Thursday, August 6, 2009

Abortion, Obamacare and Quality of Life

Warning: If you can actually watch this without experiencing visceral anguish, anger and outrage, you might just be an Obama-bot. In all seriousness, it is extremely graphic. To all of my pro-choice friends who believe that if a child isn't going to be born into "perfect" circumstances (e.g. a two-parent household with financial stability), that this kind of slaughter is justified, perhaps this video will encourage you to reconsider.



Many of the world's greatest achievers entered the world under less than ideal circumstances. Winston Churchill had a speech impediment, Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty and Leonardo da Vinci was the product of an unwed mother.

Not too long ago, I attended a BBQ at the home of a close friend. Somehow the conversation came around to abortion as we sat around the kitchen table, in one of those strange progressions where a simple, innocuous inquiry like "How is your family?" segues into a passionate argument over whether life begins at conception. Ok, that's quite a stretch, so let me explain. The friend in question's family is still dealing with the ramifications of losing a very young child to a terrible disease a few years back. Later that day, she was going to attend a family dinner commemorating what would've been his eighth birthday.

Somewhere in the mix of lingering grief, heartache and anger, she launched into an understandable tirade about the unfairness of it all, especially given the fact that the boy had two loving parents who provided a good home. Up until that point, I agreed with everything she'd stated.

However in the next breath, she began railing against pregnant teenagers, unwed mothers and even young married adults who willingly reproduce (i.e. choose life) long before they themselves have reached a certain level of maturity and financial security. Now I certainly don't condone teenagers having babies, or even partaking in the activity that leads to their creation; in an ideal scenario, everyone would wait until marriage, or at least until their 20s (when the chances of emotionally maturity are much higher) before having sex -- and when they did, they'd take proper precautions if not ready to care for the needs of an infant. And in a perfect world, if they did actually use birth control, it would never fail. Not ever. Not even once.

But as I said, we don't live in a perfect world. Does that somehow designate unplanned life as disposable?

In a side-by-side comparison, if a married couple in their 30s with stable careers, and two 16 year-old high school sweethearts lacking two nickels to rub against each conceive a child, is the life of the former couple's unborn child somehow more worthy than that of the latter, though neither unborn creation had actually been given a choice, so to speak, about their conception?

Using my friend's logic, the answer would be yes. She'd flatly stated that since young people are "too selfish" to give up their babies for adoption, they should abort them if they cannot adequately provide for their material needs. Of course, if we didn't live in a "hook up" culture that glamorizes meaningless, casual sex, devalues God and preaches moral relativism, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies to deal with in the first place. But that's a discussion for another post.

I can and often do agree to disagree with friends, for the sake of the relationship. In this case, the woman in question is a wonderful person for whom I'd do just about anything. What was frustrating to me on that particular day though, was her unwillingness to let me put forth my point of view; every time I tried to make a counter-argument she'd cut me off. It didn't help that our other female friend kept interjecting hard luck stories about her boyfriend's childhood to support the financial wealth justification -- notwithstanding the fact that he'd gone on to achieve great success after growing up a poor kid in a large Irish-Catholic family.

It was kind of like being a guest on The Factor: Before I could complete a sentence, one of them would cut me off. Or, they'd immediately shoot down my premise. For example, when I mentioned that I was once an unplanned pregnancy and as such, was also very grateful that my parents were pro-life, my statement was dismissed because after all, my father was a doctor:

Me: "Yes, that is true but at the time my dad was struggling to get his surgical practice going, barely paying the mortgage on our two-story colonial, which he couldn't afford to fully furnish."

Friend: "Bah! Your parents knew that once he got his career off the ground, the money would come in."

Me: "Fair enough, but suppose God forbid, my dad had been in some kind of accident, leaving him incapacitated and unable to perform surgery while my mom was still in the first trimester. Would that have then justified an abortion? Or what if it had happened years down the road, forcing my mother to take over as breadwinner. She's a pretty smart lady, but in all likelihood, would never have been able to replace my dad's income, which would have taken us down quite a few notches on the economic scale -- maybe even into borderline poverty. We would then be in the dire financial circumstances that according to your premise, justify abortion.

My point again: there are no guarantees in life. Even if a child is born into a near-perfect situation, it could all change in the blink of an eye before he or she is out of diapers. When you get right down to it, innocent human life is innocent human life. Either we believe it is sacred -- flawed though it may be -- or we don't. There is no in-between.

And whether it's Hitler committing mass genocide against the handicapped and entire races of people he deemed inferior; government bureaucrats determining whether it's cost-effective for your 75 year-old mother to have her recommended hip-replacement surgery; or well-intentioned people buying into abortion based on a subjective quality of life argument, all have one thing in common: a deliberate rejection of the laws of God and nature in favor of some Utopian pie-in-the-sky ideal. I can think of 50 million reasons why that is just plain wrong.
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3 comments:

The Bernie Lutchman Blog said...

Daria

Thank you ,in the Name of Jesus for taking such a powerful stand for LIFE, TRUTH and being salt and light!

I bless you in His Name and pray He illumines your path! Look forward to more blogs from you!

ps...what a graphic video! If that doesn't hit a viewer where he/she lives, then we have a bigger problem,sister!

Blessings and agape

Brother Bernie

August 8, 2009 at 6:11 AM
Nancy said...

Daria,

You know I agree with you 100% on this issue. It is downright DISGUSTING.

I have been a pro-life advocate for many years. When I was in school, I did presentations on this issue, EVERY chance I got (starting in middle school). It 's funny, I still have allmy note cards and poster boards.

The most memorable presentation that I did was in front of one of my college professors, at FAU, who had actually had an abortion. ( I believe it was a "Women and the Law" class). The professor got so grossed out , that she told me that she had have enough and to stop.

As disciples of Christ, all we can do is to keep spreading the word and PRAY.

August 9, 2009 at 12:11 PM
Nancy said...

Daria,

You know I agree with you 100% on this issue. It is downright DISGUSTING.

I have been a pro-life advocate for many years. When I was in school, I did presentations on this issue, EVERY chance I got (starting in middle school). It 's funny, I still have allmy note cards and poster boards.

The most memorable presentation that I did was in front of one of my college professors, at FAU, who had actually had an abortion. ( I believe it was a "Women and the Law" class). The professor got so grossed out , that she told me that she had have enough and to stop.

As disciples of Christ, all we can do is to keep spreading the word and PRAY.

August 9, 2009 at 12:12 PM

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