I have not written about the abortion videos; I do not want to be simply reactionary. “The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.”
And I have been so angry, not just at the videos or planned parenthood but at the people who defend them…especially the Christians who pass around the lies saying that “true, abortion is a bad thing…and nobody really wants abortion, but we need Planned Parenthood, because they ultimately reduce abortion.” Such reasoning defies all logic. It’s like we’ve raised a generation of moral idiots who excel at straining gnats and swallowing camels.
Then there is the old standby defense of those who’d rather not rock the boat; “you can’t legislate morality.” Everything in me wants to scream, “What the hell do you think legislation is?”
Forgive me, I am trying to move beyond this…but in seeking to contend with those who deny the most basic truth of the sanctity of life, I have stumbled into very dark places. As Jesus said, “when the eye is full of darkness, how great is that darkness”
I am not sure most of us understand what has happened in the abortion debate. We are no longer dealing with the simple self deception of those who choose to look the other way. The pro-abortion camp is becoming fully pro-abortion, not merely pro-choice…and unapologetically so. Practically nobody is arguing that what is in the womb is not life. In fact, most abortion proponents don’t deny the humanity of the baby in the womb. They usually admit that what is terminated in an abortion is the life of a genetically human fetus. (So, you are not speaking to the problem when you pass along the clever memes about scientist and life on mars vs. life in the womb. No one is denying the presence of life in the mother’s womb.)
Rather, abortion advocates deny the personhood of babies in the womb. (Some are going so far as to deny that status to those outside the womb before a certain age.) They have embraced the darkness that says some lives are more valuable than others, and we have the right to make that determination…indeed, not only the right but the responsibility. “How great is that darkness.”
They are not looking away from the planned parenthood videos or simply covering up the videos, they are defending them. And in fact, some of the Planned Parenthood defenders even seem to go so far as to assume that abortion is better than adoption. Part of this movement falls just shy of being anti-adoption. “How great is that darkness.”
And I feel like yelling…”Can’t you see that all your points about poverty and personhood…about ‘ruined lives’…about being ‘punished’ with a baby is nothing more than greed driven, materialistic, aristocratic bullshit.”
Yet such responses merely curse the darkness. “How great is that darkness.”
And, we must walk in the light, the light that calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who curse us. We cannot look away or be silent, but we cannot fill our eyes with the darkness. (“How great is the darkness.”) We must fill our eyes with the light of love. Not only with love for every murdered baby on whose behalf we speak out, but love for every lost mother, every murdering abortionist…and every damned fool who defends them.
God have mercy on us all.
Puddleglum Contra Mundum 