Making Abortion Unthinkable
February 15, 2009
WARNING: Article contains descriptions of a botched abortion
One of the obstacles in the way of pursuing justice for the unborn is the mindset that an abortion is the removal of a fetus, not the murder of a person. Another is the belief that a woman’s right to do what she desires with her own body informs her right to have an abortion.
A tragedy in Florida that recently came to light may become a new means to dismantle these two assumptions. In 2006, a 23-week pregnant teenager showed up for her appointment to have an abortion. Because of an emergency situation at another clinic, her doctor did not arrive for more than two hours. During that time she gave birth to the child. According to the the teenager’s testimony, “Belkis Gonzalez, one of the clinic owners, had knocked the infant off the chair where she had given birth, scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag, and threw it out.” The doctor who was supposed to have performed the termination was stripped of his license last Friday. (You can read the entire AP story herehttp://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJYykrsdytHiypY5WXf0A7AAY5MAD966AQ5O7or a report from the Baptist Press here http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=29823).
As you see the over this story, as I have since I read it Saturday night, consider two ways we can intercede for our nation concerning this issue.
First, we can pray that the minimal distance that distinguishes a murder from an abortion would haunt our nation’s conscience. Pro-choice and pro-life groups alike shudder at the inhumanity of the clinic owner’s murderous actions. Yet had the doctor arrived on time, he would have had full constitutional rights to dismember the same baby and extract its limbs from the mother’s womb. To do that on the medical table to a delivered baby is murder. To do it in the womb to an undelivered baby is legal. The logic behind this distinction of two or three feet is both incomprehensible and evil.
Second, we can pray that the argument of “a woman’s right over her own body” would be shown to be largely irrelevant to the issue of abortion. The matter in question is not a woman’s right to her own body but her responsibility toward the separate person she carries. This logic should speak for itself, and if it does not, the barbarism in the Florida clinic can speak for it. Had the mother herself scooped the living baby into the biohazard bag and tossed it in the dumpster, no judge in America would define that as her right over her own body. She would be charged with murder. Yet rewind the tape 10 minutes and she can allow a doctor to do much worse to the same baby if it is living in her womb.
These are infuriating issues to ponder, which means that we must be cautious not to allow our zeal for justice unravel into mindless rage. Our passion for the unborn must be mingled with an awareness of the cycles of poverty and powerlessness that can often accompany this decision. We address this issue as redeemed sinners and must extend Christ’s grace to those who have had and performed abortions, for no sin is beyond the power of the cross.
Yet we must lift a voice for the voiceless and pray for God’s direction for our hands-on involvement in stopping this injustice. Along with political action, we can support ministries such as the Valley Crisis Pregnancy Centers (http://www.choicesaz.org/) and Christian Family Care Agency (http://www.cfcare.org/) with our time, connections, and financial resources. Whatever the action steps, may God use us to make abortion unthinkable.
Pastor Chris