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It’s always interesting to me when I get into debates about abortion. For one thing, the majority of the time nowadays seems to be spent actually trying to define the terms. You see, science is tending to leave those that are pro-abortion without much ground to stand on. And that’s not counting the fact that more of the next generation considers itself pro-life.
Nevertheless, it seems that every one of these discussions hinges on what is in the womb and what you think about what that is. And it takes a long time for pro-abortionists to admit that the entity in the womb is alive, that it is human, and that abortion kills it.
You see, regardless of whether it is what they truly believe, people do not like to think of themselves as baby killers.
And this concept baffles me on one level. Surely they understand what they are doing. It’s not a mystery to them. And if there’s no moral problem (or the greater moral good is served by ending the life of an innocent child) then what’s the problem. Why avoid the truth about what’s really happening when salt is introduced into the amniotic fluid to burn the child alive, or a vacuum cleaner is sent into to suck up the body parts, or forceps are sent in to dismember the child… I’m getting carried away, but you understand the question. Why avoid the truth?
Is it because the babies are innocent and killing them is so repulsive– and that only villains do it? I mean Pharaoh did it and so did Herod. They certainly weren’t stand up guys.
I know there were Greeks that left their children out on the hillsides to be eaten by wolves– but no one sugar coated it then.
The problem, I believe, is that there is a moral compass inside of all of us, one that knows that killing innocents is not something that we should condone. We certainly wouldn’t want an innocent child outside of the womb harmed1 and yet when it’s in the womb we want to turn a blind eye to the selfish actions of the mother.
Why is this? Is it because we can’t see the baby, therefore there is no baby? Does it really come down to this, and is this the reason that 4-D ultrasounds are having such a huge effect on women? Then by all means we should mandate them in every clinic– especially those that perform abortions. Since it shows the obvious.
What do you think? Why is “Baby Killer” repulsive, and how can some turn a blind eye to the innocents that are dying to protect someone else’s pleasure.
- We go to great lengths letting the government invade homes and take children away from the most well meaning parents because someone reported something– we take and ask questions later. [↩]
It’s funny to me how we can so often perpetuate the world’s dysfunction. I don’t see the term “Baby Killer” as a necessary term. While I do believe America is guilty of infanticide, I think there are bigger issues happening here.
The church seems to either be pro-choice or so very pro-life that they turn people away. As much as God is heartbroken over those children who never get a chance at life, I believe He is more heartbroken over those who don’t love Him. I believe an unborn child will go straight to Heaven if it dies, but those adults who don’t love Jesus won’t. So our focus should be first on reconciling people to Jesus and second on the problem of abortion. By no means should we stop trying to save these children, we just need to do it in a loving, godly manner.
AG’s last blog post..Mary
A flaw in your logic is that you are equating pro-choice with pro-abortion.
They are not the same thing.
It is rare for people to be pro-abortion.
The vast majority of women who go through with the procedure have intense emotional baggage when it’s all said and done. It wasn’t an easy decision for them to make. And it certainly isn’t easy for them to live with.
Yes, there are some women who use it as a form of birth control. But they are the exceptions, not the rule.
Amanda’s last blog post..Death Penalty Debate
The issue of abortion is far more complex than just that of the death of unborn children. I would venture to say that many, if not most women, who find themselves at an abortion clinic are not there by their own “choice” in the true sense of the word, but are often their because they have nowhere to turn and feel as if they have NO OTHER CHOICE. They are backed into a corner, scared, helpless, and make a terrible, awful choice; likely one that they will regret and be tortured by for the rest of their lives. I never believe abortion is “okay” or “excusable,” nor am I trying to defend the action, but the fact of the matter is poverty, coercion, a dreadful child support system in this country, and an honest to goodness lack of options for a women facing a crisis pregnancy are all huge issues in this country and until we solve the problems that make women feel as if they have no other choice, a dent in the abortion rate will never happen. The world can appear awfully easy when you are not the one in a crisis situation of some sort.
I personally find the use of terms like “baby killer” to be despicable, and also find the displaying of pictures of aborted babies to be even more revolting. Women who have had abortions can seek God’s forgiveness just as we can, and these women are oftentimes at a risk of depression and all sorts of other problems which may result in additional poor choices. Rather than be treated like criminals and dehumanized, these dear women need love, compassion, and support through the difficulties that lie ahead for them.
