For Example...

Our fifth child was born on Friday. And it's interesting how people react. Seems like most folks were ok with me having four kids. Apparently, five is pushing the limit. I've gotten that extra raised eyebrow more often than before. A few more questions paraphrased as "you gonna stop after this one?" I always say the same thing. "We'll see."

I'd prefer to keep the discussion here to abortion, not family planning. So I'd like to throw this out there - a well-known truth. A picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, I wish it was worth a thousand lives. Consider this a type of positive propaganda.

You would not want to be responsible for "terminating" this little guy, would you?

Edmund - 20 hours old

We are immersed in a culture of choice. You can choose to have or do anything you want - as long as it isn't illegal. And the protection of those choices is used as justification for a lot of silliness. But what I'm talking about here isn't even remotely silly.

It would have been entirely legal for my wife to exercise her rights to choose not to bring this pregnancy to full term. Notice the euphemisms.

euphemism [yoo-fuh-miz-uhm] - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.

1. This Pregnancy - This term is used to distract you from the fact that you are dealing with a real person in the womb. This isn't how real people even talk. When the father asks the mother how things are going, he doesn't say "how is your pregnancy today?" He says "how is the baby today?"
2. Bring to Full Term - This implies that we are simply dealing with a medical phenomenon that can either run its course, or not, depending on a minor medical procedure. Again, it is designed to mask the fact that we are talking about the life or death of a little baby.

Obviously, the thought of an abortion never crossed my wife's mind. It never could - she knows what she's dealing with. But so many people don't. At least, I assume they don't. If they did, how could they choose to have an abortion?

Don't be fooled. Don't be sucked in. If you are considering an abortion, chances are good that something serious is behind it. I get that. But whatever it is, it can't be serious enough to justify taking an innocent life. Every life is beautiful - especially that tiny life inside you right now. Protect it. Don't throw it away.

Sacrifice

I wrote this essay likening abortion to human sacrifice when I was doing my undergrad degree at Northern Michigan University - I think it was probably 2002 or 2003.


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I’m taking a class about the history of Mexico and every time I turn around, I think of our neighbors to the south. Of course, being the college-age male that I am, there are certain parts of Mexican history that I’m probably going to remember better than others. Take, oh, human sacrifice for example. I guess it’s hard to forget that kind of thing once you manage to wrap your mind around the fact that real people were getting really killed in really gruesome ways. In central Mexico, human sacrifice was carried out to such an extent that it even managed to make a not-so-nice band of Spanish mercenaries sick to their stomachs when they saw it.

The Aztecs literally considered human sacrifice to be a part of their mission as a messianic people. Although the majority of those murdered were prisoners of war, many Aztecs considered it to be an honor to have their blood shed on the temple steps. Why, you ask? Why would any mother give up her son to have his heart taken out or his head taken off or to be buried alive? Because she was told that it was for the good of society. And since it was for the good of society, it was also good for her and every other family member that was left behind.

Please understand; I’m not trying to pick on any one nation or culture. Practically every society on earth has practiced human sacrifice at one time or another. It’s embarrassing, but at least it’s ancient history… right? Think again. It turns out that even in our country of supposedly endless freedom human sacrifice is practiced on a level that makes the Aztecs look like innocent children.

Worse yet, we kill babies. We starve them and we dismember them and other things too horrible to mention. But hey, it’s for the betterment of society right? At least, that’s what the scientific and medical professions tell us - it's about health and a better, freer society. Isn’t that ironic? As if the parallel was't frightening enough, members of those professions often enjoy a status in our society that’s comparable with the priests of the ancient world, and they certainly have the attentive ear of the government. What’s the difference between the slaughter in our time and that perpetrated by our ancestors? It's hard to see.