And Even More Basic Q&A

 

What are the most common reasons for having an abortion?

Social, not medical reasons, are the most common reasons for abortion today: because the mother's male partner doesn't want the baby; the mother's parents don't want her to have the baby; the mother's sexual abuser doesn't want his abuse to be exposed; the mother doesn't feel ready; the mother has other priorities in life, etc..

 

The last and least common reasons for abortion are for the health of the mother and rape - ironically, these two same reasons are the ones most commonly used by pro-choice groups in their political campaigns.

 

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." (Mother Teresa)

 

Since pro-choice groups do not advocate the killing of ALL unborn children but only those "unwanted" or "undesirable", why should the term "genocide" apply to abortion?

Webster's New World Encyclopedia defines gen·o·cide: "The deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as undesirable."

 

Pro-choice advocates claim the term "genocide" does not apply because abortions are not a systematic or united attempt to kill unborn children on a general scale but are merely individual decisions to do so. However, statistics clearly show when a government makes the killing of helpless human beings legal, as the U.S. government has done, this encourages and increases the killings to genocidal proportions.

 

Over 3000 helpless human beings are killed by abortion daily in the U.S. alone. Even if 3000 daily abortions technically doesn't qualify as genocide, certainly no one can deny the result is still equivalent to genocide: 3000 killings of unborn children per day in the U.S. qualifies as being at genocidal proportions. Any argument about abortion not qualifying as genocide, is trivializing a massive injustice.

 

Also, previous genocides included those in which not all in a particular group were intended to be killed. Case in point: Cambodia's Khmer Rouge slaughters were intended to kill only the educated and upper-class citizens - but is still considered genocide by most authorities.

 

In any case, 'mass killings' definitely applies to abortion as the total number of abortions worldwide since 1980 has exceeded 1.2 BILLION - a number far exceeding all previous events defined and accepted as 'genocide' COMBINED.

 

Isn't it offensive to the Jewish community to draw parallels between the Holocaust and abortion?

Jewish Rabbi Yehuda Levin agrees that abortion is genocide: "Each form of genocide, whether Holocaust, lynching, abortion, etc., differs from all the others in the motives and methods of its perpetrators. But each form of genocide is identical to all the others in that it involves the systematic slaughter, as state sanctioned "choice," of innocent, defenseless victims -- while denying their 'personhood.'"

 

Jewish Rabbi Jacob Neusner likens abortion to the Holocaust: "How is mass abortion in the State of Israel such as is practiced by the secular (but not the religious) portion of the Israeli population not comparable to mass murder of Jewish Children in German Europe?" He continues, "As the numbers mount up, when do considerations of volume enter in and validate calling the annihilation of millions of lives a Holocaust? I think they do. Here is a Holocaust today. Every Jewish child born in the State of Israel is a survivor of the Holocaust (abortion) sustained by Israeli law...The difference is, Germany has acknowledged its shame. But for the annual annihilation of tens of thousands of Jewish children, the State of Israel acknowledges nothing."

 

Jewish talk-show host Michael Medved gave the following pro-life perspective specifically from a Jewish standpoint: “I can understand why some people would emphasize a Jewish basis for pro-life activism. What makes zero sense is the idea of a Jewish basis for pro-choice activism.”

 

“Jewish law for millennia has been extremely clear, that abortion is only permitted when the life of the mother is directly threatened."

 

“When you put your hands on the heads of your children, you don’t bless them saying, ‘I’m so glad I made a choice here'. It’s an acknowledgement that children are a gift, not a choice.”

 

As for the reason why many Jews are pro-choice, Medved said:  “Because Christians are pro-life and we’re afraid of them. We are constantly in fear in this country of Christians imposing their religion and faith on us.” He explained this exaggerated fear is unwarranted and instead, they need "to focus on real dangers and to try to move away from imagined dangers”.

 

Why do some pro-life advocates use graphic photos of aborted babies? Isn't it just for shock value?

There are countless women considering abortion who have testified to the fact that nothing less compelling than abortion photos would have saved their children's lives. This is because the photos metaphorically force open the doors to a business actively engaged in killing human life for a profit, and allows the viewer to decide whether they are going to believe what abortion marketers tell them or what they see with their own eyes. Abortionists falsely claim the unborn child is merely a clump of tissue, but the pictures show they are human in all respects  because the camera records the truth.

 

The principle of showing photos, images, etc. to expose a hidden injustice is nothing new. In 1955, 14 year-old Emmett Till was murdered (lynched) in Mississippi in an act of extreme prejudice and murder. His face was swollen from being beaten and shot in the head. His nude, disfigured body was found in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a 70-pound fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.