To add one more thought to this, I have never had an abortion myself, but I was deeply involved with the pro-choice movement in my “former life”, have unfortunately experienced three miscarriages, and I know what horrible guilt and awful feelings dwell in your mind even when the death of your child was not your own fault. I cannot even begin to imagine what gut wrenching feelings a woman who has had an abortion feels, and how even more difficult it will be for her to forgive herself if one day she does indeed seek God’s forgiveness for her sins.
Mrs. Brigham’s last blog post..Intro To Non-Glutenous Grains
AG – The only reason to use the term is because those that believe that abortion should be legal are trying to sugar coat their “procedure” with euphemisms to hide what they are really doing. Since abortion takes a life, then abortion is killing the life of a baby.
The flaw in your logic in regards to whether it is important to focus on the death of the unborn is that, if you’re right, all Christians should get pregnant just to turn around and have abortions, since it would be so much easier that way to make sure their children get to Heaven then by birthing them and raising them. Either killing is wrong and we should stand against it, or it’s not as bad as some other things, and we should turn and look the other way or encourage it.
Amanda- “pro-choice” is a euphemism. You have to ask the question “What choice”? Since there are really three options: Birth, Adoption, and Abortion, and since pro-life supports two of the choices, the only one left is “pro-abortion”. Simply put, pro-abortion = supporting the availability of abortion. It does not mean, as you would imply, “I’m personally opposed, but wouldn’t force my opinion on someone else.” This is also a false statement. If you’re against abortion, why? If you believe it’s a life, does the fact that someone else doesn’t change what it is? No way, that’s absurd. So people hide behind “pro-choice” because they don’t want to take a position, but they have taken that decision.
Amanda / Mrs. Brigham – You’re both right. There’s more to the whole debate than the child that was murdered. There is a woman involved– and I believe that the pro-life movement has adapted well to care for her as well. The fact is, there are choices. There is adoption. And we could be encouraging women to go this way instead of go the way of the vacuum cleaner.
I am sorry and also sickened at some of the pictures of slaughtered children, but people tend to ignore things that they do not see. I’m sorry for the impact it has on women that are recovering from abortion, but I’m not sorry for the fact that we can look at dead corpses from Iraq, witness the torture that happened to the Jews in WWII, but have a problem with the fact that millions more children are being killed every day and we just accept it as part of life– that there’s no other alternative. That’s a lie.
We had a miscarriage with twins before we had our first son, and my mind asks the question if we did anything to cause that– it’s always in the back of my mind. But that just makes me more upset that people would choose to dismember their healthy children, choose to burn them with salt, or vacuum them up instead of preserve the life that they started.
If they really didn’t want the child, they had no business being in a position to create one in the first place.
First, let me say that no one who has commented in this thread is pro-abortion. I don’t know Mrs. Brigham, but based on her comment, I’m assuming that she is pro-life.
So calm down. 🙂
The difference I see in where we’re coming from is that you are very black and white. There is no gray area for you. And the rest of us seem to see some sort of gray area. Not in approving of or condoning the murder of a child, but in the way we treat abortion – and those who choose the procedure – in this country.
Not only am I pro-life, I’m very anti-abortion. I wholeheartedly agree with you that abortion is the senseless murder of an innocent child – no matter when conception occured.
But there are women out there who honestly feel they have no other choice. Carrying the baby to term and delivering, even to give the baby up, would be, in their minds, catastrophic.
Calling these women “baby killers” does no good. It does not further the kingdom of God. It does not reach out a compassionate hand to these women who desperately need the love of Jesus. It alienates them and pushes them so far away from God that it seems impossible that they would ever draw near to Him.
It seems to me that a distinction needs to be made between the women who choose this procedure (often out of desperation) and the lawmakers who have made the procedure available. If the procedure weren’t available, the women would have to find another solution.
It is the lawmakers who have told us that a baby isn’t a baby. It is the lawmakers who have told women that it’s okay to abort their baby. It is the lawmakers who are the problem. Not the women who make this gut-wrenching choice.
Amanda’s last blog post..Death Penalty Debate
I think that part of the problem here is that I’m not labeling the women as baby killers– in my mind they are at worst accomplices. They willingly partake in the activity, knowing the possible consequences, and then ask for cry out that they are innocent. They were not innocent when they were intimate, and I’m sure that a majority knew that babies do not come from storks, but they expect us to look blindly when they hit the reset button and ask those that profit from murder to kill their child.
I fault the whole system– from the sex education system that knows full well that playing with sex is a recipe for disease or pregnancy and yet still encourages it to the doctors that make a fortune off of murder.
