Christen Gilbert was a 24-year-old young woman with Down Syndrome. She was violently sexually assaulted, she became pregnant, she was taken to George Tiller's late term abortion mill in Wichita, Kansas by her parents, her baby was killed and she subsequently died of complications to her abortion.
Gilbert's story reminds us of the basic reasons why violence begets violence. The only news report I read about this case did not reveal the fate of Christen's attacker. The man who violently assaulted her is apparently alive and only God knows where he is. But Christen, the victim of his madness, is dead and so is her baby. To what end, I ask you?
Why would her parents become so desperate about her "condition" that they would want to kill their own grandchild? What kind of a society encourages this sort of attitude? What sort of legal system permits a practitioner of death to ply his trade with inpunity?
In the aftermath of learning the full story of Christen Gilbert and her baby, may we resolve to strive even harder to defend the innocent preborn and to awaken our death-oriented society to the reality of precisely why every act of abortion is not only violent and deadly, but contributes to a growing moral numbness at the very depths of our cultural conscience.
May the soul of Christen Gilbert rest in eternal peace. May her death not be in vain.
See Cause of death in Texas teen: ?Complications of therapeutic abortion?