5 Things You Didn’t Know about “Jane Roe”

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the controversial Supreme Court ruling that progressives want to enshrine and conservatives want to overturn. Few rulings have been more consequential. According to Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute, 22% of all pregnancies now end in abortion, with 3 in 10 women terminating their pregnancy by the age of 45. There have been approximately 57 million legally induced abortions in the U.S. since 1973—nearly the current population of California and Texas combined.
Yet a recent Pew study found that 4 in 10 “Millennials” don’t even know that Roe v. Wade has to do with abortion. And even fewer today know the true story of the woman who started it all, the pseudonymous plaintiff “Jane Roe.” Here are five things you may not know about her, culled from interviews and profiles along with her sworn congressional testimony and memoirs.
(1) The name “Jane Roe” was created over beer and pizza.
In 1969 Norma was 21 years old, divorced, and pregnant for the third time. (The first two children were placed for adoption.) After seeking an abortion but finding out it was illegal, and then driving to an illegal clinic only to find it closed, adoption attorney Henry McCluskey referred her to two young lawyers in Dallas, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee. Weddington (who had traveled to Mexico a couple of years earlier to have an abortion) was seeking a class-action lawsuit against the state of Texas in order to legalize abortion. It was an unlikely party at the corner booth of Columbo’s pizza parlor in Dallas: two recent law-school grads in business suits sitting across the table from a rough and uneducated homeless women. The lawyers needed a representative for all women seeking abortions—one who was young, poor, and white. They just didn’t want her to cross state lines to get a legal abortion, or the case would be considered moot and dismissed. Without money and five months pregnant, Norma was the ideal candidate. After downing several pitchers of beer, they agreed on using the pseudonym “Jane Roe.” (“Wade” referred to Henry B. Wade, the attorney general of Dallas.)
(2) Jane Roe didn’t know the meaning of “abortion.” 
Weddington and Coffee told Norma that abortion just dealt with a piece of tissue, and that it was like passing a period rather than the termination of a distinct, living, and whole human organism. Abortion was a taboo topic in 1970, and Norma had dropped out of school at the age of 14. She knew that John Wayne movies talked about “aborting the mission,” so she thought it meant to “go back”—as in, going back to not being pregnant. She honestly believed “abortion” meant a child was prevented from coming into existence.
(3) Jane Roe never appeared in court.
Her lawyers drafted a one-page legal affidavit, which she signed but did not read. (Even today, she has not read it.) This was only the second time she would meet with her lawyers—and it turned out to be the last. She would not be called to testify and attended none of the trial. She found out about the Supreme Court ruling from the newspaper on January 23, 1973, just like the rest of the nation. Few on that day understood the implications of Justice Blackmun’s instruction that Roe v. Wade was to be read in conjunction with its companion case Doe v. Bolton, which effectively made abortion legal at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. As a result, the United States (with Canada) became the only Western country offering no legal protection for the unborn at any stage of the pregnancy.
(4) Jane Roe never had an abortion.
Norma had already given birth and placed the baby for adoption before the three-judge Texas panel ruled against her in May of 1970, long before the Supreme Court decision in January of 1973. She was in a committed lesbian relationship and would not become pregnant again. Abortion continued to be a part of her life, however. She went on to work in abortion clinics, holding the hands of women and offering reassurance as they terminated their pregnancies, and making appearances on the Roe anniversaries.
(5) Jane Roe became pro-life.
In 1995, while working at the clinic, Norma became haunted by the sight and sound of empty playgrounds in her neighborhood. Once teeming with kids, they now seemed deserted. And she began to see it was the result of what she once called “my law.” But the decisive change happened when she meant Emily Mackey, a seven-year-old girl whose parents were protesting at the clinic where “Miss Norma” worked. Emily, who had almost been aborted herself, befriended Norma, showing genuine interest and love, giving her hugs and inviting her to church. Through the influence this young girl’s combination of truth and grace, along with those who shared the gospel of Jesus with her, Norma not only became convinced of the pro-life position but also converted to Christianity.

