary of
considerations, terrified of business or family
responsibilities, end his/her life in the name of freedom of
choice?
Christians have a logical, reasonable answer: God gives life,
and only He has the right to take it. Therefore, the man who
sheds blood answers to God (Genesis 9). The blood of Abel, and
of every murdered person, including every aborted baby, cries
out for vengeance, so today many lands are filled with the blood
of the innocent slain.
Now, "partial-birth abortions" have begun, in which the
late-term baby is forced to be born, withdrawn feet-first until
only the head is still left inside the mother. Then the "doctor"
punctures the head, suctions out the brain, and so kills the
baby who is still not yet completely withdrawn from the mother.
This horrible practice has been brought to public notice and
banned by the USA House of Representatives and Senate, with
support from both major parties. President Clinton vetoed the
bill, which he has the right as president to do. The USA
Congress (i.e., House of Representatives + Senate) could not get
the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto, so
partial-birth abortions continue, although abortions as a whole
are decreasing.
The 1996 United Pentecostal Church general conference authorized
a letter to President Clinton in which the USA UPC expresses its
outrage at his veto. Clinton had said that he vetoes the bill
because it did not provide for saving the mother's life. In
answer, the UPC letter quoted a Wall Street Journal article
co-authored by Doctor Nancy Romer, clinical professor of
obstetrics and gynecology at Wright State University and
chairperson of obstetrics and gynecology at Miami Valley
Hospital in Ohio. She said:
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Contrary to what abortion
activists would have us believe, partial-birth abortion is
never medically indicated to protect a woman's health or her
fertility. In fact, the opposite is true. The procedure can
pose a significant and immediate threat to both the pregnant
woman's health and her fertility.
Consider the dangers inherent in partial-birth abortion, which
usually occurs after the fifth month of pregnancy. A woman's
cervix is forcibly dilated over several days, which risks
creating an "incompetent cervix," the leading cause of
premature deliveries. It is also an invitation to infection, a
major cause of infertility. The abortionist then reaches into
the womb to pull a child feet first out of the mother, but
leaves the head inside. Under normal circumstances, physicians
avoid breech births whenever possible; in this case, the
doctor internally causes one--and risks tearing the uterus in
the process. He then forces scissors through the base of the
baby's skull--which remains lodged just within the birth
canal. This is a partially "blind" procedure, done by feel,
risking direct scissors injury to the uterus and laceration of
the cervix or lower uterine segment, resulting in immediate
and massive bleeding and the threat of shock or even death to
the mother.
None of this risk is ever necessary for any reason. Never is
the partial-birth procedure necessary. Not for hydrocephaly
(excessive cerebrospinal fluid in the head), not for
polyhydramnios (an excess amount of amniotic fluid collecting
in the women) and not for trisomy (genetic abnormalities
characterized by an extra chromosome).
Sometimes, as in the case of hydrocephaly, it is first
necessary to drain some of the fluid from the baby's head. And
in some cases, when vaginal delivery is not possible, a doctor
performs a Caesarian section. But in no case is it necessary
to partially deliver an infant through the vagina and then
kill the infant." |
The Washington Post surveyed physicians and discovered that most
patients receiving partial-birth abortions were young, poor,
single women without health problems, with the procedure
performed at their request. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a
Democrat from New York, said that partial-birth abortion is "as
close to infanticide as anything I've come upon." Representative
Hyde from Illinois said:
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One of the great errors of
modern politics is our foolish attempt to separate our
consciences from our public acts, and it cannot be cone. At
the end of the 20th century, is the crowing achievement of our
democracy to treat the weak, the powerless, the unwanted as
things? To be disposed of? If so, we have not elevated
justice; we have disgraced it.
This is not a debate about sectarian religious doctrine nor
about policy options. This is a debate about our understanding
of human dignity, what does it mean to be human? Our moment in
history is marked by a mortal conflict between culture of
death and a culture of life, and today, here and now, we must
choose sides. I am not the least embarrassed to say that I
believe one day each of us will be called upon to render an
account for what we have done, and maybe more importantly,
what we fail to do in our lifetime, and while I believe in a
merciful God, I believe in a just God, and I would be
terrified at the thought of having to explain at the final
judgment why I stood unmoved while Herod's slaughter of the
innocents was being reenacted here in my own country." |
Some members of the House of Representatives have changed sides
on the issue. For example, Marge Roukema, a Republican from New
Jersey, who voted against the original bill outlawing
partial-birth abortions, switched side because the House-Senate
conference committee had addressed her concerns. She said, "Over
time I've been reading about this and informing myself. It's a
decision that was very difficult to make, but I decided it comes
to close to infanticide."
I hope people will come to understand that both infanticide and
abortion are morally wrong, intrinsically evil, and must be
opposed as part of our obligation to stand against sin.
In America, the pro-abortion movement cites rape and incest as
reasons for abortion, but most abortions today are still done
for convenience. When people were asked why they had an
abortion, some gave more than one answer. Here were the top
three: "baby would interfere with my work" (75%); "can't afford
a child" (65%); "problems with spouse" (50%). This was reported
in Apostolic Information Service, Vol 8, No. 4. So people who do
have jobs put their money before their child, and people who
don't work put their lack of money before their child. None of
them seemed to understand that the child's life is more
important than their economic situation, and, at any rate, they
value their sexual activity more than they feel responsible for
the results of it. |