The point of this post is point out that we’re coming up with feel-good terms for a grizzly act because a segment our culture wants an “easy fix”. They don’t want to invest in helping these women. They don’t want to teach morality. They simply want to live a life of pleasure without consequence, or distract for the consequence when it’s inconvenient or makes them feel bad.
I understand that some women believe that there is not another choice. However, most of these women will change their mind seeing a 4D ultrasound, or will give up their baby for adoption if support is there. The problem that should be solved is finding ways to support these women AND the new life inside them. Not wounding these women physically and emotionally by convincing them to kill their child and live with that guilt for the rest of their lives. In essence, it’s more than baby killing, for abortion leaves one dead and another wounded.
I think Amanda raises some very important points. In addition to what she has brought up, the abortion laws have allowed men to shirk their responsibilities, leave mothers & children without financial & other forms of support, and possibly coerce their partners into abortions, possibly even with threats. Why nobody asks where the men are when a woman winds up at the abortion clinic is beyond me. Men ought to be challenged to do the “right thing” just as much, if not moreso, than women are as their failure to be responsible very well causes women to feel as if they have no other choice but to seek an abortion.
Yes, the culture does want an “easy fix” but so does the Church. Rather than rise up to the challenge and provide something more than mere ultrasounds, the church would rather take the political route of overturning a law that is going to solve nothing. Making abortion illegal and providing ultrasounds does not put food on the table of a single mom, does not hold her hand during labor, does not encourage Dad to step up and be a provider, does not hug her when she is crying during those early days of motherhood, nor does it support her for the long, difficult road that is ahead of her.
FWIW, I also find pictures of war, corpses, and other grisly images to be revolting, and just like abortion pictures, to demean human life in all forms. Sure, they may drudge up upsetting, powerful feelings, but they do not show a value for human life, but rather a true disrespect and caviler attitude towards both life & death.
Mrs. Brigham’s last blog post..Intro To Non-Glutenous Grains
Mrs. Brigham, the current system all but forces the man out of the picture. He’s not allowed to have a say in whether the woman has an abortion. Though you’re right that he can put pressure on her outside of the clinic, she has means to escape his influence, she can leave the area, and if she decides to have an abortion, and the man wants the child, there’s nothing he can do to have her keep it. The power and authority is all with the woman. Now, I’ll grant you that this is definitely not the majority case. But this current “hookup” culture combined with the support provided by the state for single moms encourages a situation where it’s better for the woman to have a child on her own in terms of money than it is to do so within marriage.
I am totally with you on blaming the church– to a point. The church in the US, to me anyway, seems to be totally missing the point in terms of who they should be reaching. James 2 talks about the church not saving the best seats for the rich, etc, but we as a body of believes seem to spend all of our time trying to reach people in the same social class as we are, and not seeing the example of our Savior who reached across the spectrums, and even reached to the destitute more than the rich. In that vein, we don’t actively seek out people that we can support. And in some cases it’s hard to do, because you don’t know who is really in need and who wants your money for alcohol and cigarettes.
Back to providing for mothers– I don’t know if you ever got involved with a CareNet pregnancy center, but one of the neat things about their ministry is that they do not stop after the pregnancy test. They actually operate on all fronts– they teach abstinence in schools, provide counseling for “crisis” pregnancies, provide food, clothing, diapers, onesies for single moms, and in some cases/places provide housing and safety for these women. The charge that pro-lifers didn’t care for the woman as much as they did the baby is no longer true.
And the pictures may be demeaning to some respect, and I wouldn’t be carrying them around myself, but it’s not the pictures that are the problem– the pictures did not burn the bodies or dismember them. And the point is that those that are pro-abortion/pro-choice are accomplices in those deaths. They believe that because they did not see it, it did not happen. The pictures are there to show those that think that it’s ok for the woman to abort her baby what their actions are doing to innocent children. It’s reality, and they helped it happen.
You see, science is tending to leave those that are pro-abortion without much ground to stand
Waahhaahaha.. I’m still giggling. Man that was a funny one. I guess if you write it down it must be true!
Science has nothing to say about abortion ethically. It has nothing to say about when life, as we human beings define it, starts. All science gives us is data from which we make our own moral decisions. That was probably the most ludicrous statement of the entire pontification.
Science provides the markers by which we can choose to state “start of life”: brainwave activity, heart pumping, fully developed lungs, birth, etc. The debate about when life starts is not a scientific one, its a societal one. And should be one that is focused around the reduction of suffering for everyone.
You interpret, your version, of a book of legends to have a a spot that says abortions are as wrong as killing an adult. A book that never says life starts at conception (why? because its a human book, written at a time without biology).
