By David S. Roberts
This is a difficult subject with emotions running very deep on both sides of the issue. Many fear to approach this subject with good reason, few want to take the stand that I will and do because of my own deep convictions about this topic. In preparation for this article, several sad truths came to light. First, there is a deadly contradiction at work in American society. Second, there is an underlying value being ignored in American society. And third, there is a terrible apathy about this subject in American society. You will not agree with everything I write, and that's okay, I would simply ask that you listen and open your mind and your heart to the message.
Abortion Clinic
I. There is a Deadly Contradiction at Work.
We all saw the headlines. I don't think that there was one of us that wasn't shocked when we heard that Susan Smith drove that car into the lake with her children inside. She killed them because, now as a newly divorced mom, they had become inconvenient, disposable because her dating life was suffering. The outrage of the country was immediate, callers to radio stations everywhere demanding that she be dealt the same fate she gave her sons, trapped in a car, at the bottom of a lake.
Or what about Andrea Yates or Kasey Anthony what person with a quarter of a conscience didn't scream out, 'God what's happening?' Or what about the case of the man charged with vehicular homicide more than a few years ago because the pregnant woman he struck suffered a miscarriage? The outcry is there, a baby is dead and the mother suffers a loss, and the community cries out to stop this kind of misfortune, but give that same man a license and a clinic and the baby he just killed becomes just another 'fetus'. AND THERE IS NO OUTCRY!
What about the pregnant woman who was charged with, get this, 'reckless endangerment of LIFE' when she disregarded the judge's orders to quit using drugs and used again?
What about the teenager who was charged with felony child abandonment, when she left her newborn child in the trash bin in an alley?
We all think, how could a mother kill her own child? But given the right circumstances, not one of these crimes can be prosecuted because in some cases, the fetus is a baby, and in others it's just a mass of tissue.
There is a deadly contradiction at work here. The debate for abortion used to center around whether the fetus was really a living human. But the pro-abortion folk lost that debate in every round, so the debate has changed focus. Whether the fetus is human or not is no longer the issue. It's PRO-CHOICE!
For the woman who wants her unborn child, the man who kills the child, accidentally, is charged with murder. For the woman who doesn't want the child, she is charged 5 by a man who kills her child legally. For the Andrea Yates or Kasey Anthonys' of the world, they are considered monsters, for the woman emerging from the abortion clinic, she is a hero of liberal causes. There is also a deadly contradiction in the news media, (surprised?) We all heard about the Florida abortion doctor who was gunned down in his home, it was on 24/7 until the killer was caught and jailed. How many of us heard about the Pro-Choice advocate who stormed into a church service one Sunday and gunned down the Pro-Life Minister? Where was that on the news? Or what about the woman who bled to death within hours of her abortion from the very clinic that the doctor who was gunned down worked in. What about the woman who was fired from her job at US West for wearing a pro-life pin to work? Was there any coverage of that? Outside of locally, no there was not. Did you hear any news of the prayer group who were meeting outside an abortion clinic who were beaten by police as they lay on the ground? Or about the van that deliberately and slowly ran over the pro-life activists, trying to deliver a woman to get an abortion?
What about the complaints from abortion clinics to the billboards being erected near their places of business that show a picture of a murdered unborn child. Pro-Choice advocates call them "tacky, in bad taste, and offensive". In other words, as long as what we are doing in here is not visible to the naked eye, then it's legal, protected and acceptable. But how dare you show other people what we do! Do any of these cases sound familiar to you, heard about them in the media? No, and you won't because as anyone with half a brain knows now-a-days, the media has an agenda all their own.
But think of it, when it is choice that determines whether an action is murder or acceptable, then we have eliminated any standard of right and wrong. Choice does not make the determination of life vs. non-life, life is life regardless, the choice is in the taking of that life and that is not one that we have the right to make. This brings us to our second truth.
II. There is an Underlying Value being Ignored.
Life is important to God. From the life of the unborn child to the life of the retiree, life is important to God.
Psalm 139:13-15
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place."
Jeremiah 1:4-5
"The word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
In reading these and other passages, we see that life is important to God, including the life of the unborn child, whom God knows, whom God forms, whom God can set apart. But in this country, choice has become God. We are ignoring a standard God Himself set. When we ignore the value of life in favor of choice, the choice then has to extend to the the children who are born, but who become hard to manage, to elderly parents who become incapable of fending for themselves, and to the handicapped who don't "contribute to our society".
And if you think that this sounds cruel, or farfetched, listen a moment. In the Netherlands, where abortion is and has been socially acceptable for more years than it has been here, they passed a euthanasia law allowing people to kill themselves if they so wish. But today, in the Netherlands, doctors in emergency rooms are given the option of whether to spend the time and efforts trying to save a life, as a matter of fact they have issued little cards much like our organ donor cards that say essentially, "please don't let me die, try to save me." If an accident victim does not have that card, the doctors make that person's final determination as to whether they will live or die. And it was just ten years ago that they introduced a law that would allow parents of any child born blind, deaf, retarded, or severely handicapped to decide if that child should be allowed to live, or left to starve to death alone in an isolation ward.
CHOICE HAS BECOME GOD! Now it's no longer an issue whether the life is human or not, now it's a matter of a parents', a doctors', a stressed out adult child's word, and a life can be legally discarded as if it were trash.
With respect for life is so scarce, no wonder we've got kids killing kids just to see what it would feel like.
You might say, Dave, what about the arguments the pro-abortion people use? Is the fetus human? Well, the Bible says so, and for me that is good enough. But for those of you who can't accept the Bible, what about Science? Science says so too. Life is defined as that which has ability to reproduce itself, and from the moment of conception, when each cell divides and reproduces, that is life.