* * *

Norma McCorvey now says that “Jane Roe has been laid to rest.” Both sides in America’s most contentious debate have claimed her at one point, and both have had reason to be disappointed. But for evangelicals—the demographic most committed to overturning Roe—the case for protecting the smallest and most defenseless members of the human race does not rest with the testimony of a single individual. It does not even rest on biblical revelation; moral philosophers have pointed out that the differences between a fetus in utero and an infant outside the womb—size, location, degree of dependency, and level of development—are morally irrelevant when determining a person’s right to life.
On this fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, evangelicals would do well to remember that we must not only labor to protect the unborn, but to continue reaching out with assistance and love and the good news of grace to the Norma McCorveys of the world—broken women who feel they have no other place to turn.

Huge Manhattan billboard spotlighting black abortions sparks huge controversy

In the wake of the release by the New York City Health Dept. of abortion statistics showing 60% of black pregnancies in Gotham end in abortion, the group Life Always has just erected a huge billboard spotlighting the truth that “the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”
The billboard comes conveniently at a time when the NYC Council is considering a  bill that targets pregnancy care centers and also during Black History Month.
But the target of the billboard is Planned Parenthood, according to the group’s press release…

The billboard is about half a mile from one of three New York City Planned Parenthood abortion facilities which jointly reported nearly 17,000 abortions in 2010….
The campaign launch is designed to raise public awareness of PP’s targeting of minority neighborhoods….
PP’s annual report states that they perform 300,000+ abortions annually.

… which makes the billboard also timely regarding attempts on the federal level to stop taxpayer funding to PP. Read the rest here.

Should Christians Support Lying to Expose Planned Parenthood?

Not if we love truth, says Professor Robert P. George.
An excerpt:

We must not forfeit our standing in the debate as the tellers of truth.
Does this place us at a disadvantage in the struggle?  Someone will say:  the entire edifice of abortion is built on a foundation of lies—lies about the the biological status of the human being developing in the womb (“a mere clump of undifferentiated tissue, no different than a mole or a fingernail”); lies about the number of maternal deaths from illegal abortions prior to Roe v. Wade; lies about the so-called “medical necessity” of partial-birth abortions; and on and on.  Why should we deny ourselves the use of weapons that many on the other side wield freely?  Do we not deeply disadvantage our cause and, in that way, sin against its unborn victims by refusing to lie?  Are we “keeping our hands clean” at the price of putting off the day when outfits like Planned Parenthood will be dumped onto the ash heap of history?
I understand the impatience; indeed, I share it.  The edifice of abortion is indeed built on a foundation of lies.  And in working to protect the victims of abortion, it is frustrating to hold ourselves to standards that so many on the other side freely disregard.  But there are no moral shortcuts to victory in this struggle.  A culture of life can only be built on a foundation of truth.  Lying may produce short term victories, but it will, in the end, frustrate our long term objective.  Respect for life—like respect for every other great human good and every other high moral principle—depends on love of truth.  Our efforts in the cause of life and every other worthy goal will, in the end, prove to be self-defeating if they undermine love of truth.

You can read the whole thing here, as well as a debate on the issue between pro-life philosophers Christopher Tollefsen and Christopher Kaczor here, here, and here.
Justin Taylor

Clarifying The Key Issue When Discussing Abortion

Scott Klusendorf:

Clarify the one question that really matters. Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion controversy by focusing public attention on just one question: Is the unborn one of us? If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled. This is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. Every pro-life advocate that I know is vigorously “pro-choice” when it comes to women choosing a number of moral goods. They support a woman’s right to choose her own doctor, her own school, her own husband, and her own career—to name just a few. But some choices are wrong, like killing innocent human beings simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves. We shouldn’t be pro-choice about that.

Read the rest.  
Take Your Vitamin Z

The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and Abortion Law

Tomorrow is the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
To understand the ruling and subsequent decisions in detail, there is probably no better resource than Francis Beckwith’s article, “The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and Abortion Law,” Liberty University Law Review 1.1 (2006): 37-72, available online.
Here is the introduction:

It is no exaggeration to say that no U.S. Supreme Court opinion has been more misunderstood and has had its arguments more misrepresented in the public square than Roe v. Wade (1973). There seems to be a widespread perception that Roe was a moderate opinion that does not support abortion on demand, i.e., unrestricted abortion for all nine months for virtually any reason. Even a philosopher of such erudity as Mortimer Adler did not seem to fully understand the legal implications of Roe: “Mr. Justice Blackmun’s decision in the case of Roe v. Wade invokes the right of privacy, which is nothing but the freedom of an adult woman to do as she pleases with her own body in the first trimester of pregnancy.”
In order to fully grasp the reasoning of Roe, its paucity as a piece of constitutional jurisprudence, and the current state of abortion law, this article looks at three different but interrelated topics: (1) what the Court actually concluded in Roe; (2) the Court’s reasoning in Roe; and (3) how subsequent Court opinions, including Casey v. Planned Parenthood, have shaped the jurisprudence of abortion law.

