I'm Against Abortion, But: A Pro-Life Response to the Frequent Pro-Abortion Claim
by Bryan Kemper December 16, 2009
I'm against abortion, but...
I think the statement that bugs me most when talking to people about abortion is, "I'm against abortion, but..." I can actually respect someone's total pro-abortion position more than someone who tells me, "I'm against abortion, but..." It just makes no sense to me at all; how can they be against something as vile and deadly as abortion and have a "but"?
My first response to them is always to ask them first why they are against abortion. What is it about abortion that would make you start your statement with "I'm against abortion"?
It amazes me when they start telling me how killing a baby is so wrong, life is so precious and we should respect it, and babies are innocent and don't deserve to die. It would seem they have a firm grasp on the pro-life perspective, but. There it is, that little three-letter word that destroys the very foundation of what they just explained to me.
I am boggled at how in one breath you can call killing a baby murder and in the next breath you can justify this murder because you don't want to tell others what to do. I cannot fathom how someone can say that life is precious and should be protected then turn around and support "the choice" to destroy that very life.
I have said this in past commentaries and I will say it again; this is why people can add the word "but" into a sentence about being against abortion. The problem is we are allowing abortion to fall into a different category than every other act of homicide. But abortion is not a different act; it is a different method of the act of homicide. It is still one person killing another person. Therefore, if we would feel compelled to take action to stop acts of homicide such as those in Darfur, the Congo or anywhere else, shouldn't we also take action to stop the acts of homicide that take place in abortion clinics?
So many are refusing to take action because they have been able to infuse the word "but" in order to free themselves of the responsibility of standing against evil. As long as that they can insert that word, they can deflect or hide from the truth that is staring them in the face: innocent little babies are being destroyed.
Let's play a game I like to call "ridiculous analogies". In this game, I switch the word abortion for some other grave evil and see if you can justify a way to insert the word "but" into the sentence.
1. I am against child molestation, but...
2. I am against what happened to the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, but...
3. I am against men beating their wives, but....
4. I am against slavery, but...
5. I am against rape, but...
Can you think of any situations where you can use the word "but" to justify any of these evil, deplorable actions? How about this:
A. I am against slavery, but who am I to tell someone else they can't own slaves?
B. I am against rape but who am I to take away a man's right to choose?
I hope you find these last two sentences make you cringe with disgust. That is the same way I feel when I hear someone say, "I am against abortion, but..."
Abortion is the act of destroying the life of an innocent human being and there is just no justification for committing this act of homicide. Just as justifying exceptions for these other horrifying acts is unthinkable, so should justifying the act of killing babies.
I truly believe that if the majority of people who claim to be against abortion (with a "but" or not) would start acting the same way we would if something like slavery was suddenly made legal again, we would see an end to the slaughter of the innocents.
When I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, a concentration camp in Poland, I stood outside the gas chambers for some time. I had just gone through most of the camp and was emotionally wrecked, to say the least. As I stood outside this building, I was looking at houses in the distance and wondering what I would have done if I lived in those houses during the time of the Nazi Holocaust. Would I have stood up and taken action, or would I have found a way to insert the word "but" into any statement I made about the mass killing taking place in my back yard?
What I realized is that I do live in those houses; there is a mass killing taking place in my back yard. There in another holocaust taking place to which I must decide how I will respond. There is a holocaust taking place in all our back yards as almost 4,000 people are killed every day in our cities and towns.
I want you to all imagine what it would be like to have a house right next to a concentration camp in Poland during the Nazi Holocaust; would you have used the word "but"? Even more important, knowing that you do have a holocaust happening in your own back yard right now, how will you respond? Will you stand up, or will you find a way to say "but...?"
Thursday, Dec 17, 2009 -- Drama in Washington, D.C. over health care "reform"
The Senate leadership is getting desperate to find 60 votes to end debate so they can pass health care "reform" before Christmas. Why the rush? They know the longer they wait the less likely they will be able to get the votes, as more citizens learn how many serious issues are created by this attempted govenment control of heath care. Last night a WGN TV (Channel 9) poll during the newscast found 78% agreeing with "abandon the current bill and start over."
We may be witnessing an historic holdout of one brave Senator, Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He made it clear he could not support the bill without an amendment to prevent government funding of abortion. His amendment was tabled. Another so-called compromise was developed, but Nelson has rejected it as insufficient.
