Murder in Love

Today, January 22, 2012, marks the 39th anniversary of the Roe v Wade ruling. According to About.com, "Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed in the United States with approximately 1.3 million abortions performed each year. Data indicates that more than 40% of all women will end a pregnancy by abortion at some time in their reproductive lives." A staggering number. 1.3 million each year. That's just in the United States. Obviously the numbers have increased, but this has been going on since 1973.

We've had three basic categories of viewpoints on the topic over the years. There is the "pro-abortion" crowd who favors abortion for whatever reason. This group sees "women's choice" as the ultimate right, using the term "right" in both the sense of a right they have and the right thing to do. The "pro-choice" crowd aims toward a middle ground. They consider abortion to be painful and "not recommended", but they still classify "the woman's right to choose" as the ultimate right. Then, of course, there is the "pro-life" side that says that a woman's right to choose does not supersede a baby's right to live.

Of late there has been a slow shift in the public sentiment around abortion. For decades abortion was a given -- "Who are you to tell a woman she doesn't have the right to choose what to do with her own body?" In the past several years, however, there has been a rise in technology that has allowed images of fetuses in their various stages to be shown with ever greater clarity. Within the first 4 weeks of fertilization, the embryo has already developed the initial heart and circulatory system. Arm and leg buds appear in the 5th week. By Week 6, the embryo has a developing brain, eye lenses, nostrils and intestines. Images from the womb, then, make it incontrovertible that what is growing inside the mother is not mere tissue, but a human being. This has made some uncomfortable with their position in favor of abortion.

Some. Not all. Merle Hoffman is the founder of Choice, a pro-abortion organization in New York she founded two years before Roe v Wade, and the author of Intimate Wars, her latest memoir on the topic of abortion. She is not merely pro-choice. She is pro-abortion. "Abortion," she says, "is as American as apple pie." She estimated that one in three women have had abortions. But she's open about it. "You don’t have to argue that abortion stops a beating heart. It does." Her view? "The act of abortion positions women at their most powerful, and that’s why it is so strongly opposed by so many in society." That's right. She recognizes that abortion is murder and she applauds it as placing "women at their most powerful". On her abortion she says, "I was fighting for the right of all women to define abortion as an act of love: love for the family one already has, and just as important, love for oneself." In her eyes, murdering a baby is "an act of love". Clearly, a "loving murder" has managed to kill the conscience.

For most pro-life folks, we figure that demonstrating that a fetus is not mere tissue -- not merely potential life -- but a human being should remedy the problem. Make it clear that they're killing a human being, and the problem should go away. Folks like Hoffman illustrate that this is naive. The problem is not "unwanted pregnancy", but choice. Human life is not as valued as "what I want". And it begins to sound a lot like "I will be like the Most High." Looks like there's a root problem underneath, doesn't it? It looks like people need Christ.