God versus the Abortion Culture
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
In mid-May, shock jock Elliot Segal of Washington, D.C.’s radio station DC101 thought it would be great entertainment to hold a morning-drive listener contest to determine who had either had or paid for the most abortions.
Now there’s a way to get your day started off on the right foot!
Elliot found the “winner” when one caller, who went by the name K-Dog, proudly took responsibility for 16 abortions between two women. In fact, his second wife who called in to verify that she had killed 5 of their children in the womb.
The timeless wisdom of Proverbs 14:12 seems especially applicable to this sad story: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” How have we become so callous as a nation that the number of sons and daughters a man pays to have killed is celebrated like the hard-earned badges of a Boy Scout?
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, an expert in cultural violence, wrote a book entitled On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. He points out that in “World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were actually willing to fire their rifles; in Korea, about 50 percent were; in Vietnam, the figure rose to over 90 percent.”
What changed?
Two things. First, the military trained the soldiers to “overcome their powerful, innate human resistance” to killing. And second, they learned how to depersonalize the enemy. Isn’t that precisely what’s happening in our culture today when it comes to the sanctity of life?
Violent video games are certainly a contributing factor.
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut denounced, to his credit, “Grand Theft Auto”, which “rewards the player for attacking a woman, pushing her to the ground, kicking her repeatedly, and then ultimately killing her, shooting her over and over again.” Not to mention that you receive extra brownie points for killing cops, cutting them in pieces with a chainsaw and setting them on fire.
What does it say about us that “Grand Theft Auto” was the number one selling video game in America last year, prompting 5.1 million people to plunk down $50?
Plus, abortion has been part of America’s landscape for so long – 32 years – that our consciences have become numbed. 43 million dead babies is a LOT of dead boys and girls. That’s the population of the entire state of California and New York City combined!
If you ask me, America is in a moral freefall. Soon the warnings of Paul in I Timothy 4:2 about false teachers “whose consciences have been seared by a hot iron” might aptly describe much of what seems normal to us as a people.
In this post-Terri Schiavo culture, we have embraced a “quality of life” ethic which is antithetical to the teachings of Scripture. We have disregarded the counsel of Psalm 139:13: “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.”
In his book Silent No More, Rod Parsley describes these real live situations.
• “A preacher and his wife have 14 children. They are already living in abject poverty when she discovers she’s pregnant again.” If you chose abortion, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great reformers and evangelists of the 18th century.
• “A father is critically ill with bronchitis and his wife has tuberculosis. They already have four children. The first is blind, the second died in infancy, the third is deaf and the fourth has tuberculosis. Then she discovers that she is once again pregnant?” If you had chosen abortion, you would have killed the great composer Ludwig von Beethoven.
• “A white man raped a 13-year-old black girl. She becomes pregnant.” If you had chosen abortion, you would have killed Ethel Waters, one of the greatest jazz and gospel musicians of the twentieth century.
Sadly, many women today, encouraged by our anti-child culture, are having abortions to remain free from the “constraints” of motherhood. Just ask Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She said that a woman’s ability to remain competitive in the workplace was dependent on ensuring that abortion on demand remain the egregious law of the land. After all, you might not get that promotion to law firm partner, if you have to take a week off, pop out your baby and hand her over to the daycare strangers to raise!
In the process of pursuing the counsel of Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Self, the murderous mother is snuffing out God’s dreams for that person. “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 139:15-16) And through abortion, none of those days will EVER come!
The more the abortion industry can deceive pregnant women about the truth of the humanity of their growing child the more likely they are to profit from another dead baby.
For example, in Illinois right now Planned Parenthood is trying to get bills passed into law that would make it virtually impossible for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to show women their babies alive and moving inside the womb through ultrasound. They want to require multiple medical specialists that (a) are not necessary and (b) would be cost prohibitive for the average lean budget of crisis pregnancy centers.
The real issue is simple. When a pregnant, abortion-minded woman sees the sonogram of her baby, 85-97% of the time she chooses life. End of story. The evidence of the humanity of the child is irrefutable. And that’s a choice Planned Parenthood despises because they make no profit. So much for being “pro-choice.”