So you are talking about potential for life, a potential that is not marked by the actual conception, but depending on how far you look, long before that. Because science has brought us so much actual, verifiable, repeatable information, it turns out conception is just as arbitrary a starting point as any other point. The potential for life can start from any cell. Wanna ban washing hands too?
funniest part is how you claim science is on your side but wont actually use that exact same body of knowledge to actually learn anything about evolution, or stem cell research, or so many other things that actually have clear uses for humanity to reduce suffering. ust like these guys who use science for acknowledging global warming but not evolution.
are you one of those people who think nanotechnology is immoral?
Then you come up with another claim.
And that’s not counting the fact that more of the next generation considers itself pro-life.
Care to actually back up that claim with data? Or shall we just take your old-legend-believing word for it?
No, my friend, if you meant most people are not pro-abortion, I would agree with you, and can provide plenty of data for that. There are many non-religious reasons for not using abortion as a birth control method. Its as Amanda has so rightly pointed out.
As with banning virtually anything, it is the least productive approach to eliminating the problem. Banning alcohol is a clear example. Banning guns is another.
Want to reduce abortions? Want to do it in a way that reduces suffering, as opposed to your method, increasing suffering for 1.3 million women and babies every year? (yeah yeah, certainly not all the 1.3 million will suffer). Want to do it in a way that actually lowers the abortion rate?
Educate.
Participate in teenage afterschool programs
Mentor kids
Teach consequences of sex with gross pictures.
Teach contraception.
Raise your kids in a manner that buffy has recommended.
convince your friends and family to do the same.
Use your soap box here to teach strangers to do the same.
You’ll notice that God need not be invoked, only reason. This will spread your message to more people.
The key is to lower the abortion rate. You do this by reducing unwanted pregnancies. You teach birth control and responsibility.
Over and over its has been shown that banning abortion and Abstinence Only programs are just waste of money and do nothing to drop the rate. How does God feel about your empty efforts at reducing abortion rates?
By focusing on the CAUSES of abortion (i.e. unwanted pregnancy) you can consolidate efforts between the parties instead of deepening the chasm like you are doing.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see you step up Min?
The term “baby killer” is offensive because it shows a complete lack of understanding, by the person using the term, of the moral issues related to abortion with respect to the entire population as a whole.
man… no preview button. hope I did all that right.
tech, remember what they say about when you point the finger. There are three more pointing back at you.
Why do I say this? Because you keep repeating this canard believing that because you say it it must be true. You say that I use the Bible to justify my pro-life stance, and although that is my guide for life, and it does teach about life, I presented seemingly endless numbers of posts that you ignore that provided the very data you claim I never provide. I did a whole series on abstinence at your request (7 posts long, I believe) that you whined because you didn’t find until late, and then didn’t take the time to read or address any of the posts. I wrote a whole series which Amanda referenced talking about how everyone knows that the baby inside the womb is a baby, not a “potential life”, etc. I quoted both on my site and in comments on Amanda’s site countless doctors, medical journals, and science textbooks that stated that life begins at conception. All of these you ignored because of your one track mind.
The very thing that you want to pin on me (that I have one idea and I’m not open to considering other opinions or the facts) is exactly what you suffer from– only you can’t see it.
BTW – I don’t believe in Global Warming caused by man. In fact, recent research says that it’s just yet another “science religion” like Evolution will eventually be proved to be. The data suggests that the earth has either plateaued in its warming (back in 1998-2008) or at least has not significantly changed over the past 5 years. At least what it tells us is that we don’t have sufficient resources or understanding to model complex systems yet, and definitely don’t have as tight a grasp on what is happening as the high priests of Global Warming would have us believe.
Your argument against banning also has its flaws. We ban things that we believe are wrong. We ban killing because it’s wrong. Perhaps you’d suggest not banning it, but instead having counseling sessions. How about speed limits? Theft? I’d really like a ban on paying taxes– that’d be nice.
While I’m not against a lot of what you’ve said in regards to addressing what gets young ladies to the point of choosing abortion (in fact, pro-lifers are more in the business of providing counseling, aid and education as well as trying to change the law), the ban should be there as well. I mean, if we took your position during the Civil War era, Lincoln should have proposed counseling to slave owners, trying to convince them not to own slaves, rather than abolishing slavery. Sure, there are still people today that have slaves. Human trafficking is alive and well (not just in the areas of prostitution), but it’s relegated to the black market, prosecuted as a crime, and treated as something that people do not want.
Should we legalize slavery again, because bans do not work?