And here is the conclusion:

The Supreme Court currently affirms a woman’s right to abortion with virtually no restrictions prior to fetal viability. After viability, it only allows states to make restrictions prior to viability that do not entail an undue burden. However, given the wideness of the Supreme Court’s “health exception,” a state’s ability to restrict post-viability abortions is questionable, especially given the Court’s Stenberg opinion and Roe’s pre-Casey progeny. Thus, according to the current legal regime in the United States, the unborn is not protected by the U.S. Constitution from death-by-abortion at any stage in her nine-month gestation.

Justin Taylor

Abortion/Infanticide Doctor Charged with Multiple Counts of Murder

God, help us.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A doctor who provided abortions for minorities, immigrants and poor women in a “house of horrors” clinic has been charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell’s employees also were charged.
Gosnell “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” Williams said.
Patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, where Gosnell performed dozens of abortions a day, prosecutors said. He mostly worked overnight hours after his untrained staff administered drugs to induce labor during the day, they said.
Early last year, authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic and stumbled on what Williams called a “house of horrors.”
Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses “were scattered throughout the building,” Williams said. “There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose.”   More....  
Justin Taylor

What Hath Balloon Boy to Do With Abortion?

Below are the opening paragraphs of my chapter, “Abortion: Why Silence and Inaction Are Not Options for Evangelicals,” in Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day, edited by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway, 2010), pp. 179-180:

Do you remember “Balloon Boy”? By the time you read this, the stunt may only be a little-known question in Trivial Pursuit. Here’s the short version: a publicity-hungry amateur-scientist father of three pulled off a hoax that captured the attention of America. On October 15, 2009, Richard Heene released a large gray helium balloon that looked like a UFO from a 1950s movie, then called the authorities to report that his nine-year-old son, Falcon, was trapped inside. As the balloon floated some fifty miles across the Colorado sky, newsrooms across America sprang into action. People prayed. Emergency medical teams stood by. Police squads were mobilized. Denver International Airport was shut down. Several National Guard helicopters were in hot pursuit.
As the helium began to leak, the balloon eventually crashed in a field. Rescuers made a mad dash to lessen the blow, then to save the boy’s life—if he was still alive. As it turned out, there was no one inside the balloon! A manhunt was quickly organized, thinking that perhaps Falcon had fallen out earlier. But then came word that Falcon was safe and sound at home. He had been hiding—per his father’s instructions—in the family attic. He got sleepy, had fallen asleep, and awoke a few hours later to a media frenzy.
He went to sleep as Falcon and awoke as Balloon Boy.
This is not a chapter about balloons, hoaxes, and men who use their children as pawns to pitch a reality TV show. It’s a chapter about abortion—one of the most painful and politicized issues in our public discourse. So what exactly does the killing of a baby in the womb have to do with the boy in the balloon? I bring it up for one reason. It helps to focus our attention on a crucial question: what’s in there? If we believe that there is a human being within that balloon, we will stop at nothing to protect and to preserve that life. No amount of money or energy or equipment is too big: we must do everything we can to protect and preserve the life of a fellow human being in distress. Likewise, if we believe that what’s growing inside of a woman’s womb is a living human being, should we not think the same? If the balloon is merely filled with air, or if the womb is merely occupied with a clump of cells, then no action is needed. Knowing what’s inside makes all the difference in the world.
Justin Taylor

Abortion Statistics - Separating Fact From Fiction

Goo Goo Dolls - Slide - A Song About abortion

The group has sold nearly nine million albums in the U.S. alone. While not a Goo Goo Dolls fan this song reached number one in 1998 and 1999. I never closely listened to the lyrics, however. I thought the song was a love ballad about two young people falling love and wanting to get married, mainly because of the words "I wanna wake up where you are" and "Do you wanna get married?".

The key to the song lies in the second verse.