While it seems that everything now rests on Nelson as the 60th vote to end debate so a vote can be taken on the bill, Illinois Senator Roland Burris was quoted as opposing the bill because the "public option" was dropped to obtain support of Senator Joe Lieberman.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expressing support for government funding of abortion in the Senate bill. She wants that provsion to override the Stupak Amendment, preventing government funding of abortion, that was added to the House bill so Pelosi could find the votes to get it passed. She now claims she has the votes to pass a pro-abortion bill, but Senator Stupak says she does not have the votes. The drama continues for now. Pray that this current misguided attempt at health care reform is rejected.
Wednesday, Dec 16, 2009 -- Where does "comprehensive" sex education lead to?
The advocates of "comprehensive" sex education are the same people who claim to support "reproductive rights" and "choice." What happens when they get established within the school system, beyond the tragic consequences of increases in casual sex, untimely pregnancies, and abortions?
Well, in Germany parents who try to prevent their children from attending immoral comprehensive sex education programs receive heavy fines and ultimately go to jail. As usual, choice is a one-way street where those who oppose such practices as immoral are persecuted when they try to exercise their choice not to participate.
The Senate health care "reform" bill provides for $75 million to fund operation of a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center. Based on the qualifications described, the only organization likely to qualify will be Planned Parenthood. The result of this provision of the bill would allow Planned Parenthood to assume the position of a quasi-government agency with quasi-governmental powers to engage the nation’s youth on matters of sex, birth control and abortion.
Since the stated purpose of this provision is initiating "Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training" programs "in order to prevent unintended teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections," how long do you think it would take before such programs were deemed mandatory?
Tuesday, Dec 15, 2009 -- Hyde Amendment "abortion neutral" and "settled law"?
The debate about whether government funding of abortion is included in the health care bills in Congress has raged for months. While Congressional leaders and President Obama have continually claimed abortion was not funded, passage of the Stupak Amendment in the House proved them to be misrepresenting the facts.
Prior to this point where the truth finally caught up with them, one strategy members of Congress, and Obama's press secretary, had been using was to claim that the health care bill did not fund abortion because the Hyde Amendment prevented such funding. They claimed that efforts to amend the bill would go beyond Hyde and introduce new restrictions on abortion.
For example, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, said "we're not doing anything in this [bill] to change the Hyde law. The law, as it stands right now, says no federal money for abortions. I think most of the Senators are comfortable with that. The Stupak amendment goes farther and the Nelson amendment goes farther."
Jill Stanek, a pro-life blogger and nurse, recently noted a commentary by abortion advocate Frederick Clarkson about the implications of this strategy. He stated,
But a creeping Washington consensus emerged during the current debate on health care reform that took many by surprise: The Hyde Amendment is now seen as a moderate, "abortion-neutral" position that neither advances nor restricts abortion.
The gradual adoption of the principles of the most significant anti-abortion legislation in history as a moderate compromise constitutes a stunning shift in American political and religious life....
Stanek observed, "I think Clarkson is absolutely right. In the thick of the battle, we didn't see this concession. Although I've read recent calls from the abortion industry to rescind Hyde, which is imperilized every year, it will be that much more difficult here on out, since so many pro-aborts, most importantly Obama, have labeled it abortion-neutral." Are abortion advocates getting tripped up in their own lies? LifeNews.com reports:
The pro-abortion National Organization for Women may still be opposing the Senate health care bill, even though senators defeated the Nelson amendment to prohibit taxpayer funds of abortions in it. Terry O’Neill, president of the so-called women's group bases its potential opposition on an incorrect assumption that the bill certifies the Hyde amendment, which prohibits abortion funding under Medicaid -- even though Hyde does not apply to the bill. "There are still anti-abortion provisions in this bill that are damaging to women," she told Raw Story. "The base legislation in the Senate essentially codifies the Hyde Amendment and that is a huge, huge problem for women." "With all due respect to our pro-choice friends in elected office who say the Hyde Amendment is settled law, a codification of Hyde is a basic health care statute -- it's not federal law," O'Neill added. "And even if it were, it's very wrong settled law."
Monday, Dec 14, 2009 -- Has the push for a vaccine against pregnancy ended?
Based on a report of Human Life International from its observers at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, I became aware of an agenda to develop a vaccine against pregnancy that was supported by Planned Parenthood and other international anti-life organizations. I had never seen any more information on what might be happening, until this month.
One medical researcher recently abandoned thirty years of contraceptive vaccine research. What Dr. Bonnie Dunbar had hoped to develop was a vaccine that would trick the female immune system into fighting reproductive cells as if they were a virus, thus triggering the body to treat pregnancy as a disease.
