By Judie Brown
In the book of Genesis, God told Noah:
“Never again will I curse the earth because of human beings, because their heart contrives evil from their infancy.”
This evil is due to the original sin of Adam and Eve. Every one of us is stained with that sin. But God also gave each human being free will. Every rational man and woman can choose to avoid evil and do good. That means that each of us has the capacity to avoid doing evil.
But in today’s highly politicized climate, it would seem that this is not easy, especially when it comes to preborn babies.
In Tennessee, a “pro-life” bill is on its way to becoming law. It would ban abortions for preborn babies with a detectable heartbeat. This means that if a baby survives for the first six weeks of his life and his heartbeat can be heard, then his life may be spared—unless the doctor deems that an abortion must be done because of a “medical emergency.” In this case, according to the article, a second doctor must certify that “the abortion is necessary to prevent death or irreversible harm to the woman.” In today’s climate, it likely won’t be difficult to find this second physician.
In Tennessee, most preborn babies will still be fair game for killing by acts of abortion.
In Michigan, 379,418 pro-life people signed a petition in support of citizen-initiated legislation that would ban “dismemberment abortions.” However, there is an exception in the proposal that permits this grisly killing to occur if the abortion practitioner determines that the mother’s life is in danger.
In Michigan, the vast majority of preborn babies will still be permitted to die under the law.
In Mississippi, a “pro-life” legislative proposal could ban abortions based on the race, sex, or genetic abnormality of the preborn child. The Life Equality Act does not treat all preborn babies equally even though the title implies that it would.
In Mississippi, there would be a double standard that does not end abortion but merely regulates which babies may not be killed and for what reasons.
Why is this so? Kristan Hawkins has given us a clue in her latest commentary, “If You Like Some Limits on Abortion, You Don’t Like ‘Roe.’” She writes:
“7 in 10 Americans would limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy. But that’s not what you get with Roe, which is used to push abortion much further by claiming laws cause an ‘undue burden’ or reduce ‘access.’”
In addition, Hawkins tells us that a Students for Life poll of millennials found that when young people were told exactly what Roe permitted—aborting a child through all nine months of pregnancy—51 percent of those polled said they oppose it.
So here’s the problem. When a preborn child is created by God in His image and likeness and gifted to his mother and father, that child is innocent. But his parents are free to choose death for that baby because the law says they can.
And if pro-life people who know that every innocent preborn child is a human being assert their political power to regulate or somehow limit the murder, what does that say about us? The polls tell us that only some babies can be saved, and by golly is that supposed to be good enough for us?
Is this really the best we can do?
It seems to me that this is tantamount to contriving an excuse to permit evil to continue.
I do not think such conclusions mean that the people making them are evil, but I do think that we have forgotten why we fight.
Abortion is not a political football, and it is not a topic for a polling question. We have permitted that to be so, but it is wrong. Dead wrong.
Abortion murders people. We must say so. As pro-lifers, we must act like we are not polling for babies as if we were dialing for dollars! Every single baby is precious regardless of polling data.
If our fellow Americans don’t understand this, we are obligated to teach it, not to just go along to get along.
After nearly 50 years of decriminalized child killing, the challenge is enormous. But we are up to that task. All we have to do is act like it.
Stop polling for babies.