No, I'm not ready to talk about this terrorism yet, as it is so fresh. However...
Lately I have been thinking about Kermit Gosnall. Click here at your own risk for a detailed summary of this monster's crimes. Suffice it to say, because of the MSM's blatant non-coverage of this story, I am slowly but surely giving up hope that I can be reasonable with liberals over their sacred cow which is abortion on demand. The Gosnall case contains more than enough murder and mayhem to warrant bombastic front page wall-to-wall coverage from the usual suspects, Nancy Grace and her ilk, and yet they mostly remain inexplicably silent, focusing instead on the murder trial of a psycho liar who happens to be a reasonably good looking young woman. Is the liberal press' silence political? Is the Pope Catholic?
I have always declared myself "pro-choice" here and to my friends, recognizing intellectually that as abhorrent as the procedure is - we are bound to have far less of them if we keep it safe and legal. But the Gosnall case has me reconsidering my cavalier views. If the result of a blind adherence to the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy at any time and for any reason - is that we willfully ignore the most heinous and outrageous abuse of this dictum, then where does true evil lie? And where does that leave someone like myself who is God fearing and has a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong?
This man butchered baby after baby after baby after baby. Mostly black babies. Mostly poor babies. It boggles my mind that so many are turning a blind eye to this great evil. Not because it they are too revolted to speak of it - we have entire museums devoted to equally horrific atrocities - but because it doesn't quite fit the liberal idea of freedom. Witness this piece of brilliance sent to me by my good friend Cali.
I finally may be coming around to radicalization. I refuse to be on the side that is casual about killing a baby. Planned Parenthood's official stance is that if a baby's spinal cord is snapped inside the womb, it is a medical procedure. Outside the womb, they could charitably be called "hazy on their stance". I cannot, in good conscience, share either of these views - even if it means that I find myself in the company of "crazy" people who believe that new life is innocent and sacred and should be defended.
I'll concede that the waters are a bit murkier in the early months of a pregnancy. My wife and I gave the nickname "rice grain" to the zygote inside her belly when we learned she was pregnant. I knew from google, that my future child was literally the size of a grain of rice at less than 2 months after conception. And yet, had Beverly miscarried at that point, I have no doubt that we both would have been devastated. We were so proud and happy that we had made a child, even one as small as a speck, and that it would grow and emerge. To lose that life, even a "rice grain" would surely have been traumatic.
And yes, I have been to Africa - I have seen the devastation of AIDS and abandoned babies that a society without adequate reproductive health care can bring upon the world. I saw a baby, starving to death in front of me in her mother's arms. What is the humane path here? Would it be more humane of the mother to have aborted this child? It is a blunt question that I wrestle with often, reflecting on the most desperate of circumstances and the sheer volume of children on this planet who suffer because they emerge into a sphere of poverty and desperation.
There are no easy answers on this issue. In the real world, it is complicated, it is difficult.
But God has been helping me find my way.
I often take my little girl to a park 3 blocks from our house. It is a softball field, next to nice basketball and tennis courts, next to a great playground, next to a beautiful field of grass and trees that is not quite large enough for idiot soccer players to ruin. The park is made even more peaceful and serene because it is directly adjacent to Valhalla Cemetery, an enormous but old and beautiful graveyard which is home to a large military contingent from World War I, as well as a fair amount of the old guard from Hollywood including Oliver Hardy.
In the park there are a couple of trees suitable for climbing, but the one Natalie likes best is right along the chain-link fence at the cemetery border. Just on the other side of the links is a very long row of truncated grave sites, seemingly crammed in against the fence. But they are not crammed in, they are short graves because these are the graves of babies. Infants. Most were only on this earth for a few days at most.
Most of these babies died ages ago. The majority of the graves are dated in the 1960's with only a handful from the 70's. One grave in particular caught my eye two Saturdays ago. It was the grave of a baby who had only lived 2 days in 1965. The grave caught my eye because atop of it sat a pristine white vase holding a batch of fresh spring flowers.
