This is a photo of a 28 week old fetus. Same age as my belly bean. One presidential candidate regards this child as entirely disposable, a mass of tissue not worthy of protection under law.
This candidate shares an ethnicity with hundreds of thousands of Americans who, a mere 140 years ago, were regarded as disposable. Household equipment not worthy of protection under law. We now, rightly so, shudder to think of the inhumanity of that period in history. The suffering of those who could not speak for themselves.
This candidate seems to have missed the relationship.
Any valid political philosophy must have at it’s core that all members of the human race have equal dignity and protection under law. This applies to all regardless of gender, race or religious belief. It also applies regardless of age or stage of development. Embryo, fetus, pre-born are as much stages of development as toddler, teenager, middle aged and elderly. One would never vote for the right to terminate inconvenient middle-aged men. In the same spirit children resting within their mother’s womb, which should be the safest place on earth, are entitled to protection. To life. To be born.
Tomorrow when you are about to cast your vote, I implore you to remember this picture and to think of my child. The much anticipated, loved from the moment he was conceived child. Ask yourself if he is less a person than any of the other children I love. Picture a child who is not as anticipated and loved and ask yourself if he really deserves to die for the circumstances of his conception. Ask yourself if that is the kind of person you are, the kind who would place the life of a child in such low esteem. Ask yourself if you truly want to answer to God for that at the end of your life. Ask yourself. Then ask God for His Divine Assistance.
Then vote.
God bless you.
SHABAM!!!
Linking…!
Amen!
Oh I am praying hard!
Yes!!
I put a link from my blog to this post. As a mom of six with number seven on the way I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you.
I Loved it
I came here from Vicki’s blog, where she posted the link.
What an amazing post! I’ve always voted pro-life, and will continue to do so.
Thank you for this post. It brought tears to my eyes.
First, it is a completely false statement to say the Obama wants to kill unborn babies. Second, unborn babies are protected under law just not in the way you wish them to be. Third, slaves actually did have a voice, they were born and could and did speak. Fourth, slaves were protected under law, they were personal property.
Joe the plumber no longer works on our campaign
Yes!!! God bless you, Mary Ellen!
You’ve said it perfectly. Thank God my adopted son’s birth mother chose life for him.
God bless you and your precious “belly bean”.
Alicia
Women have always had abortions, and always will, whether it’s legal or illegal, clean or filthy, and whether we approve or not. Abortion is legal because when it was not, women died of peritonitis, septicemia, toxic shock and hemorrhage, and still do today in parts of the world where it’s illegal. If you don’t want an abortion, then by all means don’t have one. But if you are in favor of recriminalization, you are in favor of relegating other women to the quack abortionist. When abortion is illegal, it doesn’t stop; it goes underground, and women follow. This is simply a fact. Recommended reading: THE WORST OF TIMES by Patricia G. Miller.
Swamp Yankee seems to be missing the point that an intrinsic evil cannot be justified simply because making it illegal would result in other bad things happening. Murder is illegal, and guess what – it still happens “underground.” People still die. The goal of outlawing of abortion would not be to ensure that no woman ever has one, but to take a stand and say that human rights are extended to all human beings – period. It would be saying that legally, all human beings have intrinsic value, and one person’s right to life always trumps another person’s right to anything lesser… ie, liberty, pursuit of happiness, convenience, emotional stability…
Praying here for LIFE on this evening of the election…
Erin seems to be missing the point that when abortion is illegal, ordinary everyday women, regardless of the law, bleed to death on motel room floors. That’s an example of the sort of “other bad things” that happen when abortion is illegal. Either you can accept women bleeding to death, or you can’t. Anyone born before 1960 either knows someone who had an illegal abortion, had an illegal abortion, or knows someone who died from an illegal abortion. If you were to gather ten of your older female friends and relatives in one place, including the nice grandmotherly woman next door, and if they were to tell you the truth, you’d learn that at least half of them had illegal abortions, I guarantee it. You are accustomed to having the argument on your terms: “justifying abortion.” I am not “justifying abortion.” I am justifying “legal abortion.” Abortion happens whether it is legal or illegal. Either you consider women bleeding to death to be appropriate punishment, or you don’t.
Swamp Yankee:
In case you may not be aware, women also “bleed to death” from legal abortions as well. Abortion not only kills a child but it damages women physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s just plain wrong. In your response to Erin you simply restated that women would still have abortions if it is illegal. The fact remains that people continue to murder and commit other illegal acts and that will never be a justification to make these acts legal.
The point where I think we can all agree is that women deserve better than what they are getting, especially from the so called feminist movement. Women need to be respected for who they are. Maybe if all the money given to Planned Parenthood and other organizations like it was spent on REALLY helping women, we would look at things differently.
Let’s face it, the right to kill a child is not what the early feminists had in mind. Equal pay and the right to vote are things women could look forward to. Killing your child is not something young women sit and dream about, saying “Oh, I can’t wait to get pregnant so I can have an abortion!” It just doesn’t fit in with the hopes and dreams of the feminist movement.
