Feticide
If I titled this, “Abortion”, would you have opened it more quickly or more slowly?
As I sit here contemplatively agonizing over the proposition of writing about this nuclear warhead of a topic, a men’s underwear commercial broadcasts on my TV replete with a floating duo of golf balls and promises of hammock-like comfort. Breathless, I change the channel and see highlights of Cardi B’s WAP Grammy performance, to which I exhale, unleash the tension in my scapulae, and take woeful confidence that we are, in fact, living in a day devoid of any modicum of modesty. Therefore, while I am culturally free to write with little concern for civility, I will strive to keep Truth as the centerpiece.
Yet, how exactly can anyone write civilly on a subject which spans a spectrum of human behavior including personal choice, disregard for consequences, unprotected sexual relations outside of marriage, the miracle of life, abandonment of responsibility, and the hellishness of death with the portent of a lifetime of remorse and shame? In that order. Being an expert in none of these, I will attempt to mostly focus on the third element in the array.
To God, I am thankful I have never needed to personally inquire about feticide. I have never been to an abortion protest or a pro-life rally, am entirely clueless as to where the nearest Planned Parenthood is, nor have I ever been pregnant. (If that last declaration startles you, may I suggest that unless you can take a few days off from work in order to search the Google Archipelago asking if men can get pregnant, I would highly recommend you take my word for it and simply keep reading).
While I have written much on the dangers of the political spirit, this is a topic that should never, ever have been politicized. Remember it was just a few years ago in 2019, the now embroiled Governor of New York, Andrew “Big Hands” Cuomo, (son of Mario “Tappan Zee” Cuomo and brother of CNN’s, Chris “The Barbarian” Cuomo), capriciously had the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center set aglow in pink to celebrate the passage of the Reproductive Health Act. Once again, the left surely dominates the right when it comes to naming horrific ideas with deceptively positive slogans that keep the uninformed masses uninformed.
Before we parse this nefarious nomenclature, take note that even the most ardent feminists and virulent Pro-choicer's balked at the idea of rigging a Manhattan skyline light-show to triumphantly exclaim to the world that human fetuses could be nullified from breathing Earth’s holy air right up to the moment of the Doctor’s announcement exchanging, “It’s a boy”, for, “It’s been killed”.
“You formed my inward being. You wove me together in my mother’s womb”.
A Psalm of David
Catastrophically, the same technology which can capture the beating heart of a baby for eager, expectant parents can also amplify the nightmarish, fetal screams of that same baby as it’s being yanked and nutcracker-ed within its God-formed womb. Andrew, precisely how did you land on the color pink to celebrate this heinous and egregious act?
The naming of the “Reproductive Health Act” was lazily adopted from the non-sensical, Pro-Choice Women’s Reproductive Rights jargon. Plainly said, no female can choose whether they reproduce or not. A body’s ability to reproduce is a matter of biology and entirely outside the cognizant act of choice. The choice at hand is; whether to allow or disallow the conditions that make reproduction possible to take place or not.
Second, if human “Health” is truly an aim of this movement, then from a purely biological standpoint it is imperative to equally consider the health of the mother and the health of the fetus. Why? Because by all definitions, a fetus is alive and can be examined for various indicators of health including, disease, malformations, and abnormalities from the earliest divisions of the fertilized egg. While you may dispute whether life begins at conception or not, you can not wriggle away from the fact that that health begins at conception.
And exactly who was it that first swaddled individual rights into this brand-named label of death? If the living have rights, then both the birther and the to-be-birthed must agree on whether passage through the canal will be permitted from the unseen to the seen world or not.
Sadly, we know of a certain Virginia Governor who decreed that a newborn baby only has the right to be made comfortable while the choice is being made in the room whether he or she should live or die. Just imagine; you’ve been kidnapped. Whilst your captor contemplates how and when to kill you, you insist that it’s your right to be made comfortable in the meantime. Surely, this is an important and refreshing right to protect.
And lastly, specific to naming conventions, the term Pro-Choice is another maniacally brilliant moniker. Who could ever imagine such a thing as being anti-choice? Except, in this case, the choice we need to solve for is not whether to abort or not, but rather the choice which leads to conceiving babies with no intention of nurturing them.
