Reflections

In the wake of the murder of notorious abortionist Dr. Tiller, some of my pro-choice acquaintances have given me some links as “food for thought” for why abortion should still be legal. The first story was a woman who had an abortion with wanted twins because one twin had died and the other was nearly dead, and her health was deteriorating very quickly as well (high blood pressure, no urine output, etc.). I consider her abortion to be life-saving, not merely health-saving, unless I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle. It was also carried out when she was 22 weeks along, so the chances of her baby even surviving were very small, so we’re not talking about third-trimester abortions that kill viable babies, which is what Tiller was infamous for.

The other blog post was the story of a woman who also killed her wanted baby after finding out that he had some sort of deformity that might kill him in utero, or soon after birth; and at the most, he might have a few years of life, with painful surgeries that would be necessary to extend his life, and his particular problem was such that the baby would have constant muscle spasms and be in pain. Let’s assume she was correct in this. She made it sound like her choice was a mercy killing, and even picked a Bible verse, “Do unto others…” as her reasoning behind it, saying that she wouldn’t want to be in pain, so that gave her the right to kill her baby. But what stood out to me is that she stated that his disease or deformity was such that he likely would be stillborn. So, no abortion would then be necessary, to save him from being born alive, right? Also, she said that he would have to undergo surgeries to extend his life. No, he wouldn’t. Parents choose all the time to withhold treatment from their children that have marginal benefits — and in fact, some doctors will refuse to perform surgeries or otherwise care for or treat babies they consider to be unable to be saved, and therefore not worth the effort. About a year ago, I read a blog of a woman whose baby had Down Syndrome, and also had a particular heart defect or two, and her doctor refused to operate on the baby, saying that it would not be worthwhile to perform the surgery that could save his life because the second defect also had a high death rate, and it was not curable by surgery. Well, God cured the baby — the other defect just went away, with no medical justification or reasoning; then the doctor performed the surgery (three months after the baby “should have” died). Doctors have also refused to resuscitate babies who are born with anencephaly, as another example.

So, going back to this woman — she killed her baby when he likely would have died of natural causes before ever seeing the light of day; and even if he had been born alive, he likely would have died very soon. My sister-in-law died of colon cancer several years ago, and although her case was terminal, if I had gone over to her house and “put her out of her misery” by killing her two days before she naturally died, I still would have been a murderer. I understand to some extent this mother’s feelings, because I wouldn’t want my child to suffer — I didn’t even allow my boys to be circumcised! But I still fail to see where anyone gets the justification to take an innocent person’s life — that belongs to God alone.

In case you want to know — I’m not glad Tiller is dead, and I think his murderer should be punished for his crime. We have a rule of law in the country, and we are not allowed to take justice into our own hands. This was the action of one nut-job, not indicative of the entire 160,000,000 pro-life people in this country. If you want to check out more reasons behind why Tiller’s death is bad for the pro-life movement, or if you want to get more information about Tiller and his replacement, or anything about abortion, you can check out Real Choice.