This article about an effect of abortion
was inspired by a storyline in series 8 of Call the Midwife and
the film Unplanned by the God’s
Not Dead production team (about Planned
Parenthood). I make no apology about the emotive language (unlike my other
articles) as it is something that affects all of us, not least the preborn
children who have no choice.
The world was
in tumult – not knowing which way to go, like a person who senses were impaired
standing at a busy traffic junction. There was no leadership, no-one to guide
the people as to the correct direction.
The political
situation was perilous with different loud voices shouting, wanting people to
follow them into their haphazard and ill-thought out proposals. There was no
rationale behind the thinking – each person being guided by their background,
their education, their prejudices with no standing back to consider the
positions held by others. Their political philosophies were summarised into
neat little soundbites that would hit the headlines or be endorsed on
merchandise worn by their followers.
In the economic
sector, there was no-one to guide through the labyrinth of statistics and
possible scenarios so that a clear position was observed. The currencies seemed
meaningless as several countries melted into hyper-inflation, unable to escape
from the quagmire that they seemed to have got themselves into.
The populations
were so confused that they were not sure if they were experiencing the day of
judgement or the beginning of something new and exciting. They knew that they
had insufficient money in their wallets, although there were some people who
had wealth that make them immune from any calamity. They also know that they
had not enough nutritious food, although there were others in the world who ate
so much that obesity was the problem for them.
All they knew is that they required leadership that was well-reasoned
and assured, to lead them into the way that they should go.
Several decades
earlier, a young woman had received the unwanted news that she was pregnant. It
was at an inconvenient time of her life – it did not fit in with her career,
social life or some other reason. She could not bear to think of the child
growing within her as another human, so she resorted to the terms ‘foetus’ or
‘embryo’ as though language would disguise the reality.
Inside her
womb, there was a child growing to become more recognisable every day. His or
her limbs were developing as nutrition from the mother was entering the tiny
body. The arms were identifiable and even the unique fingerprints were well
formed. There were already the senses being alerted for the preborn child was
aware that the mother was experiencing grief, although he or she was unaware
that the cause was them. They heard the sounds of the theme of the mother’s
favourite drama theme music, but also the angry arguments as she explained that
‘she was not ready to have a baby now as it was not a good time in her life. There
was the distress of the mother as she was forced, emotionally, mentally, into
losing the child within her to the physician’s knife. She tried to rationalise
it and hid behind words like ‘termination’ as though it could soften the impact
of what she was about to do.
The preborn
child could feel the anxiety through the chemicals flowing through the
bloodstream that they shared with the mother through the placenta. The
anxiousness was because they had arrived at a clinic that used euphemisms to
cover up what it really did.
The language included terms like ‘pregnancy
advisory,’ ‘planned parenthood’ or ‘woman’s choice’ to camouflage the reality
that they were to extinguish a life that they did not think was worthy. There
is the grand irony that humanity attempts to disguise its inhumanity by using
the neutrality of words so that its real purpose is not questioned. The ‘final
solution’ or the ‘good death’ (euthanasia) are used to remove the weak, those
who cannot defend themselves.
The concluding
act was that the preborn child felt pain as instruments were inserted into the
mother’s body to separate her and the life that was growing inside. Without
consideration for the child, his or her body was extracted violently to die in
the sterile environment. The only saving grace is that the child will be with
God in heaven whilst those who perpetrated the child’s demise – the clinicians,
the mother – will have to account for their deeds in eternity.
The facts are
that it will have a profound effect on the woman as she will feel emotional
distress – perhaps not at the time, but probably later on in her life. It could
be that she possibly cannot have another child because of the physical impact
of the procedure or because of other circumstances, such as not meeting the
right person or the physical inability of her partner. There are no winners in
this situation, and all will lose, with the preborn child being the greatest
victim by forfeiting the opportunity to live.
The irony is
that down the hallway or in a nearby hospital, there were the shouts as the
medical teams battle to preserve the life of a child, only a few weeks in
difference from the aborted baby, whose parents love and want their child to
thrive in the world.
The
above scenarios are not the playing out of some futuristic apocalypse because
we look around our world and see nations and communities crying out for
leadership in all manner of spheres. One of the reasons why there is no
direction being given is that we have deprived ourselves of leaders by
depriving them life. The hopes of the nations are being flushed down the
sluice. Humanity has become selective, guided by self-interest and short-termism,
and eugenics is playing its part in the modern world as it rejects those not
wanted or supposedly needed in ‘society.’
The reality is
that the world is paying for each aborted life as those who could be its
saviours are removed by force by those who need them most. He or she is a victim
of the great war of people against defenceless humanity. Losing generations of
statesmen or stateswomen, financiers and bankers, economists, business leaders,
philosophers, moralists, teachers, scientists, and valuable artisans and
workers, among other categories. We have been left with the dross after the
gold has been taken away from us and thrown away.
Those who would
challenge and inspire us to new heights have been replaced by people with no
substance but can only use soundbites on social media, posturing as insights
when they are in reality revealing banalities.
We are
proclaiming that people with disabilities are of no consequence and do not
contribute to society. In Iceland, it is predicted that there will be no
children with Downs Syndrome as prenatal screening would eliminate any child with
that condition. It was reported that, in Germany, there will be insurance to
cover the possibility of the preborn child having an unwanted condition. In
removing these infants from the face of the earth, we are denying families the
opportunity to know the love that only these individuals can bring, and we are
denying society the opportunity to demonstrate that we know what means to be
human.
We have been
responsible for our own undoing through sanitised murder by qualified
physicians. We quake when we read of Nazi Germany undertaking similar genocide of
the innocents and powerless were executed and tortured by ‘medical’ people, but
we are relaxed in the Darwinian nightmare that we are sleeping through when the
unwanted are disposed of in such a casual manner where we (the strong) can
dispose of those who are weak and defenceless.
Because we were
born healthy, we have ignored the fact that we could be one of the many who
were terminated before birth if we were not wanted because it was not
convenient for our mother or if we had a genetic disorder. Indeed, as we get
older, the logical step would be that we would die prematurely because we had a
medical condition (such as dementia, physical deterioration) or that we were a
burden on society (if so, we would have lost the genius of people like Stephen
Hawking). If we want the full life for ourselves, then we should unselfishly
want it for those children who are unborn so that they too can make meaningful
contributions to society.
The child that
was not wanted then is needed now.
Psalm 139: 13 –
17 – ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s
womb.
‘I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know
that full well.
‘My frame was
not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
‘When I was
woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.
‘All the days
ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’
Comments