Yikes, what did she just say?
Yep. That's right. Go back and re-read it. Babies are legally aborted in the state of Georgia ... just a few miles down the road from you ... all the way up to 27w6d gestation FOR ANY REASON AT ALL. Beyond 27w6d, you must obtain a "health" exception, which is some places is as simple as declaring, "you know I sure am depressed about being pregnant". Georgia is not alone in this.
Seven states allow abortion for any reason at all up to week 24 (These are FL, MA, NV, NY, PA, RI, and SD). Again, later if you have an exception for "health".
Twenty-three states allow abortion for any reason at all up to "viability", which in the medical community is generally considered week 24. However in these states there is no specified gestational weeks defining "viability" for the purposes of obtaining an abortion, so the abortionist performing the deed is the one who will determine who is "viable" and who is not. (These are AL, AZ, AR, CA, CT, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MI, MO, NT, NE, ND, OK, TN, WA, WI, WY)
Five states allow abortion for any reason at all up to the third trimester, generally considered week 28. Note that this is well *after* the baby has reached viability. (These are GA, IA, SC, TX, VA)
And fifteen states allow abortion for any reason at all up to the time of natural birth ... there are NO gestational age limits in place whatsoever in AK, CO, DE, DC, HI, MN, MS, NH, NJ, NM, OH, OR, UT, VT, WV.
Statistically, the abortion industry's own reports admit that roughly 98% of all abortions are done for reasons of convenience. About 1.5% are for medical reasons (either health of mother or diagnosis of baby); and the remaining 0.5% are rape/incest.
Now all of you who know me already know that this is a subject I'm quite passionate about. I've never been afraid to openly share my opinions about things, but generally I do try to keep a lid on some of my political rantings so that people don't completely hate me. Whenever you talk about abortion, the room gets awfully tense and people super-uncomfortable. Turns out it's not a "feel good" kind of topic. Of course it shouldn't be. Dead babies is not something that should ever feel commonplace or comfortable.
Yet what most people don't realize ... because it's distressing and no one wants to think about it ... is that this is happening thousands of times a day all around you. In this country alone we slaughter roughly 1.2-1.4 MILLION babies a year. That's about 3,500 a day.
3,500 A DAY.
There's more Americans dying in abortion mills every day, than were killed on 9/11. More than all the US Soldiers who have died in Iraq since the war began.
But no one wants to discuss it. It's too stressful to think about, and any discussion of abortion brings up thoughts of feminists marching with signs and waiving red coathangers. Most people don't want to choose a "side" in this debate; they just want to not think about it. It's much more comfortable that way.
Well forgive me, but today the irony of my own situation has hit me once again and I'm using the opportunity to force all my readers (all 7 of you?!) to think about it.
Here I lay, in this miserable bed, for the umpteen-millionth day in a row, desperate to do anything I possibly can to hold on to Jamin a little longer and give him the best chance of survival. Should he be born tomorrow, when I officially reach week 28, his chance of survival outside the womb is over 90% and the risk of long-term problems stemming from his prematurity is low. But today, if I wanted him dead, I would simply need to pay a little visit to Dr. Malloy, Atlanta's notorious late-term abortionist.
I've actually had the displeasure of meeting Dr. Malloy ... in the fall of 2007 during the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil outside one of his clinics (yep, he has several). He walked up the sidewalk trying to disguise himself as a passer-by, then approached me asking who we were and what we were doing there. It was a divine appointment, apparently, since I recognized him immediately but the crowd around me did not. I played along though. I smiled and shook his hand (ewwww, the hand of death!), and told him who we were and that we were here on the sidewalk praying for an end to abortion. When I introduced myself and asked his name he pulled back, gave me a confused look, and asked, "what are you, a reporter or something?" (paranoid, much?). I smiled and told him, no of course not ... I'm just a stay at home mom who doesn't like that babies are being killed in my neighborhood. With that he quickly left. Maybe he expected a gift basket or something.
A few months later, in March 2008, Dr. Malloy killed one of his patients when he botched her post-6 months gestation abortion at Summit Medical Center. She died on the table, leaving behind three living children.
Let me just ask: did you hear a single blurb about this in the news last March? Ummm.... no.