At this point of the treatise, I could embark on all manner of statistics and metrics to build a case. For example, less than one percent of abortions so far this year were for rape or incest, and there is no medical data available for abortions conducted in order to save the life of the mother. Further, there is empirical data that displays how abortion is decimating some races and groups of people more than others. How tragic that simple analysis reveals it’s the most marginalized and vulnerable of groups who flood the distributions on the charts and graphs on this battlefield of death. Polling in these areas show that even when birth control is distributed for free — usage is firmly refused. But, as I’ve been told, lived experience is more important than empirical statistics so, nothing to see here.
Leonard Cohen famously wrote, “In a massacre, there is no decent place to stand”. Meaning, sometimes you are in a place where there is no good decision left — no matter what you do, it’s wrong. That said, my premise is not to debate the legality or morality of abortion because both are genuinely nested within a larger, overriding construct: Why is unprotected sex the never-discussed, ever-assumed constant in this life-taking, life-wrecking equation?
By the time one gets to the point of considering an abortion, it’s too late to ask the questions I want to ask. We have debates, rallies, protests, and political posturing intent upon either proliferating or eliminating acts of abortion, yet I never hear honest and deeply intellectual dialogue on the issues of human sexuality that lead to unwanted pregnancy in the first place. As a citizenry, have we all silently agreed that the given state of affairs is; everyone is free to have unprotected sex with anyone, anywhere, anytime with no responsibility whatsoever?
While I’ve never worn Amish broadtail trousers, I am far from being prudish. But it was just one generation ago that answered the question — when to have sex— with: When you get married. And that was a good answer. Today, it is entirely taboo to even whisper such restraint.
The benefits of a sacrificial life, specifically to deny oneself today in order to bring about a better tomorrow, are endless. Reversibly, is a fleeting, personal pleasure today enough to tip the scales of tomorrow from the weight abortion places on the opposite pan? With everything we know today about sex, protection, and pregnancy, it is disgustingly appalling to me that abortion has essentially become just another form of contraception.
Pro Choicer’s act as if they were randomly stung by a bee and the Pro Lifer’s are denying them the right to pull the stinger out. The more foundational point is; why was your ungloved hand in the hive?
If you are vigilant about wearing masks during the pandemic and support abortion: Stop to carefully think that through…
And therein lies my thesis. The debate as to whether life begins at conception or sometime after conception will never be agreed upon by us hapless, politically charged humans. Personally, I hold to the most glorious of revelations: Life begins before conception.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart”
~ Adonai in the Book of Jeremiah
But, the debate as to if and when consenting adults should have unprotected sexual relations should be completely land-able. And no, it should not be determined or managed by our already grossly inept government.
Far too many dimly believe God-issued laws are intended to clip our wings and curtail earthly enjoyment in order to satiate His demand for perfection. Emphatically put: No! Adonai’s issuances have always been for our betterment, not His. From the earliest revelations of God’s heart for ordering communities, it was for our protection, prospering, thriving, and joy which culminates in experiencing the abundant life of the Kingdom amid the inferior and corrupted cultural codifications imposed all around us.
I’ve recently heard countless progressive Christian podcasters talk about the horrors and harmful aftershocks of their experience in church youth groups’, Purity Culture. Really? How many adults today gleefully exclaim to their spouse and kids the bountiful and enriching sexual exploits of their high school and college days with great fondness and pride — so much so, they hope their children will far surpass them. I fear, like so many other things under siege today, we’ve set our once highly-held bars so low, we are tripping over them.
I am not accusingly slinging mud here as much as begging for an open and honest discussion on this cultural I.E.D. which has not only resulted in the shredding of nearly 63 million babies in the U.S. since 1973 but has left behind a trail of trauma, regret, longing, and sadness.
Acknowledging many may feel stung reading this, remember: The Christ story is forever and entirely redemptive.
I met a pastor who had two babies aborted in his earlier years. He was endlessly tormented with guilt and remorse until one day a visitor came to his church and during prayer, had a vision. He shared the vision with this pastor:
“I saw Jesus holding a baby in each arm as He beamingly said to you, ‘They can’t wait to meet you’”.
Unknowingly, the visitor asked, “Does this mean anything to you”?