Dunbar tested her vaccine on several animal models, including primates, and found in all cases that the vaccine caused permanent autoimmune failure of the ovaries. After viewing slides of these blasted ovaries, Dr. Dunbar decided to oppose any further development of this vaccine for humans. Now this former contraceptive vaccine is being developed as a possible non-surgical sterilizing agent for dogs and cats.
Might someone else be able to continue Dunbar's work anyway, still trying to create this dangerous vaccine? Is there someone else out there right now trying to create such a vaccine using some other approach? What if some government decided to use this new non-surgical sterilizing agent, not for dogs and cats, but instead for people they thought should be sterilized?
I just discovered that such concerns were expressed in 1996. That analysis was a comprehensive attempt to make the case for ending such research permanently. I suspect this 1996 report did not receive nearly enough distribution or publicity, but the threats documented there are serious.
Friday, Dec 11, 2009 -- Real doctors take Planned Parenthood "health care" to task
Based on the videotape mentioned yesterday, two physicians have come forward in response to the video to (as they say) correct the "absurd and scientifically erroneous" information Planned Parenthood presented to the women at their Appleton, Wisconsin facility.
The physicians are embryologist Dianne Irving, Ph.D, a former bench research biochemist with the National Institutes of Health and a Professor of Medical Ethics at Georgetown University, and Ward Kischer, Ph.D., Professor emeritus of Cell Biology and Anatomy specializing in embryology at the University Arizona.
Irving and Kischer conclude that the Appleton Planned Parenthood counseling practices "would violate legally valid 'informed consent' on both the 'information' level and on the 'consent without duress or pressure' level," and call for the parties involved to "be held accountable for their inherently unethical and destructive lies and procedures."
It appears that Planned Parenthood's version of what constitutes health care is seriously deficient. The evidence keeps mounting on how outrageous it is for Planned Parenthood to receive over $350 million in government funding and still be looking for more. When it comes to Planned Parenthood, count on government to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It is time to replace Congress with members who will do something different (e.g. abstinence program funding) to begin undoing the serious damage done by Planned Parenthood.
Thursday, Dec 10, 2009 -- Planned Parenthood has been caught lying again
Planned Parenthood will never let the truth get in the way of selling an abortion. That makes it inconvenient in states like Wisconsin that have informed consent laws requiring that women receive medically accurate information before undergoing an abortion. Of course, Planned Parenthood will just ignore those laws in the same way they place themselves above parental involvement and mandatory reporting laws.
Under the direction of UCLA student Lila Rose, Live Action films has taken the role of David against this Planned Parenthood Goliath. Live Action efforts have already implicated a significant number of Planned Parenthood locations around the nation with serious violations of mandatory reporting laws. Live Action videos reveal that when underage girls seek abortions, they are usually told to lie about their boyfriend's age.
Now Live Action films has released a new video featuring Planned Parenthood employees lying about pre-natal development and encouraging a young woman to obtain an abortion because "women die having babies." In an undercover video, filmed in an Appleton, WI, Planned Parenthood abortion facility, a counselor says that a 10-week old unborn child has no heart beat, only "heart tones," which she says begin at 7 weeks. In fact, heartbeats begin at roughly 3 weeks.
As the former director of the Bryan Texas Planned Parenthood reveals, their goal is to sell abortions because of the high profit margin. Abby Johnson, who has resigned and converted to defending life, has revealed the pressure placed on employees to increase abortion sales.
This evidence confirms that Planned Parenthood is never serious about reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions, as they claim in their efforts to gain the public's trust. Deception is standard operating procedure for Planned Parenthood.
Wednesday, Dec 9, 2009 -- Just say NO to current health care reform bills
After the rejection yesterday of the Nelson/Hatch Amendment to prevent government funding of abortion under the U.S. Senate version of health care "reform", most Pro-Life and other traditional values organizations declared that it is time to reject these bills as beyond repair.
Without the Nelson/Hatch Amendment the Senate bill represents the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Beyond that major issue, the bill provides additional funding for Planned Parenthood to provide "comprehensive" sex education, open health clinics at schools, and distribute more birth control to teenagers.
Additional serious concerns include drastic Medicare funding cuts that will create rationed health care for seniors and the disabled, subtle provisions to push assisted suicide and even euthanasia, and threats to the conscience rights of health care professionals.
Maintaining vocal opposition to health care "reform" legislation is critical to encourage enough Senators to filibuster the bill, and enough House members to be consistent with their previous votes to block abortion funding, thus killing any fiinal bill that is missing such a provision.
Tuesday, Dec 8, 2009 -- Some churches demand government funding of abortion
Even as we approach Christmas, some churches have denied salvation to the unborn at government expense by signing onto a letter sent to the U.S. Senate opposing the Nelson/Hatch amendment the would prevent government funding of abortion under the health care "reform" bill.
