The Big Ugly.
When a girl is a Mraz-loving, artsy-fartsy, tree-hugging, feminist who writes poetry, chances are she’ll be in the minority of her peers when it comes to her pro-life leanings.
In this society of politically correct niceties, the pro-life activist is labeled “narrow-minded” at best, and all too often considered a bigot. It’s “bad form” to even suggest you don’t support “a woman’s right to choose.” No wonder the issue of abortion is one so many people tiptoe around and avoid confronting: akin to religion and politics, the abortion debate has grown into the sore spot where both of those sensitive topics meet. Where the ruling of Roe v. Wade was intended to settle an issue, it has created a bloody divide instead.
I have not really delved into this issue myself for the simple fact that I was considering my audience. Which is exactly why I should have brought it up sooner.
This election has been making me physically ill. I have been useless at work lately, getting my work done, but not as efficiently as I should. I have been preoccupied to the point of exhaustion. I have been having nightmares about not getting to vote, about showing up late, or not being registered. I have awoken feeling as though I had spent hours crying.
Do you really know what a partial birth or late term abortion is or how one is performed?
“But,” some assert, “Obama supports restrictions on late term abortions and only really supports the procedure when the mother’s health is endangered.” The Partial Birth Abortion Ban affords the senator and fellow pro-abortion fans such a loophole, one that allows partial birth abortions to continue under the guise of “protecting the mother’s life.”
For the record, The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 states:
Hundreds of ob-gyns and fetal/maternal specialists, along with former Surgeon General Koop have come forward to unequivocally state that “partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a mother’s health or her future fertility.” In fact, the procedure can significantly threaten a mother’s health or ability to carry future children to term. The American Medical Association has said the procedure is “not good medicine” and is “not medically indicated” in any situation.
… so why is the loophole necessary if not to abuse it?
Do you know what infanticide is?
My second child was born premature. The span of 50 minutes from when my doctor confirmed that I was “going to have this baby today” to when I actually delivered was among the most frightening experiences of my life. We were fortunate that he was not dangerously early. But still, his lungs were underdeveloped, so he was swept away as soon as he was delivered, taken to be teathered to a ventilator, IV, feeding tube, heart monitor…
But because he was wanted, he survived.
Without the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a premature baby who is marked for abortion but survives is not afforded any right* to medical care for the simple fact that the child was unwanted by the birth mother. (*Due to the language of Roe v. Wade, we apparently can’t just say “a baby is a baby — care for it.”)
The Born Alive Infant Protection Act prevents the disposal of such children.
I am aware that abortion is not the only issue at stake this election. Nor is it the only life-affirming issue to up for consideration: the war, poverty issues, and health care fall under the same umbrella. However, I believe the issue of Life is the most important issue.
To consider a child to be less than human simply because he or she is not wanted by his or her birth mother, to me, that is evil.
Let’s put it this way: if you witnessed a mother walk up to a train track and lay her newborn down on it and walk away, would you rescue the child? Or would you leave the child to die because that’s what the mother wanted? Isn’t that question absurd?! You don’t even have to be smarter than a 5th grader to know it would be wrong to leave the child to die.
But that’s exactly what that man is choosing.
And as far as I can see, any person who cannot make such an obviously straightforward moral choice ought not be handling any other matter facing our nation.
I expect I’m down to only one reader from now on. But maybe I can sleep tonight for a change.