It’s very inaccurate to call yourself pro-life if you have exceptions to the rule. According to LifeNews only 17% of the population is truly pro-life in childbirth. The majority of people do believe Roe vs. Wade should be overturned. But if the child is known (or thought) to be damaged, deformed, retarded, in danger of death, or has Down Syndrome one thinks it’s acceptable to abort.
In what is sure to raise hackles for many, this is not a true pro-life position. The truth hurts, but this time it hurts badly. Sometimes it is necessary to put people back on the track where they were meant to be.
If you use an exception when birthing a child, the rule of being pro-life does not apply. It certainly includes some congressional leaders like North Carolina’s Elizabeth Dole or Richard Burr. Their exceptions are abortion for those children conceived by either rape or incest.
Did any of those aborted children perform the evil deed that gave them life? Were they responsible for any rape or act of incest? Yet many of us think that because it was a truly evil action, we must kill the baby. The baby reminds us of that action, or its parent will be unable to take care of it, so killing it will eradicate its problem of coming into the world. But the innocent must suffer the death.
No logic.
Author Mary Beckham (Globe Newspaper) reveals some nasty things. The 1952 Funk & Wagnalls describes Down Syndrome as Trisomy 21, or mongolism. It seems doctors back then said to put a Down Syndrome kid in an institution, an forget you ever had that person. Back then it was institutionalize, instead of kill, as it is now.
She describes how 80-90% of the people in the 1990’s considered likely to have Down Syndrome were aborted. But the test was not perfect. In 1965, Marion Burke’s doctor gave similar advice, but she ignored it and took her son home. Chris would later star in the television series Life Goes On.
Fairly soon a prenatal test can, or does, tell whether a baby will likely develop a mental illness, cancer, a propensity for aggression, blind or deaf, allergic to peanuts, etc., etc… If we decide to abort, we decide to kill. We have judged that their life is not worth living. Have we asked them how they feel about being aborted?
In actuality, 75-85% of pregnant women by rape (major study/Dr. Sandra Mahkorn) chose against abortion. Most realize that abortion is not some magical surgery that turns back the clock to make a woman “un-pregnant”. Will having an abortion truly help her, or will it cause further injury to her already bruised psyche?
In Elliot Institute’s survey of 192 women who became pregnant through rape or incest, nearly 80% of women who did have abortions, said the abortion had not been a good solution, and usually did more harm than good. Of those who did give birth, none regretted continuing the pregnancy. All studies show that incest victims rarely voluntarily agree to an abortion. They usually see pregnancy as a way out of the incestuous relationship, somewhat because the birth of her child will expose the sexual activity.
She is also likely to see in her pregnancy a child with whom she can develop a truly loving relationship--one far different than the exploitive relationship that was forced on her. Even Julie Makimaa, who was conceived through sexual assault, said it best: “It doesn’t matter how I began. What matters is who I will become.”
All those friends hate when it’s said all their very new babies were conceived but were killed by abortifacients such as the “pill”, the IED, RU-486, and the morning-after pill. They were flushed down the toilet without a second thought. It certainly is not a popular thing to say, even though the above is common.
Real life can be tough sometimes. The writer certainly hopes that when he sees his conceived souls later on in the afterlife, they will have forgiven him. But unbelievably, they probably already have.
Kevin Roeten can be reached at roetenks@charter.net or kevin@kevinroeten.us.