Please keep in mind that Planned Parenthood was started by a woman whose thinking was in line with Hitler’s. Not only that, but abortion is a business. There are people getting rich while destroying peoples’ lives.
Dina
Of course I’m aware that women die from legal abortions. There isn’t a single medical procedure, from tooth extraction to open-heart surgery, that does not carry a risk of death. To respond to that risk by making the procedure illegal and driving it underground is just plain illogical. Unless, of course, severe corporal punishment for the “patient” is what you desire. Then it’s perfectly logical.
No, I didn’t just “restate” that when abortion is illegal, women have illegal abortions. I emphasized that if you are in favor of recriminalizing abortion, then it follows that you are in favor of ipso facto capital punishment for women who abort. Are you willing to put women who abort in the same category as, say, Cary Stayner? Are you in favor of capital punishment for women who abort? Keep in mind that if you are, you’ll be including quite a few of your fondest friends and relatives.
Abortion is unique. The comparisons to murder and “other illegal acts” and such are spurious. There is no other circumstance that we face under the sun where one entity is growing inside another. It can only be looked at on its own terms.
“Women deserve better than what they are getting,” you say. Does that include random, crude, Russian-roulette style capital punishment at the hands of a mortician or a dairy farmer with a catheter or a coat hanger?
Swamp Yankee,
I think you are missing the point that every abortion, legal or not, ends a life. We in the pro-life movement do not lack compassion for a woman faced with a crisis pregnancy. We want to protect and care for her as well as her baby.
Just a side note, the days of women’s lives being devastated by the shame of an out of wedlock pregnancy are pretty much over. Women in America have babies out of wedlock all the time. There is support available for women whose families will not support them. Nine months of a woman’s life is not too much to ask to save the life of another human being. There is really no reason for a woman to “need” an abortion.
Instead of trying to scare people about back alley abortions, we should all work together to support women who find themselves in crisis. We all know that many abortions are not about “crisis” at all. It is about irresponsibility and refusal to be accountable for one’s actions.
No, you miss the point, which is the glaring contradiction in your thinking: You in the pro-life movement “do not lack compassion” for women in crisis pregnancies, but you are willing to make abortion illegal again, knowing all the proven attendant dangers to women. In effect, condemn them to death. Your talk of “working together to support women who find themselves in a crisis” is facile and fatuous in the face of that contradiction.
Do you actually believe that only unwed women seek abortion? You’re naive.
There is nothing about abortion, legal or illegal, that I don’t know. There is no aspect of it, none at all, that I am afraid to look at. How about you? I will continue to scare people about illegal abortion, because it’s a highly scary subject. Women are dying of it today in other parts of the world, and in parts of this country where legal abortion is unavailable. Do you have compassion for them? Or do they “deserve it” because they are murderesses?
Swamp yankee,
If I had my way, the doctors and others performing the abortions would be the ones prosecuted, not the women having abortions. All pregnant women are somewhat vulnerable, especially those who are unexpectedly pregnant. Abortion is not the answer, ever, and women need to be surrounded by those willing to explore real options that will not have such tragic consequences.
I think we all know that there is a very diverse selection of women who abort. We’re not naive.
I will also say this to you or anyone else reading this right now: Abortion is positively horrendous. Many times, women who have had an abortion cannot even face it. There may be many months or years of guilt and/or denial. To these women I suggest reading the Gospel of Life where JPII tells all women suffering from the pain of abortion to come to Jesus, who is waiting for them with open arms. He also comforts us by telling us that our babies love us and are resting in the arms of Jesus.
If anyone is suffering from a past abortion, please do not despair, but allow yourself to seek the mercy of God. He is there for us, no matter what.
MaryEllen, I hope you don’t mind this post- I just felt there may be someone out there who needs to read it.
Thanks.
Dina
But if you want to make abortion illegal, then you’re willing to have women barbarically punished by default for their “vulnerability.” That’s the inescapable equation.
Recommended reading: THE WORST OF TIMES by Patricia G. Miller.
I’m confused. Really. So, the only reason we should keep abortion legal is so women won’t go looking at back alleys for abortions and possibly bleed to death? What about the fact that when abortion is legal 100% of the babies are killed?
Swamp Yankee, let me get this straight, you are saying it is alright to brutally murder an innocent life, but should a woman end up losing her own life in the process of murdering an innocent victim that would be the fault of those who would make killing babies illegal? Everyone is responsible for his/her own actions. Adoption is an easy remedy.
I don’t know what else to say. The horror of abortion is that in EVERY SINGLE ABORTION, a baby is “barbarically punished” and is ripped apart. Why does that baby deserve any less than his/her mother? The real question is- Do you believe that a fetus is a human being? If the answer is “yes” then each baby needs to be protected. It is really quite simple. If the circumstances of a woman’s life are complicated then I propose to offer real help- not the right to do something she may not be able to live with.
