Stand for Life

As we watch politicians race to position themselves as the most “Pro-Choice” individuals in the country, we are seeing a hardening of hearts that Jesus said would take place in the Last Days.  There was a time in human history when tearing an unborn child from a woman’s womb was a horrific act carried out by only the most savage of barbarians as they engaged in conquest - an action designed to instill terror and make sure no heirs would rise up to exact revenge.


Later, as nations grew more “civilized” abortion became an unspoken means of bringing an end to an inconvenient situation.  Typically it was the consequence of an illicit act carried out by a member of the upper class whose reputation would be ruined or at the very least severely damaged by having an illegitimate child brought into the world.
In the early twentieth century the eugenics movement, with its desire to purify the human race by weeding out undesirables like the mentality or physically disabled or people from certain races or social classes, combined with the ruling class’s desire to make the means by which they could address certain inconveniences in a safer manner, began to bring abortion out of the back alleys and in to the field of legitimate medical practice.  However Nazi Germany’s horrific embrace of eugenics undermined this effort and abortion lost its momentum for social acceptance for a time.
Then came the 1960’s and the Free Love movement.  Suddenly parents in the burgeoning middle class found themselves with certain inconveniences they wished to remedy.  There were daughters and sons with college educations to complete and careers to pursue that could all come undone with an untimely pregnancy.   And as more and more women entered the workforce and dreamed of careers, the prospect of being trapped into settling down prematurely into a life of homemaking left many seeking out ways to ward off (or end) certain biological realities that could seal their fate.
The ultimate solution to this problem emerged via Roe vs. Wade and the right for women to choose their futures (and those of their unborn children).  The fact that the landmark Supreme Court decision was not immediately followed by a successful amendment to the Constitution to undo it spoke to where the morality of the country had settled by the 1970’s.  Yes abortion was distasteful, but it was an option far too many wanted available, just in case the unthinkable became necessary.
What evolved from this was the formation of three camps.  The first was the Pro-Life camp that believed life begins at conception and abortion is the taking of a life.  The second group was comprised largely of those who personally objected to abortion, but felt a woman should have the right to make that decision for herself, provided she made it within the first trimester, when there was still some ambiguity in their minds as to whether the fetus could be classified as a human being.  Also in this group were people who did not necessarily object to the act of abortion, but understood the misgivings some people could have regarding it and respected certain limitations to the practice.  From this group evolved the catch phrase “Safe, legal and rare” and this philosophy held sway for decades.
The third group was comprised of hard-core feminists and their male sympathizers who believed that there was nothing at all wrong with abortion and that any attempt to limit it was an attempt to limit the freedom of women.  This group has completely taken over the Democrat party to the point where it has now been purged of any true Pro Life members at its highest levels.  This group is driving the Party’s current dark push from “Safe, legal, and rare” to talk of infanticide.
But where does the general public stand on this?  A couple of years’ ago videos were released showing how Planned Parenthood harvests and sells the body parts of aborted children.  The videos were chilling, but even more disturbing was the nation’s lukewarm response.  There was predictable outrage from the Pro Life movement.  But there was no national unified outcry of condemnation of Planned Parenthood.  The country instead collectively looked the other way.  Planned Parenthood continues to go about their business and is even celebrated in some circles.  A case of the hardening of hearts.
Last month brought us the New York law allowing abortion right up to the moment of birth and the lighting up of buildings in pink to celebrate it.  Then came an attempt in Virginia (a supposedly “purple” swing state) to allow children to be killed after birth in some cases if the mother and doctor agree.  The governor was heard on a radio program very calmly and matter of factly explaining the process.  More hardening of hearts.
So where does that leave us?  I believe the next logical step for Pro Abortion politicians is to end the care for premature children.  This would begin by denying any government reimbursement for such care through Medicaid or other government health insurance programs.  This would give a wink and a nod for insurance companies to follow suit.  Should the Democrats successfully implement a single-payer, government controlled system, this step would become complete.
Why would they do this?  They need to strengthen the myth that a child in the womb is merely a part of the woman and not a distinct human being.  Premature children are living evidence of the true horror of their late-term abortion policies.  Why do you think they seek to shoot down laws requiring pregnant women to view ultrasound images?  The images humanize what is hidden in the womb.  If left unseen, the woman and society at large can at least try to fool themselves into thinking that we are only talking about a non-descript group of cells.  But when you see a head and little hands and feet, it is hard not to call that image a baby.  Of course in the aftermath of the Planned Parenthood body part harvesting videos, one may start to wonder if we are growing so cold that soon ultrasounds will no longer move people.
A second step would be to silence the voices of opposition to abortion.  We already see a situation where social media tech companies are transforming more and more into gatekeepers of information instead of arenas for debate.  From algorithm changes that effect the news that shows up in our Facebook feeds to Microsoft’s new search engine system that identifies “trusted” news sources and labels others as untrustworthy, we are seeing social media platforms that have become essential for modern communication show increasing hostility to points of view that do not fall in line with a Progressive agenda.
Another step would be to return us to some form of the eugenics movement that Progressive heroes like Margaret Sanger embraced.  It would be to force women to abort any child that shows indications of abnormality during a prenatal screening.  By compelling all women to do this, they remove the stigma attached to those who would currently make this decision.  There would be of course a massive propaganda effort to make the decision to abort in these instances the most compassionate thing to do and brand those who resist as selfish.  This would admittedly fly in the face of their claim to be “Pro-Choice”, but I think we have long since passed the point where “Pro-Choice” means anything other than “Pro-Abortion”.  It would be a diabolical ultimate victory for the Pro Abortion movement to actually be able to compel Pro Life women to have abortions.  If you don’t think that can happen, ask yourself if you ever thought you would see the day when New York would celebrate killing children moments before birth or a governor of Virginia would make a case for infanticide.
I honestly do not think we are very far from these next steps taking place.  I think a Democrat enacted single payer government health care system would all but guarantee their eventual occurrence. That is why it is so important to take a stand now, before hearts get any harder and we as a society move to even darker places.  Too many people who have moral oppositions to abortion have allowed the terms “rape and incest” to blunt their opposition and have allowed inroads for the practice of abortion to gain legitimacy and expand to its now horrific state. 
The focus needs to be on defining when a human being is a human being.  The answer to that question is that a human being is a human being when a unique human DNA code is created.  This happens at the moment of conception.  Anything that happens after that to destroy the embryo/fetus is the taking of a human life, plain and simple. Some may want to argue that life begins when a soul enters the body.  I personally believe that this happens at conception, but we may never learn for certain when that exact moment occurs.  In the absence of that knowledge, we must identify the earliest moment when the soul could enter the body and set that as the moment of life.  To do anything else is the height of irresponsibility, for what we do know is that at the moment of conception you have the same DNA code that you will have the moment you leave the womb and the moment you enter the grave.  To cling to some murky notion as to when a soul could enter a body in order to justify abortion reveals that one is more interested in maintaining the conveniences offered by abortion than safeguarding human life.
We must stand for life above all else.  We must stand for life before we stand for rape and incest victims.  We must stand for life before we stand for women’s rights.  If we do not stand for life nothing else matters.  For if we do not stand for life, then we are saying that death is permissible in certain circumstances and those circumstances could change as the values of society change.  The day may come when it is not only the unborn who may die in the name of “choice”.