Don't you love the life you killed?
The priest is on the phone
Your father hit the wall
Your ma disowned you

Don't supposed I'll ever know
What it means to be a man
It's somethin' I can't change
I'll live around it

The song is about abortion.

The teenage girl is Catholic. The question is, should they get married, or just abort the baby and run away and be together?

The young man says,

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide

In other words, I won't question your decision to take the life of our child. I will let it slide, and you should just let it slide too. We will just learn to cope and live around the guilt of the decision.

The lie is that we can truly let things slide. We can't. Our decisions live with us and haunt us. Guilt is not removed by trying to wish it away and be happy.

The truth is that guilt can be removed. It can washed away by the grace and mercy of Christ rather than letting things slide.
The Dawn Treader

Elena Kagan and Partial-Birth Abortion

Here is an eye-opening article at National Review Online, written by Shannen Coffin on Supreme Court nominee (and undoubtedly future Justice) Elena Kagan and her crucial role in coming up with (dishonest) language to defend partial-birth abortion.
In judicial rulings on partial-birth abortion, one of the most important documents was produced by a “select panel” of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The Supreme Court used this document as a key example of medical opinion on partial-birth abortion, as it said that partial-birth abortion “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” This language was used extensively in defeating partial-birth-abortion bans.
But in point of fact, the select panel of the AOG actually wrote in their initial draft that they “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.”
Mr. Coffin writes:

Upon receiving the task force’s draft statement, Kagan noted in another internal memorandum [PDF] that the draft ACOG formulation “would be a disaster — not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation.” Any expression of doubt by a leading medical body about the efficacy of the procedure would severely undermine the case against the ban.

So Miss Kagan sought to solve the problem.

Her notes, produced by the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee, show that she herself drafted the critical language hedging ACOG’s position. On a document [PDF] captioned “Suggested Options” — which she apparently faxed to the legislative director at ACOG — Kagan proposed that ACOG include the following language: “An intact D&X [the medical term for the procedure], however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.”
Kagan’s language was copied verbatim by the ACOG executive board into its final statement, where it then became one of the greatest evidentiary hurdles faced by Justice Department lawyers (of whom I was one) in defending the federal ban. (Kagan’s role was never disclosed to the courts.) The judicial battles that followed led to two Supreme Court opinions, several trials, and countless felled trees. Now we learn that language purporting to be the judgment of an independent body of medical experts devoted to the care and treatment of pregnant women and their children was, in the end, nothing more than the political scrawling of a White House appointee.

Yuval Levin writes:

What’s described in these memos is easily the most serious and flagrant violation of the boundary between scientific expertise and politics I have ever encountered. A White House official formulating a substantive policy position for a supposedly impartial physicians’ group, and a position at odds with what that group’s own policy committee had actually concluded? You have to wonder where all the defenders of science—those intrepid guardians of the freedom of inquiry who throughout the Bush years wailed about the supposed politicization of scientific research and expertise—are now. If the Bush White House (in which I served as a domestic policy staffer) had ever done anything even close to this it would have been declared a monumental scandal, and rightly so.
Apparently scientific integrity only matters as long as it doesn’t somehow infringe on abortion. That, of course, was always the lesson of the stem-cell debate in the Bush years anyhow. But clearly it started earlier. It’s good to know where Kagan’s priorities are. Let’s hope senators are paying attention.

Justin Taylor

A Final FAQ on Healthcare and Abortion

Over the past 72 hours, I’ve been engaged in various debates about the contents of our newly minted-health care system and the effects of the executive order that was issued to appease Bart Stupak and his ilk.
The central question in the debate is whether the bill will–does–fund abortions, and whether the Executive Order that Obama has promised to sign is enough to prevent that from happening.
It’s my suspicion that significant confusion remains on the issue. So here’s my attempt to shed light on the question of abortion in the Senate bill.
But let’s do this Q&A style.  Because that’ll be more fun.
Did the Senate health care bill, which was the bill under consideration, cover abortions initially?
Well, yes.  The bill establishes some $9-11 billion in funding for “Community Health Centers.” Robert Destro, a professor at Catholic University, writes:

CHCs and other federally funded primary health care providers such as migrant, tribal, rural, and public housing health centers are required by law to provide “comprehensive” primary care services. The statutory term “comprehensive health care services” is broad enough to include reproductive health services, family planning services, and gynecology services. And the courts are unanimous in holding that – in the absence of the Hyde Amendment – this statutory term necessarily includes federal funding for elective abortions.