Some use the "it's my body" argument against ending abortion, when in actuality, it's not the woman's body. The child is in the woman's body, but is distinct and separate from the woman, often having a different blood type than the woman. This is not a procedure to remove a tumor, it is a violent act of murder upon an innocent human infant. But let's just say that this isn't the case that the baby really is part of her body. We don't allow a woman to inject illegal drugs into her body. We don't allow her to sell her body in prostitution, except in Vegas, so that shouldn't really surprise anyone. So if we don't give a woman a right to do these things, how can she demand the right to murder her unborn child under the guise of "it's her body".
It is a false argument entirely.
But Dave, you might say, what about the children who are born handicapped. Wouldn't their "quality of life" mean anything to you? Let me answer you this way, when the right of another person to live comes down to the judgment of their contribution to society, or their comprehension as to the world around them, then we open the floodgates for increase moral disintegration. There are many healthy, sane people who only contribution to our society is in raising their children right, I'd say that is a great contribution to society. We wouldn't have the inspirational stories of Helen Keller, Ray Charles, or any other handicapped individual who may not have contributed like Keller or Charles but perhaps they have value because life is important to God. And He values them.
But let's use this same logic. Shouldn't we then as was done in the movie, Logan's Run, set an age limit up to which one may live? In the movie the age was 30, now, writing as a 40 year old, I would object to this policy, but let's say set it at 65. After all, they are done working then, so therefore cannot contribute any more to society. So all Senior Citizens upon reaching 65 years of age will be humanely put to sleep, medical costs would plummet, Social Security could be saved, but what for and nursing homes would no longer be a necessity.
Sound heartless? Life is life, whether it is the unborn child, or the retiree. And a woman no more has the moral right to the choice to end her unborn child's life than I have to end hers, yours, or anyone else's. Is the unborn child a life? Consider these facts:
The unborn child has a heartbeat by the 18th day.
The unborn child's brain begins to function at 40 days.
The unborn child breathes, moves and sleeps.
The unborn child grows, hiccups, and sucks his thumb.
The unborn child is operated on to correct defects and this is how they learned that the unborn child feels pain.
The unborn child is fully formed before the mother even knows she is pregnant.
The unborn child can survive outside the womb at 20 weeks and with current technology improving, that number will get pushed back to 19,18?
Abortions can be performed on these unborn children up to the moment of their birth. Most people aren't aware of what happens in an abortion, and though not pleasant, the fact is you've been lied to as to the normalcy and ease of this procedure. Abortion is a violent, dangerous procedure. I will not describe the methods used, I choose not to.
What I will describe to you are the saddest cases, the babies who are not wanted, but are too developed to be murdered without risk to the mother. They induce labor, and the child is left alone in a room separate from the viewing room at the hospital. They are allowed to starve to death, some who are too developed are taken part way out of the womb while the 'doctor' strangles the life out of the child, which upon death, is discarded in the trash.
III. There is a Terrible Apathy poisoning our Culture.
There is a terrible apathy poisoning our culture. We've got people going all out for all causes. There is a car driving around Kissimmee with loads of bumper stickers on the back, among them are, "Save the Whales", "Save the Manatees", "Meat is Murder" and finally, "I vote Pro-Choice". In other words, save everything but the humans!
We have people devoting time and energy to causes like saving the whale stuck in the ice flow, save the polar bears from global warming, bring back the red M&M, but very few are even trying to stop the murder of children!
And the most tragic part of it all is that there is a terrible apathy among Christians in regards to this subject. We think that there is nothing that we can do because the problem is too big. But that's wrong, there's a lot we can do. If you choose to picket an abortion clinic, that's legitimate, if not legal. If you choose to pray about the situation, that where our power comes from. Maybe you can support a pro-life organization financially, that's another choice.
But the single most important thing you can do only takes a few moments of your time. And that is, you can vote Pro-Life. Disagree with me if you wish, what issue is more important than the life of an unborn child? Security of our nation? How long do you think we will stay safe if we keep offending God by the murdering of the innocent? Romans 1:32 makes it clear that those who give approval to sinners for committing sin, are just as guilty as those committing the sin. So the next time you go to vote for the lesser of two evils, or for your union job and the candidate is for the murder of human infants, just imagine yourself with your hands wrapped around the neck of a newborn, who came along with just bad timing, because your vote for a pro-abortion candidate is exactly the same as approving, even committing the act of abortion.
When I saw my daughter born 9 weeks prematurely struggling to breathe, with wires coming out from all angles, I knew that no one would ever be able to tell me that abortion was a choice any longer. Her arms were almost as thick as a crayola marker, she was almost six pounds, and she was the biggest baby in the neo-natal ICU. Others' arms were thinner than a #2 pencil, tubes stuck down their throats allowing them to breathe, I watched as the nurses pricked heels to draw blood and the expression on the faces of the infants in pain.
I do not believe that anyone after seeing the size of a premature baby or one of those new 3D imaging sonograms, I do not believe that anyone having seen that can still be for abortion without surrendering their humanity in the process. The question is now what are you going to do about it, because Death Is Not a Choice.
Death is Not a Choice
David Roberts, CFE, CQBPA, MBA, lives in Kissimmee, Florida with four girls, three dogs, two snakes and one wife. He has been a member of the ACFE for four years and has been studying fraud for longer than that. He is the owner of Homesoon Accounting Services which specializes in Quickbooks Consultations and Fraud Prevention and Detection.
By David S. Roberts