An Honest Conversation About Abortion That Asks Us Not to Turn Away — From Anyone
We may be a smaller human in utero — but the size of a human being has never determined value of a human being.
We may be a less developed human in utero — but the developmental level of a human being has never determined that one has less worth as a human being.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
We may be in a particular environment as a human in utero — but where a human being is has never determined whether one was respected as a human being.
We may be more dependent as a human in utero —- but being dependent on another human being for life has never determined that anyone can simply end your life.
[see Stephen Schwarz's SLED.]
And because the life of the human in utero matters —- never negates how the life of a woman in crisis matters.
Like when twitter streams and streets fill with this cry that Black Lives Matter.
It doesn't mean that all other lives don't matter, it doesn't mean a negating of anyone else's life — it simply means that in this moment, in the face of great loss, we have the humanity to listen to real voices and say, "Black Lives Matter."
Saying one person's life matters — doesn't mean someone else's life doesn't matter. Or that only their lives matter —- but their lives equally matter too.
In 2012, New York City had more black babies killed by abortions (31,328) than there were born (24,758). Sit with that. That number of black babies accounted for almost half of all abortions in New York City. More blacks aborted than were born. Three American university researchers discovered that Planned Parenthood's "primary consideration in placement of centres is not poverty but the percentage of blacks in the area." Do we really believe #BlackLivesMatter?
Then human black lives in the womb matter.
And when we say that Human Life in the Womb Matters — it doesn't mean then that the lives of Women in hard places don't matter.
When we say that Womb Lives Matter — it doesn't for one iota of a moment mean that women's lives don't count, don't have a voice, don't matter. When we say that Womb Lives Matter, we aren't saying that only pre-born people matter and women don't —- we are saying that pre-born people matter equally too.
It's part of the DNA of true social justice: Humanity believes in mutual human flourishing — in the flourishing of all human beings.
History, genocides, Nazism, racism, haven't they all proved at the very least this to humanity: It's when we dehumanize anyone, that we can legitimize anything.
* * *
Graphic footage of pristine organs, a heart, a stomach, kidney — and a hand, a foot, legs — extracted from a 20-week-old aborted baby.
"It was a twin," an employee says as she retrieves the body from the refrigerator.
Clearly developed hands and feet are seen in the dish, as the investigator pulls out a lung with a pair of tweezers.
"If we alter our process, and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, we can make it part of the budget" to cover "dissections" and "splitting the specimens into different shipments," the director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melissa Farrell, says. "It's all just a matter of line items."
Line items?
Workers in a lab are seen sorting through body parts on a dish: a heart, stomach, kidney, and legs.
And then a medical assistant suddenly announces: "It's another boy!"
It's another boy? Like a human boy?
How does another human boy become line items of dissected organs, a split specimen into different shipments?
The video records it: A Planned Parenthood employee goes to lunch, says over her salad, that the fees paid for fetal human body parts adds tremendous "diversification of the revenue stream" for the Planned Parenthood affiliate.
How does a twin, another boy, a human, become dissected line items of body parts that adds "tremendous diversification of the revenue stream" of any civilization in 2015?
There are revenue streams that run like bloody rivers through our streets.
* * *
When I watched those videos, when I read the transcripts, of the blood and the babies and the cutting apart of of human body parts, straight up: I wanted to wish it away, close my eyes and just not bear witness.
But in bearing witness, we bear the weight of glory, of the God who bears sins and rises, and redemption requires testimony.
And maybe what could change this Pro-Choice, Pro-Life debate —- is that we all become Pro-Voice.
We could believe that every life has a voice — and we listen, no matter how much easier it would be justify, legitimize, or objectify. Listen to the voices of women, the voices of men.
And why raise our voices about these undercover Planned Parenthood videos, for the voices of the Voiceless Humans who soundlessly cry? Because when asked, "Have you seen or heard recent news about videos that supposedly show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of aborted fetus tissue, or not?"
Only 27 percent said they had heard a lot.
Only 21 percent said they had heard a little.
But even now, after 5 released undercover videos exposing the dissecting of human bodies for financial gains by Planned Parenthood, 53 percent of respondents said they had not heard about the Planned Parenthood story at all.
And maybe for far too long we have turned away from these abortion videos because it's us in the videos. It's our babies, it's our high school friends, it's our sisters, it's our own grief. As many as 1 out of 3 American women have had an abortion — and not one of these carries it alone. We failed them. This is our failure as a community. The tender mourning of all this is that: Abortion is always a failure of community. Every abortion is a failure of humanity: failing a human being in crisis and a human being in utero.