The Court decision to note here is Beal v. Doe. While these CHC’s don’t currently perform abortions, that’s largely because their money has come from appropriations bills subject to the Hyde amendment, which prohibits abortion funding. But $9 billion is quite a bit of money, and it’s slated to go into a new “Community Health Center Fund,” not be intermingled with all the other monies.
But isn’t this bill covered by the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funding for abortions?
If it was, what is all the wrangling about? You could be assured that Stupak wouldn’t have held out for months for redundant language in the bill. But as John McCormack (an invaluable source) points out:

But the Hyde amendment does not say that “none of the funds channeled through HHS” may pay for elective abortions; it says “none of the funds appropriated by this act” may pay for elective abortions. A Hyde-like amendment needs to be included in each different act authorizing public health programs, or the programs will end up paying for abortions, just as Indian Health Services did long after the Hyde amendment was on the books.

In other words, no. The bill isn’t subject to the Hyde amendment.
So Stupak solved this with the Executive Order, right?
If you want to think that, you go ahead. But you’ll be lonely. No one, Left or Right, agrees with you. Including Bart Stupak.
But if you’re still not convinced, there are three problems with it:
1)  It’s not clear that the language actually adds anything to the bill itself. Ezra Klein (a lefty commentator) thinks that it essentially promises to enforce the bill…as it’s written. Which is a pretty plausible reading of it.
2)  While executive orders may have the force of law, they cannot alter the laws on the books.
3)  Again, given Beal v. Doe, the federal government is 0bligated to provide abortions as a part of comprehensive health services in the absence of laws prohibiting it. Given that the Executive Order is not in fact the law, a court challenge will have to nullify the Executive Order in favor of the bill as its written.  And if you don’t expect that court challenge to come quickly after the appropriations are received, you’re dreaming.
Why did Stupak cave, then?
Apparently, it was the plan all along.
Did Stupak get anything for it?
Nope. Except a nationalized race in November. At time of writing, his opponent has some 17,000 facebook fans. It had 100 yesterday morning.
At least Sir Richard got Wales.
And pro-lifers?
They didn’t get much either. As I’ve argued, the bill as it is funds abortions.
Which is why it’s so disappointing to hear facile Christian endorsements of this bill without a single acknowledgement that we have increased abortion funding significantly, overnight. Endorsing the bill without repudiating not what might be pragmatically or economically inefficient, but what is morally wrong, is simply to turn a blind eye to the substance and effect of the legislation.
First Things

Tea Party Organizers Ignoring Abortion?

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, writes in The Washington Post:

Republicans too often treat the abortion issue like an eccentric aunt at Thanksgiving dinner — if they ignore it, maybe it will go away. And lately, Republican heads have been turned by a new, flashy guest at the table — the tea party movement, which has been attracting big crowds, high-profile speakers and money with its message of lower taxes and less government spending.

The New York Times ran a piece on Friday on how “[some of] the Tea Party leaders . . . deliberately avoid discussion of issues like . . . abortion. . . . [They] argue that the country can ill afford the discussion about social issues when it is passing on enormous debts to future generations.”
John Piper comments:

Let me see if I understand this term “ill afford.”
Is this it? Enormous debt will hurt our children and grandchildren. Therefore don’t talk about the lawfulness of whether they can be killed.
Something like that?

Justin Taylor

The End of the Road for Pro-Life Democrats?

From an interview today with National Review Online:

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”
If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”
“Throughout this debate, even when the House leaders have acknowledged us, it’s always been in a backhanded way,” he laments. “I’m telling the others to hold firm, and we’ll meet next week, but I’m disappointed in my colleagues who said they’d be with us and now they’re not. It’s almost like some right-to-life members don’t want to be bothered. They just want this over.”
And the politics of the issue are pretty rough. “This has really reached an unhealthy stage,” Stupak says. “People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they’re really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No.”

Justin Taylor

The Pro Life Generation

The pro-abortionists are worried. Journalist Robert McCartney, one of their number, explains why:
I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn’t it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What’s more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it’s gaining strength, even if it’s not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous.