But today, at 27w6d into my pregnancy, Dr. Malloy would gladly rip Jamin to pieces in exchange for about $2000. He would do this using a procedure called Dilation and Evacuation (or D&E for short). This consists of anesthetizing the mother, dilating her cervix, dismembering the baby with forceps, and pulling out the pieces one by one. The legs first, then each arm, then the trunk, and finally the head, which must be crushed prior to removal in order to fit through the cervix.
Now this human slaughter in exchange for money, today at 27w6d gestation, would be perfectly legal and protected ... in fact encouraged and celebrated by many in our country who insist that doing this is a mother's choice.
However, if while my way to see Dr. Malloy, I were mugged on the sidewalk outside of his clinic .... and beaten so badly that Jamin died as a result ... the mugger would be tried for homicide.
But all he did was save me $2000, right? Maybe I should send *him* the gift basket!
Listen, I hate to be the bearer of bad news ... the one who forces your brain to consider these atrocities and makes it difficult for you to enjoy your morning coffee and go about your day as normal. I'm not a weirdo, I'm not obsessed with death and gross things, I'm not a radical religious zealot, and no this is not a vast right-wing conspiracy. This is the truth. It is happening repeatedly all around us. But we close our eyes and choose not to see it because the reality of it is too overwhelming.
Today I am trying to poke open your eyelids just a tiny bit. Because this slaughter of children for profit will continue to happen ... in fact it will only worsen ... if we do nothing. The only way any of this will change is for people all across this country - REGULAR OL' PEOPLE like you - to get outraged.
It is said that the German citizens during WWII ... the regular folks who lived in towns surrounding the concentration camps ... they knew something awful was happening around them. They saw the train cars passing through their towns, carrying the Jews to the camps. They heard the screams. They saw the ash falling. Intrinsically they *knew*, that something horrific was being done. It is said that these Germans ... they closed their eyes and they went about their lives as best they could. They went to church and sang hymns and pretended there wasn't a human holocaust happenig outside their doors. And when the sounds of the cries began to permeate through the church walls, what did they do?
They sang a little louder.
You see, this is human nature. Horrors that are this atrocious .... they are so awful that it's just easier not to face them. This is just what we do when it comes to abortion. As a nation we intentionally keep ourselves ignorant. We change the channel when that commercial comes on at 2am, we remain uninformed of the laws and of the realities of what is happening in our neighborhoods, we leave the church the moment the pastor utters the "A" word, we make excuses, we even justify why sometimes it might be okay. We sing a little louder, and all the while - millions of babies are being killed just down the road.
Let me just be totally trasparent for a moment. I've been entrenched in pro-life ministry for three years now. I have sat and counseled countless women, both before and after an abortion decision. I've held their hands, I've cried with them. I've spent endless hours emailing with them and praying for them. And there's something you need to know: the reality is way more widespread and way more awful than you are imagining. Women are in desperate situations, and in the absense of any real help, they let their fear drive them to Dr. Malloy's doorstep (or the hundreds of doorsteps belonging to his competitors).
There was the woman I met last year, late 30's, who was 26 weeks pregnant and seeking a late-term abortion because the child she was carrying was not her husband's baby. She had somehow succeeded in hiding the pregnancy from her husband, hoping her boyfriend (father of the baby) would make good on his promises to leave *his* wife and make a family with her. Finally at 6months into the pregnancy the boyfriend admitted that he had no plans to leave his wife and told her she was basically on her own .... and now she's sitting in a room with me telling me how she must erase all the "evidence" of her infidelity or her husband will leave her too.
There was the woman I counseled online in 2006 who aborted her son after finding out at the 20-week ultrasound that she was carrying a boy. Apparently she only wanted girls. Yes people actually do that. We had a client at the PRC about 2 1/2 yrs ago who did the same (except she was keeping the boys and aborting the girls).
There was one woman I keenly remember from 2007 who was 23 weeks pregnant seeking an abortion because her husband told her to get rid of it. She sat in a counseling room with me, with her one-year-old sitting in her lap, telling me there was no other way to save her marriage. When I told her that a 24-week baby has a 50% chance of survival outside of the womb, she asked if I thought the doctor might just "take it out" for her next week.
There was a 15-year old girl who came in a few months back, who had successfully hidden her pregnancy from her parents for six months. At 25 weeks her mother discovered it, and literally dragged her into our office by her hair demanding to know the name and phone number of the nearest abortion clinic. Her daughter was crying and begging for the life of her baby. It was awful. The mother was shouting obsentities, and the daughter was screaming, "please don't make me do this, I want my baby to live" .... all in our waiting room. When we informed the mother that legally she can't force someone to abort against their wishes, she told us, "I'm her mother: watch me".