OK now. You’re not allowed to laugh when I tell you the ridiculous smokescreen Planned Parenthood is using to prohibit a woman from getting an ultrasound at a pro-life crisis pregnancy center. Planned Parenthood actually claims that ultrasounds may harm the baby.
WHAT?
First of all, that is totally false and medically unsubstantiated. Secondly, if they’re so concerned about harm coming to the baby, why then are they profiting from the sale of 160,000 abortions annually which involve excruciating and documentable pain to the baby as it is being systematically dismembered and cut into pieces?
Yeah, somehow that one just doesn’t pass the McManus smell test.
But thankfully there are some in the medical field who understand that boys and girls in the womb are worthy of protection. Victoria Leland, a local neonatal nurse, was featured in the San Antonio Express-News on May 17th for her crusade for premature babies. 490,000 babies are born before 37 weeks gestation, 49,000 of whom are born in Texas.
She’s self-published a book with pictures of babies demonstrating their will to live entitled The Work of Your Hand: Christian Meditations for Parents of Critically Ill Babies in Neonatal Intensive Care.
Sadly, not all people of faith side with life. Rabbi Barry Block of Temple Beth-El here in the Alamo City wrote a column for the San Antonio Express-News on May 10th denouncing the need for a strong parental consent law. It simply would have required that before a minor teenage girl could get an abortion, she would need parental consent. Not too much to ask. After all, we require parental consent before a minor can get her ears pierced, swallow aspirin at the nurse’s office at school or even go on a field trip to the zoo.
The Express-News failed to point out, and Rabbi Block failed to reveal, that he is the immediate past chair for Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Texas. Clearly, his Planned Parenthood agenda supersedes key Hebrew Scriptures like Genesis 1:27, Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:13-16.
Even the new interim Baylor University President Bill Underwood has defended his financial support of Planned Parenthood. He’s sending his 16-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son to their summer sex-education program entitled “Nobody’s Fool” which graphically promotes pre-marital sexual activity to its fifth through ninth grade audience.
Where is the Christian protest, informed by a solid Biblical worldview?
Martin Luther King, Junior said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Queen Esther understood the need to speak out and take a stand. When Haman, the Planned Parenthood official of his day, sought to “kill and annihilate all the Jews – young and old, women and little children – on a single day” (Esther 3:13), she could not remain silent. Risking death by appearing before her husband King Xerxes unannounced to plead for her people the Jews, Esther heeded the wise counsel of her cousin Mordecai, who poignantly asked, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
Almighty God has given you breath to speak out for His righteous standard “for such a time as this.” What are you going to do?
TAKE A STAND ACTION STEPS:
1. To object to Rabbi Block’s column in the San Antonio Express-News which condemned parental consent and to ask why he didn’t reveal that he was previously chairman of Planned Parenthood of San Antonio and South Texas, be polite when you write, Rabbi Barry Block, Temple Beth-El, 211 Belknap Place, San Antonio, Texas 78212, call (210) 733-9135 and e-mail: bblock@beth-elsa.org
2. To object to interim Baylor University President Bill Underwood defending his financial support of Planned Parenthood, write Bill Underwood, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97288, Waco, TX 76798-7288, call (254) 710-4064, and e-mail William_Underwood@baylor.edu.
3. If you would like to legally picket outside San Antonio abortion mills and/or offer sidewalk counseling to the women who are about to have abortions, call Debbie Locander of Choose Life Ministries at (210) 744-5433. Or just join them any one of these days. Mondays: New Women’s Abortion Mill, 419 San Pedro Ave, 8:30-10 a.m.; Thursdays: Medical Center at Floyd Curl and Medical Drive, 8:30-9:30 a.m.; Saturdays: Reproductive Services Abortion Mill, outside 410 by Evers and Joiner, 6:30-9:00 a.m.
4. Learn more about the sanctity of human life issue at these phenomenal websites: www.abort73.com, www.abortiontv.com, www.lifenews.com, www.operationrescue.org, www.lifedynamics.com, www.all.org and http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/bioethics/abortion/
5. Read Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments by Randy Alcorn, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood by George Grant and True to Life by Janet Folger.
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