As always, we in Washington enjoy an up-close view of the health of various causes because of the city’s role as the nation’s most important setting for political demonstrations. In this case, I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.

“We are the pro-life generation,” said signs carried by the crowd, about half its members appearing to be younger than 30. . . .

Activists who support abortion rights conceded that there’s less energy among young people on their side of the debate.

“Unfortunately, I feel my generation is a little complacent,” said Amanda Pelletier, 20, co-director of the abortion rights group at American University. “It just doesn’t seem to be a very hip issue.”
by Dr. Gene Edward Veith
Vitamin Z

Eugenics by Abortion Is an Abomination to God

This week's sermon: "Born Blind for the Glory God: Eugenics by Abortion Is an Abomination to God"
Haiti happens every day in the world's abortion clinics, where 130,000 human lives are destroyed. In the United States 3,000 die daily, crushed in the earthquake of abortion (more than the 2,976 who died in the 9/11 attacks).
With the advent of widespread prenatal testing availability, a kind of "eugenics by abortion" is growing, as parents kill their disabled offspring at a horrific rate. As Wesley Smith writes, "Americans may heartily cheer participants in the Special Olympics, but we abort some 90 percent of all gestating infants diagnosed with genetic disabilities such as Down Syndrome, dwarfism, and spina bifida."
The Christian Bible has a message to speak: There is both forgiveness for those guilty of abortion and a whole new way of thinking about disability. God is the one who knits together humanity in the womb, and God has his good and perfect designs in every disability.
Jesus shows us that the man born blind in John 9 was disabled for the glory of God, for his own good, and for the good of countless others. Not only did Jesus physically heal him, but then he pursued him, to perform the ultimate healing: opening his spiritual eyes to see the glory of the Son of God.
In every disability and death, Jesus is at work, for his Father's glory and for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
Desiring God

Like An Electric Current

  “Mugged by Ultrasound: Why So Many Abortion Workers Have Turned Pro-Life”    by David Daleiden and Jon Shields, is a gut-wrenching, disturbing, graphic account of the emotional trauma abortion wrecks on those who perform them. For example, in 2008, Dr. Lisa Harris explained what happened while she, 18-weeks pregnant at the time, performed an abortion on an 18-week-old fetus. She felt her own baby kick at the same time she ripped off a fetal leg with her forceps. This prompted a visceral response.

Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.

Tragically, Dr. Harris is still in the abortion business.
Paul Jarret is not. He quit after 23 abortions. “As I brought out the rib cage, I looked and saw a tiny, beating heart,” he would recall, reflecting on aborting a 14-week-old fetus. “And when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I just killed.” Judith Fetrow and Kathy Spark, both former abortion workers, converted to the pro-life cause after seeing the disposal of fetal remains as medical waste. Daleiden and Shields explain:

Handling fetal remains can be especially difficult in late-term clinics. Until George Tiller was assassinated by a pro-life radical last summer, his clinic in Wichita specialized in third-trimester abortions. To handle the large volume of biological waste Tiller had a crematorium on the premises. One day when hauling a heavy container of fetal waste, Tiller asked his secretary, Luhra Tivis, to assist him. She found the experience devastating. The “most horrible thing,” Tivis later recounted, was that she “could smell those babies burning.” Tivis, a former NOW activist, soon left her secretarial position at the clinic to volunteer for Operation Rescue, a radical pro-life organization.

Many abortion providers have been converted by ultrasound technology. The most famous example is Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the original NARAL. By his own reckoning Nathanson performed more than 60,000 abortions, including one on his own child. But over time he began to fear he was involved in a great evil. Ultrasound images pushed him over the edge. “When he finally left his profession for pro-life activism, he produced The Silent Scream (1984), a documentary of an ultrasound abortion that showed the fetus scrambling vainly to escape dismemberment.”
Sadly, countless abortion workers keep on perpetuating the great evil, even if it means suppressing the truth they literally feel in their bones.

Pro-choice advocates like to point out that abortion has existed in all times and places. Yet that observation tends to obscure the radicalism of the present abortion regime in the United States. Until very recently, no one in the history of the world has had the routine job of killing well-developed fetuses quite so up close and personal. It is an experiment that was bound to stir pro-life sentiments even in the hearts of those staunchly devoted to abortion rights.  Ultrasound and D&E [dilation and evacuation] bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves “no possibility of denying an act of destruction.” As they wrote, “It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.”