This angel had just had a visitor, like, probably earlier in the morning. I looked closer. October 6th, 1965, was the date of death. This baby died in October - exactly 48 years and 6 months ago. Nearly half a century ago this baby was born and died two days later. And 48 years and 6 months to the day later, fresh flowers had arrived right on schedule.
Not even a yearly anniversary, 48 1/2 years precisely. The love for this angel was still no doubt as fresh in someone's heart as those flowers.
And then there's Kermit Gosnall. And then there are those of us who are flippant about "terminating a pregnancy". I have been in this group at times. It's easy to fall into the trap.
"Who is going to care for that baby? Republicans?"
This is an actual argument I've heard from pro-choicers.
In the face of Kermit Gosnall, in the face of those flowers, it seems to be an absurd position.
Intellectually, I have already been radicalized past the point of any sympathy at all for people in this country who use abortion as a form of birth control. If you are privileged, as most people who are born in this country are, there really is no excuse for not stepping up and doing what is right. That one to me is easy. Sandra Fluke and other idiots like her who demand free birth control and free abortion on demand so they can do what feels good at any time without consequences are plainly despicable.
But in the cases of rape and incest, again the waters are murkier .
How can I tell someone who has endured unspeakable violence what her choice should be? On the other hand, are we really blaming an unborn baby for the crimes of violence and/or sickness perpetrated against it's mother?
This is the part where many pro-choicers FLIP out for someone even daring to ask this. I think it's a legitimate question, at the very least worthy of dialogue and discussion. My heart tells me that the baby is innocent and should be protected, but my heart also tells me that a woman who has been subject to the life altering horror of rape, in any of it's awful forms, has rights too. And I really can't speak for a woman who has endured this. I don't understand how pro-lifers can't honestly address this quandary.
Rape is soul shattering. I've never been down that road of pain - I can say the baby is innocent and should be protected, but realistically I can never walk in the shoes of a woman who bears the scars of rape or incest, and I cannot deny her a say in the matter. What about the baby's choice? Yes, people should speak for the baby - but ultimately the mother must decide. I would pray that she would choose life - but I cannot interfere with her decision, for history shows us that she will make it, legal or not.
This is my honest truth. I don't have an easy answer for this one - but I also think it is absurd for someone who calls themselves "pro-choice" to blindly proclaim anyone who puts out the question of protecting an innocent baby as "crazy" or "anti-woman".
The real war on women is carried out every day across the globe by millions of zealots who still practice female genital mutilation and honor killings. The war on women is not the compassionate pro-lifer whose heart tells them that an unborn baby is innocent.
And as for the third world, which I have been to and experienced more than a few times in my life - I cannot condone the starvation and depravation I have seen before my eyes. If birth control and adequate health care was made available in these places, suffering would be greatly reduced. This is a simple fact.
It does not take away the simple truth that the unborn are innocent - but it does no good for pro-lifers to blindly proclaim that every pregnancy must come to term and every baby must be born NO MATTER WHAT. People who say this sort of thing without any thought or introspection are not wrong in the most basic sense, but they are absent of any critical understanding of the real world.
Still, more often than not these days, I find myself leaning their way. Especially when it comes to my country and all the resources we have at our disposal. Does this mean I think African babies have less value than American ones? Of course not. But someone who lives in a shack with surrounded by raw sewage and filled with starving children, has a legitimate need for actual and practical mercy and compassion. Not platitudes without actual assistance.
And someone in the first world who has been brutalized into pregnancy, while their baby may be innocent, has the right to do what they feel they must do. I cannot speak to their horror and they alone must decide. Does this mean I'm okay with murdering babies? I don't know. Maybe it does. I pray that it does not. I pray for God to help me with this.
No easy answers. That's just the way it is. The abortion question is not a simple matter. If it were, most of us would be on one side of the issue.
Still, I keep going back to those flowers.
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