There was a girl in her late-20's from Pennsylvania I counseled online in the fall of 2007. She was 22weeks along but had just found out she was pregnant. She was seeking an abortion because she already had three kids, and the father of the baby was incarcerated. She couldn't afford a late-term abortion, so she found a pro-choice advocacy group in New York that agreed to pay for it and provide round-trip transportation and hotel for her to make the trip from PA to NY for the abortion. She jumped at the chance dispite my pleas. She completed day 1 of the procedure in NY (which consists of them inserting medication vaginally to dilate the cervix), went to the hotel and prepared to wait for day 2 (when they do the actual abortion). At the hotel she received a frantic call from home about a family emergency. So she unexpectedly had to drive back home to handle that, but made arrangements with the volunteer group to pick her back up the following day. As it turned out, her return ride never arrived and she got stuck in PA. She began vomiting and running a very high fever (signs of a septic infection), so she went to her nearby emergency room. They ended up admitting her to the Labor&Delivery unit, where she gave birth and literally came face-to-face with her "choice". The experience traumatized her. For weeks afterwards we continued to communicate, she told me she was drinking heavily just to get through the day and could no longer take care of her three living children. I encouraged her to seek help. A few days after that she cut off all communication with me. I have no idea what ever happened to her or her kids.
There are more .... I could go on all day but I'll spare you the heartache. This is the reality of abortion. These are the things that are happening every day all around us. And if President Obama has his way, it will only get worse. He has promised repeatedly that he will sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which will wipe out every single state law restricting abortion. Every state that has parental consent laws, waiting periods, informed consent laws ..... literally hundreds of state laws across the country .... gone with one sweep of his pen. Most notably, FOCA will overturn the ban on partial-birth abortion, making this particularly horrendous method of killing late-term babies once again commonplace. FOCA will also erase the gestational age restrictions in those 36 states I listed above which prohibit very late 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions for non-medical reasons. So we would no longer have the 27w6d time limit in Georgia .... or anywhere for that matter .... we would see babies legally aborted up to 40 weeks in every state simply because their mother did not want them. Further, FOCA will fund abortions with taxpayer money, and will force faith-based hospitals and physicians to participate in abortions.
Now, politically, this is obviously a hot-button issue. But most voters and everyday citizens try to stay out of the frey. Collectively, we tend to focus on other issues that seem more pressing, more urgent ... things like the failing economy and the war on terror. During the election, I heard countless times people say things like "I don't particularly like abortion, but I'm voting for someone that can fix our economy since it's most important right now". This is a very very common feeling among many Americans. Let me share with you two things I know to be true:
1. Morality matters MOST to God.
2. God can not *possibly* bless our country's economy or our national defense, when we so blatently spit in His face in the areas that matter most to Him. We slaughter our children, and we defile the holy union of marriage by allowing a man to marry another man, or a man to marry his goat, or whatever .... and then we sit back and wonder why God has not rescued us from the financial ruin we've created? Why he has not swept Al-Queda away in a massive hail of fire and brimstone? It is a biblical pricipal called bloodguilt: we have blood on our hands, the Lord can not ignore it, and He can not fully bless our nation until we repent and make our laws match more closely with His laws.
“O city that brings on herself doom by shedding blood in her midst … you have become guilty because of the blood you have shed … Therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations and a laughingstock to all the countries. Those who are near and those who are far away will mock you, O infamous city, full of turmoil” Ezekiel 22: 3-5
“Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them, says the LORD” Jeremiah 5:15
“Should I not punish them for this? Declares the LORD. Should I not avenge myself on a such a nation as this?” Jeremiah 5: 9
“I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them … every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened”. Jeremiah 36: 31
“They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters … and the land was desecrated by their blood … Therefore the LORD was angry with his people and abhorred his inheritance. He handed them over to the nations, and their foes ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them and subjected them to their power.” Psalm 106:37-42
Each of us has a choice to make. We can get angry, get involved, and do something to fight this. Or we can close our eyes and sing a little bit louder. My hope for today is that more of us will chose to stop singing and take some kind of action.
Now, forgive my rant for today. I will step off my soapbox now. And don't worry, I won't let it happen again.
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