IS IT WOMB TO TOMB?

ChildCare Action Project:
Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)

Is It Womb to Tomb?

Commentary-0004

Thomas A. Carder
CAP President

Reviewed by Steven A. Ertelt, Prolife.Org

Jesus is Lord Crossbar

I would prefer to graphically expose you to the horrors of the partial birth abortion procedure herein just to show you what REALLY happens in partial birth abortion: to educate you to the vile and rank horrors of the procedure; vileness and rankness that cannot be adequately expressed in words. However, this is a family site and viewing of the procedure is unsuitable for younger people. To show the partial birth abortion procedure herein could (and does) traumatize grown adults let alone children. To reveal the web address of the site displaying the procedure might tempt the unsupervised youngster to visit it. So, I will just state that by the intentional act of the physician performing the procedure and by the overt submission of the mother to the procedure, the once-living child is dead before s/he leaves the womb. In fact, the child dies in the birth canal, forcibly partially withdrawn feet first! Thus the womb becomes the [temporary] tomb for the child in parital birth abortion.

For a long time now, to me abortion has been wrong. That to do so was to cause intentional death of a child. But then, sometimes I pondered the question "When is a fetus a human being: a child; a baby?" At times I also pondered, as I understand it, the argument of the pro-abortion sect that the mother has (or should have) the final authority over the life -- or death -- of the fetus. Pro-abortionists seem to further believe the fetus is not an actual child until a certain age at which the child could survive outside the womb. The scientific and pragmatic side of me has occasionally agreed with this reasoning: that before a certain age the life of the baby would end anyway without the mother. While studiously staring at the ceiling pondering the logical rationale of this argument, the compassionate spiritual side of me argued with the pragmatist in me saying "Human life begins at the point of union between the sperm and the egg: that the fetus is a baby a soon as the sperm-egg starts the first cell division." The compassionate spirit of Jesus in me usually won the agrument -- usually.

For the most part my past shows that I have believed intentional death of a human life in the womb was akin to murder, even if the act was to save the mother's life. The idea of terminating one life to save another leaves me chilled. Oh, how we as a race seem to have leaned on the conscious-easing thought that "in certain circumstances surrounding birth" causing death to save a life is somehow justified. While recoiling at the thought of terminating the life of a baby to save the mother's life, I have tried to put myself in the mother's place and think how she would feel if she knew that giving birth would mean her death. I have even tried to put this dilemma into perspective and imagine my wife in this predicament. Should she be allowed to pass verdict by saying "Kill the baby and let me live?" Should she be allowed to say "Let the baby live and kill me?" As a man I cannot nor ever will have to intimately suffer this decision of horror.

Sometimes as I sit in my comfy chair sipping a soda "looking down my nose" at those who choose abortion and at the abortionist, I have faltered in my high-n-mightiness and wondered whether I was justified in opposing abortion. In fear of being given some of the accountablity for the life of the aborted child, I then started to sleeze toward neutrality: toward thinking the woman should bear the burden of making the choice whether to abort while I sit back and stick my head in the sand. But each time I started to feel this way; each time I felt that abortion is so nebulous that the choice to do so or not to do so should be left up to the abortionist and mother; each time I though that since I am male I have no business getting involved in the controversy of abortion, our almighty God in heaven placed an unmistakable sample of His wisdom in front of me. Though I might think His arranging for me to see the partial birth abortion procedure might be just a little brutal, I no longer have any battles with indecision -- I believe abortion is wrong -- partial birth or otherwise.

If I seem disonnected in language mechanics and flow in this article, it may be symbolic of the spiritual warfare I was experiencing while coming to a decision about abortion. To try to explain the righteousness of a wrongness cannot be smooth and error-free. In my battles with humanism and selfness surrouding the abortion issue, the mighty spirit of God prevailed and gave sound reasoning against abortion. And I thank God for His involvement in my spiritual battle with abortion.

Please join me in prayer.

"Holy Father, God in heaven. Let your wisdom and understanding reform the thoughts and hearts of those who approved this euthanasia, those who perform it, those who have sought it, and those who seek it. Father, give us the wisdom to speak the words you want abortion practitioners and patrons to hear. Let your boundless love forgive them and teach them the wrongness of this procedure. Father, take into your care the souls of all the children who die by the choice of both practitioner and patron: give the victims -- the aborted children -- everlasting peace and service in your kingdom. In Jesus' name. Amen."

Dr. Beverly LaHaye, chairwoman of the Concerned Women for America pledged to wear a black lapel ribbon until election day 1996: a black ribbon in remembrance of the children who will die by partial birth abortion. Though election day 96 has passed and though the chief proponent of partial birth abortion is still in office, the black ribbon is symbolic of the blackness of death by partial birth abortion. Let us follow Beverly's lead and express our feelings about partial birth abortion and other forms of fetal euthanasia by wearing a small but unmistakable black ribbon on our lapels. Make the black lapel ribbon the national symbol of opposition to partial birth and other forms of abortion. Provided below are black-n-white ribbon gifs. You are entirely welcome to copy them for pasting into your messages and pages to indicate your opposition to abortion, partial birth or otherwise. Neither is anything fantastic. I am not an artist. But they will still say what you want said if displayed. Thank you.

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