Allow me to interrupt what is likely the post-Superbowl barrage of handegg stories with two pro-life thoughts
1. Catholic Answers Live recently (Jan 28) ran two hours of Q&A from only pro-choice callers. Several callers brought up the objection that abortion should be allowed for victims of rape and incest. There is the typical (and true) response that two wrongs don’t make a right. The awesomely-able Trent Horn fielded (those and other) questions beautifully, reminding callers that we abhor rape and incest because it is violence perpetuated against an innocent victim, which of course is also true for abortion since unborn children are innocent but have the ultimate act of violence perpetuated against them.
One caller, though, presented the heartbreaking story of her parents abandoning her and her sister when they were ages three and nine, respectively. She wondered whether it would be better to not bring children into such a horrible situation to begin with than to let them live through the rejection.
Every option has costs or consequences; abortion has been so sugar-coated by our sex-without-consequences culture that it is sold as having no cost. Therefore, if the choice is to have a child who will later be abandoned vs. to abort it, the costless option always wins.
As terrible as it is to leave two defenseless girls on their own, I cannot imagine that either of them would have considered it more loving to have not been given a chance to live at all. The fate of being abandoned by one’s parents still allows plenty of opportunities for God’s grace to be revealed through other people serving in charity. Being aborted is, well, final. There are plenty of examples of people who embrace God’s grace and share it with others even after being conceived by rape or surviving abortion itself.
Clik here to view.
“Expulsion of negroes and abolitionists from Tremont Temple, Boston, Massachusetts, on December 3, 1860.” Wikimedia commons
2. In an earlier show with Trent Horn he described the nomenclature used in abortion debates. With even Planned Parenthood attempting to move away from the language of choice, perhaps our side can consider reframing the debate as well. Trent mentioned being an “abortion abolitionist.” The similarities between slavery and abortion are chilling, not least of which that both were advanced and accepted by dehumanizing not just individual victims, but an entire class of people. Even slaves were legally deemed to be “three-fifths” of a person (though they were treated with zero dignity); the unborn are considered zero-fifths, just a blob of tissue.
The scary prospect is that most abolitionists faced fierce persecution by the society that saw no problem with evil. Perhaps pro-lifers are too wary to ruffle feathers, or too fearful of facing jail time or worse. But using the label of “abortion abolitionist” provides a clear picture of the situation: a large segment of our society is being denied its God-given and legal rights to life. As the saying goes, if we won’t stand up for them, who will?
