A recent email exchange with 14 people involved the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Her Catholicism came into question as some writers were positive that she was pro-life and would fight to reverse Roe v. Wade. I responded that I know several Catholics who are voting for Joe Biden, even though he, a Catholic, is pro-abortion. That being said, the fact that Barrett has seven children (five biological and two adopted) makes me believe that she probably endorses laws respecting the sanctity of life. And so do I. I know someone who has had 3 abortions. To her, birth control is “such a pain.” I also know others who have aborted their babies and live in guilt for the rest of their lives. It is a haunting shame and one that therapy rarely can solve. Sadly, quick solutions seem to be the mode of our microwave, drive-through generation. Who wants to be inconvenienced?
If that “piece of tissue,” aborted baby had been you or me, how differently we might see this predicament. (And yes, I see the futility of that sentence, but hopefully you get the point,) A person I know recommended an abortion to his daughter. I asked if he considered that this “fetus” could be a future president of the United States or inventor of a cure for cancer or the most beloved janitor the school had ever seen. Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow was recently at our son’s ranch here in Ft. Scott. His mother did not follow through with her thoughts to abort him, and because of that, he delighted dozens of military guests who spent an entire morning catching his passes, not to mention that his Christian faith has encouraged many who are persecuted for their beliefs.
If you watched the RNC, you heard Abby Johnson share how she joined the staff of Planned Parenthood to help women in crisis. Having experienced two abortions of her own, she wanted to offer support to those women who didn’t think they could care for their child. Planned Parenthood began to push her to be more proactive in selling abortions because “Abortion is how we make our money.” Her new quota was double the number of abortions at her clinic the previous year. A month later, Abby’s eyes were opened when she was asked to assist an abortion doctor to do an ultra-sound guided abortion. For the first time, she witnessed the bloody, violent business that takes a human life. “Nothing prepared me for what I saw on the screen,” Abby said. “An unborn baby fighting back, desperate to move away from the suction. And I will never forget what the doctor said next: ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’ The last thing I saw was a spine twirling around in the mother’s womb before succumbing to the force of the suction.”
Last year a relative became pregnant with a baby that had the Trisome 18 syndrome. She carried the little guy into the 5th month where it was diagnosed that he had no esophagus or stomach and only a fragment of a brain. It was her second miscarriage. Should the parents not be able to have a baby, how thrilled they would be to adopt one of those rejects…you know, those “inconveniences.” The numbers are staggering: Two million American couples want to adopt. (That’s 36 families for every one child placed for adoption.) As for the argument that abortion is necessary for rape victims, read the story of Lianna, a 12-year old rape victim who was told to have an abortion. When she asked the doctor if an abortion would ease her pain and help her forget about her rape, her doctor told her it would not. Lianna chose life and soon found that the love of her daughter replaced the pain of the rape. Google her story. It is a tremendous read. There have been 62,252,920 abortions since Roe v Wade, and I have to wonder how grieved God, the One who creates life, must be. The most amazing thing about this Life-Giver is that He’s also a merciful God who forgives those who call on His name, no matter how grave the sin. He is a Father none of us deserve.
I am so grateful that we serve a merciful God who understands the desperation of women who make a choice to abort a baby and offers forgiveness when they do.