And Down Will Come Baby...
There are times in the pro-life movement when words are just inadequate. Yesterday, when the Guttmacher Institute announced a spike in U.S. abortions, reporters hurried to file their stories. And while most of them managed to communicate the data--almost none conveyed the loss. Instead of reflecting on the 1,212,350 unique members of society that America will never know, the headlines all minimized the tragedy that is "choice."
Papers from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post explained the news with the sensitivity of a sports column. It's "just 1%," the Journal reported, or a "slight rise," said the AP. Factually, they're both right. But in terms of casualties--real human victims--this "slight rise" means that our country dug 6,150 new graves in 2008. That's more than the entire student population at Yale, Princeton, Brown, or Dartmouth.
Where is America 's perspective? On Saturday, the entire nation grieved with Arizona after the haunting Tucson shooting spree. Who among us, after reading their stories, would say the gunman "only" killed six victims? Yet somehow, in a society calloused by convenience, it's acceptable to describe the loss of millions of unborn children as "just" this or that. However political this debate has become, it's important to remember the moral crisis that got us here. And until we address that fundamental problem, these statistics are bound to yo-yo into the new century.
In the meantime, there are ways to cut down on the number of abortions in America. For starters, we can stop paying for them! Unfortunately, the last Congress made that even more difficult by stuffing millions of abortion dollars into the health care law. Then they funneled even more into Capitol Hill's backyard by agreeing to subsidize abortion in Washington, D.C.--something pro-life Members are fighting to overturn. After the new Congress convened, Congressmen Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) wasted no time introducing a bill called the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" which would wipe the slate clean of most government projects that force Americans into the abortion business.
On the state level, legislators can look to Nebraska for inspiration. Last year, the Cornhuskers passed the Abortion Pain Preve ntion Act, which uses the science of fetal pain to ban abortions after 20 weeks.
What the Left can't seem to admit is that America 's abortion rate had fallen because of the hard work of the pregnancy resource centers, abstinence education, and pro-life laws. But despite its own findings, Guttmacher, which was once the research arm of Planned Parenthood, is using the report to advance their political agenda of more abortion, more access to abortion, more abortion doctors, and more restrictions on abortion protestors. Obviously, the organization is going to bat for its old friend Planned Parenthood, whose relationship with the government has been an especially lucrative one for the abortion industry. But in the end, it's a partnership that Americans can't afford--not from an economic standpoint and certainly not from an ethical one.
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