Dina
If you believe abortion is murder, then have the courage of your convictions. Don’t waffle around and say you have “compassion” for women who seek abortion in crisis pregnancies, or that the “abortionist” should be charged with murder and not the woman. If a woman aborts, then either she is a murderess or she is not. Make up your minds. Any ambivalence on the topic points to a lack of conviction that a fetus is a full human being.
This will be my last post. The snake will be leaving the garden party now. My purpose here was to emphasize certain realities:
That abortion does not cease when it’s illegal; it goes underground and becomes a lethal crapshoot for women. If you think legal abortion is bad for women, how much worse might illegal abortion be? If you favor an abortion “ban,” you favor reintroducing the quack abortionist into the picture, who could be anyone from a seedy old drunken doctor to a motorcycle mechanic.
That there is no “type” of woman who aborts; some of your closest friends and relatives have had abortions, both legal and illegal, I guarantee it. It is ubiquitous enough, and occurs across such a broad social spectrum, from married Christian mothers to prostitutes and every permutation in between, that it demands rethinking the designation of women who abort as “criminal types.” If actual understanding of this uniquely challenging topic is what you desire, then you do yourselves a disservice by retreating into lazy and facile comfort zones. In this category is the ever-popular mantra that women have abortions for “convenience.” This implies that they do it frivolously. No doubt there are some women who have abortions frivolously or for “convenience,” but to apply that across the board and declare that all women who have abortions do so frivolously or for “convenience” is to willfully ignore hard evidence to the contrary. When abortion is illegal, women face dirt, danger, sexual molestation and possible death in order to end an unwanted pregnancy, whether we like it or not and whether we approve or not. It’s simply a fact. They did it in this country when it was illegal, and they do it today in countries where it’s currently illegal. This is a tangible measure of the power of the drive to end an unwanted pregnancy. Would a woman face this kind of danger frivolously? Again, this reality demands rethinking of comfortably-held assumptions.
If you believe abortion is murder, that a fetus is the fully human equivalent of a woman, then it’s inescapable that a woman who aborts is a murderess, that she is no different from Tex Watson. If she is, then you are obligated to call for full prosecution of the woman. Which is fine, if that’s what you actually believe. And if abortion is recriminalized, but the justice system declines to prosecute, then you can embrace illegal abortion with enthusiasm as an unofficial form of prosecution and punishment.
It’s plain, though, that few of you are willing to take such an unequivocal hardcore stand for the punishment and /or prosecution of women. This clearly indicates your ambivalence as to whether or not a woman who aborts is in fact a full-on murderess, despite your assertions that abortion is murder. Your ambivalence is further revealed in your reluctance to acknowledge the reality of how it is when abortion is illegal. You’d prefer to shove it aside. This is popularly known as “denial.” I don’t believe that any of you are remotely hard-hearted. I do think that you are woefully misinformed about illegal abortion, though, and have probably bought into extant historical revisionism that says it “wasn’t that bad” or that it “never happened,” that it’s “pro-choice propaganda” or “urban legend.” I also suspect that most of you posting here are too young to have had any direct memory or experience of the pre-Roe era. I am not.
In exactly the same way that those on the “pro-life” side challenge those on the “pro-choice” side (I use both terms advisedly, because they are inadequate at best) to really look at what happens to a fetus when it is aborted, I challenge you to really look at what happens to ordinary women when abortion is illegal. Know exactly what it is you are conjuring when you say you want a “ban” on abortion. There is no such thing as too much knowledge. I will look at any picture you put in front of me of an aborted fetus, or a living one. I do not flinch from it. Be assured that my credentials on the subject are impeccable. I didn’t arrive at my keep-it-legal stance through ideology or politics, but through firsthand personal experience. You will never find a woman who had an illegal abortion back in the pre-Roe days who is in favor of recriminalization. Never, ever. This is from the horse’s mouth. I’m doing you a service: This is a chance to cauterize vagueness, softness and ambivalence from your thinking.
I have heard time and again from women and men who were self-proclaimed “pro-choice” who said that having an abortion “destroyed” them. Swamp Yankee seems to think that physical wounds are the only type of wounds suffered from abortion. More women today are being killed emotionally and mentally from legal abortions. This is better???
Those of us who are agaisnt this destruction of our culture called abortion are not naive to whom it has affected around us. This is the very reason we fight to promote the dignity of the human person through every stage of life.
I have been faced, like many others, with a pregnancy situation which was NOT ideal, to say the least. I felt, at the time, my only option if I wanted to have a successful life was abortion because of the influences around me.
I found my Faith at the beginning of that pregnancy and it gave me the strength to face those around me who said I couldn’t succeed. I had my son, finished college, etc. My son is 8 years old now. If the pro-abortion people were truly in support of women then they would support them and encourage them through the hurdles of their life. Not tell them they can’t make it unless they kill their own child.
We have a heavily medicated society on anti-depressants, sleep pills etc. and we don’t know why!?
Abortion is a band-aid approach to help solve issues and encourages men to treat women like objects and walk away from responsibility while “destroying” the women.
Abortion is a lie!
Women are stronger than we think!