The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church are the four mainline protestant denominations to sign the letter. The letter takes the position that there is a "social and moral obligation to ensure access to" abortions "at every stage in an individual’s life."
Going even further, these religious groups wrote, "Reforming the health care system in a way that guarantees affordable and accessible [abortion] for all is not simply a good idea—it is necessary for the well-being of all people in our nation."
How can churches that claim to be Christian take a position that easy access to abortion is a moral obligation necessary for the well-being of all people in our nation? For anyone who is truly Pro-Life who is still remaining in the pews of such a church, it must be time to hit the eject button!
While abortion is destroying the well-being of mothers and their families, these churches have the audacity to declare government-funded access to abortion as vital for everyone! They must have replaced the Bible with a Planned Parenthood "comprehensive" sex education manual, reflecting the philosophy that sex under any circumstance is always good as long both parties consent, and even young children are able to consent.
Of course, Planned Parenthood is ready and willing to provide the abortions that follow, and collect payment from the govenment for murdering the "unwanted" children from all these casual sexual encounters. The churches that have endorsed this outrageous philosophy are leading their members down the road to disaster!
Monday, Dec 7, 2009 -- Abortions jump in Illinois, especially in Chicago area
While no one was watching, the Illinois Department of Public Health posted the latest abortion statistics for the year of 2008. Sadly, the numbers establish an upward trend for Illinois abortions since the low point of 2003, thus discounting the slight drop in 2007.
A total of 47,717 abortions were committed in Illinois in 2008, up 5.3% from 45,298 in 2007. Abortions for Chicago area residents jumped at a much higher rate, accounting for more than the statewide increase. Cook County abortions jumped by 3233 (14.5%) to a total of 25,529. Abortions in some of the counties surrounding Cook, though much lower totals, jumped by even higher percentages as follows:
Kane County -- up 38% -- from 832 to 1145 Will County -- up 22% -- from 953 to 1161 Kendall County -- up 73% -- from 112 to 194
In contrast, abortions held steady in three other Chicago area counties: DuPage (-22), Lake (+8), and McHenry (-2). For the four counties with substantial increases in abortions, the total increase reaches 3836 more abortions. For the entire state, abortions increased by 2419. Thus, abortions throughout all of Illinois outside of those four counties actually fell by 2.9%.
What might account for this rather localized increase in abortions. Could this primarily be the impact of Planned Parenthood's huge abortion fortress in Aurora? What actions spared DuPage, Lake, and McHenry counties from participating in these large abortion increases?
About the only good news from the 2008 statistics was the drop from 4042 to 3903 for abortions committed on out-of-state residents. Interestingly, the number of abortions on women of unknown residency dropped from 1965 to 1111. Since some of these cases could also have been out-of-state residents, the drop might be even larger. Even so, these numbers still represent many underage girls who enter Illinois to avoid parental involvement laws in other states.
The unknown residency statistic jumped from only 114 in 2004 to 1683 in 2005, and peaked at 2115 in 2006, possibly reflecting concern about potential enforcement of parental notification. Is the 2008 drop an indication abortion providers have become convinced it will never be enforced?
Friday, Dec 4, 2009 -- Abortion providers have decided to "claim" religious concepts
Did you know that "abortion is a God-given right"? During a poorly attended rally of a few hundred people at the U.S. Capitol to oppose the Stupak Amendment (which would prevent govenment funding of abortion), Rev. Carlton Veazy told the small gathering of hardcore activists that abortion is a "God-given right." Veazy is the head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, so it is unclear from which god he gets his marching orders.
Not to be outdone in abusing religious concepts in an attempt to cover up the outrage of abortion, an abortion provider is Michigan has used a religious message in their advertising. Northland "Family Planning Centers" of Michigan are now advertising their services with a video calling abortion "sacred work." The narrator speaks of a sign hanging at the Northland abortion facility that reads: "We do sacred work that honors women and the circle of life and death. When you come here, bring only love."
Set to soft, upbeat piano music and themed with pink pastel shades, the recently uploaded video entitled "Every Day, Good Woman Choose Abortion," assures prospective customers that deciding "to have an abortion is a normal experience," and that the decision is a good decision. The video's spokeswoman continues: "Goodness is courage, honesty, wisdom, risking for what you believe is right for you, making choices that are good for yourself."
Now you know that being selfish by killing your inconvenient child in the womb is your god-given right to make choices that are good for yourself. Apparently, the abortionists overlook the part about "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."