Read the whole thing and pray for abortion workers.
Kevin DeYoung

Modified Pro-Choice = Political Doubletalk

The modified pro-choice position is a politician's favorite abortion double-talk:  "I'm personally against abortion, but I don't believe in forcing my view on others."

I once had a discussion with  a man who offered this nonsense to me at a conference.  I asked him the question I always pose when I encounter such a notion:  "Why are you personally against abortion?"

He responded with the answer I always get. "I believe abortion kills a baby," he said, "but that's just my own personal view."

"Let me see if I understand you, " I said.  "You are convinced that abortion kills an innocent child, yet you think the law should allow women to do that to their own babies.  Did I get that right?"

He objected to my wording, but when I asked him what part of his view I misunderstood, he was silent.  I hadn't misunderstood it.  That was his view.

The logic of the modified pro-choice position reduces to, "I think it's wrong to kill my own children, but I don't think we should stop other people from killing theirs."

- Greg Koukl, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, p. 154, 155
Vitamin Z

Inside the Womb: The Heart in Action

by La Shawn on December 9, 2009

in Child Killing, Faith

I wanted to point readers to an organization called The Endowment for Human Development and the wonderful images of life inside the womb. In particular, the heartbeat of an “abortable” four-week-old unborn child.
Most abortions occur during the first trimester of pregnancy (0-12 weeks). That tiny “blob of tissue” on the left is quite spectacular, isn’t it?
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” – Psalm 139:13-16
La Shawn Barber

Senator: Sold

Michael Gerson’s latest Washington Post column is on Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) who compromised his pro-life beliefs in order to pass the Senate’s health-care bill. He opens this way:

Sometimes there is a fine ethical line between legislative maneuvering and bribery. At other times, that line is crossed by a speeding, honking tractor-trailer, with outlines of shapely women on mud flaps bouncing as it rumbles past.
Such was the case in the final hours of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s successful attempt to get cloture on health-care reform. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, was offered and accepted a permanent exemption from his state’s share of Medicaid expansion, amounting to $100 million over 10 years.

Gerson later writes:

In the end, Nelson not only surrendered his beliefs, he also betrayed the principle of the Hyde Amendment, which since 1976 has prevented the coverage of elective abortion in federally funded insurance. Nelson not only violated his pro-life convictions, he also may force millions of Americans to violate theirs as well.
I can respect those who are pro-life out of conviction and those who are pro-choice out of conviction. It is more difficult to respect politicians willing to use their deepest beliefs — and the deepest beliefs of others — as bargaining chips.

Read the whole thing.
Justin Taylor

The Human Factor

For example, in his only direct mention of abortion, he states that

even bracketing entirely more general arguments about abortion[,] the ready acceptance of abortion of "defective" fetuses .  .  . violates the human dignity we share. It sets aside the fundamental bond of parents and children, inserting choice in the place of love and acceptance, and teaching us thereby that we must justify our continued existence, especially when we constitute a burden to others.

All true, and certainly miles away from any kind of philosophizing we may expect from a White House bioethicist between now and 2013. But the point Meilaender is making--that abortion creates a culture of wantedness, where children's lives are valuable not intrinsically but only relatively, according to whether their parents want them--is universally valid. It need not be qualified by the implication that it applies more so to eugenic abortions. Every abortion "sets aside the fundamental bond of parents and children, inserting choice in the place of love and acceptance." Every abortion teaches us "that we must justify our continued
existence, especially when we constitute a burden to others." For what is an "unwanted" child but a human life considered to be "a burden to others"? I don't know why Meilaender fails to make this logical leap. Perhaps, sensitive to accusations that pro-lifers wish to impose upon others their religiously based belief in fetal personhood, he wishes to isolate his criticism of abortion in an area where there may be common ground. But if that is the case, such timidity is unwarranted, for the core of his argument is not that abortion violates the human dignity of the unborn. It is that abortion violates the human dignity of born children, by denying or relativizing their intrinsic value. This is a point that can be argued effectively purely through reason, and it is essential if we, as a society, are to accomplish what Meilaender rightly deems "our moral task .  .  . to seek to recognize the person who is there."
Understanding man's place in the ethical universe.
by Dawn Eden- The Weekly Standard