 

Although a closed-casket funeral was initially arranged by local authorities, his mother demanded and received an open-casket funeral, saying: "There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see."

 

Tens of thousands of people came to view Till's body. This event galvanized the African American community and the civil rights movement in a way that nothing had done before.

 

Martin Luther King also used photos of lynchings and urged their widespread publication and broadcast. In the same way, the graphic Holocaust photos of the Nazi death camps during the 1940's have been displayed for the world to see.

 

Are these also photos used for "shock value"? Photos of injustices eventually saved lives by teaching complex facts which could only be revealed visually. What words adequately describe such horrors against humanity? By displaying photos of actual abortions, the reality of the brutality, violence, and injustice will hopefully change the minds and hearts of those willing to see the truth of abortion to eventually bring about societal change - peacefully and legally - just like the previous civil rights movements of the past.

 

Won't the display of graphic photos of aborted children cause more emotional trauma to post-abortive women?

Causing more trauma is not the intent of displaying the photos. Our hearts go out to those who are suffering from their abortion experiences, were coerced by those around them into having an abortion, and were deceived by their abortion clinic into believing their unborn baby was nothing more than a "blob of tissue" that needed to be removed and disposed of.

 

It is also understandable for post-abortive women to experience regret over their decision to abort, whether by seeing photos or not. However, an overt emotional reaction is more indicative of a need for healing and resolution which has not yet taken place. Like pain is used to send a signal to our physical body that something is wrong, guilt is used by our conscience to send a signal to our soul that something is wrong. Guilt shows us we need to be healed and restored.

 

The compassionate solution is not to try and shield post-abortive women from seeing photos but to help them get the necessary healing and resolution. Simply trying to stop the display of photos but without any regard toward helping with the healing process is nothing more than false compassion and a "band-aid" solution to a much deeper problem.

 

Also, the CDC reports that almost 50 percent of all abortions are performed on women who have already had one or more abortions. Post-abortive women are at the greatest risk of aborting again. Consequently, these women need to see the terrible truth of abortion the most, lest they have their children killed again. Many post-abortive women and men have testified to the fact that the graphic photos forced them to stop rationalizing abortion. Only then were they able to find healing and resolution in their lives, and keep their children.

 

Also, for post-abortive women, please see Religious Q&A: Now that I have had an abortion, I feel miserable. What should I do?

 

Won't the display of graphic photos of aborted babies cause emotional trauma to children who see them?

This concern – that children may view the pictures - is the reason why photos are usually displayed in areas such as colleges where mostly adults are present rather than children.

 

But this begs the question, 'Why weren't children shielded from viewing Emmett Till's body, or more recently, the graphic photos of the Holocaust displayed on national television, museums, etc.?'

 

And if we're concerned about the emotional trauma of our children after they're born, why aren't we concerned about dismembering and killing them before they're born all the more so? Avoiding emotional trauma for our children is a valid concern, but how much more valid our concern should be in preserving their very lives to begin with.

 

Also, many children are ambivalent or apathetic toward the killing of unborn children. Many will soon become sexually active and pregnant. Just as children were meaningfully educated by photos in previous civil rights movements of the past, the photos of aborted babies may eventually save the life of a future grandchild for a parent who currently objects to the photos. That would be a precious life saved indeed.

 

How do graphic photos of aborted babies differ from graphic photos of open-heart surgery or other surgeries?

Surgeries shed blood to heal. Abortions shed blood to kill. The bloodiness of the photos isn't the primary issue. People don't recoil from abortion photos primarily because they're bloody - they recoil because what is being done to the unborn is absolutely horrifying – the dismembering of a live, helpless, human being.

 

This is why heart patients who see surgery photos don't reject the surgery but women who see abortion photos do reject the abortion - in large numbers. And just as it is the 'right' for heart patients to see surgery photos prior to surgery (in order to make an informed decision), women have the right to see abortion photos prior to abortions.

 

But pro-choice advocates don't want women to have this right. Why? Are they advocates for ALL rights for women or just some rights? Or are they trying to hide the reality of abortion shown in the photos?

 

Won't the display of graphic photos demean those aborted babies even further?

Did the mother of Emmett Till demean her son by displaying his corpse in public? No. She wanted the whole world to see what the perpetrators did to her son - in order to bring justice and dignity back to her son. The perpetrators who viewed Till and other African Americans as 'less than human' did the exact opposite - they HID his body in the river. Isn't the abortion industry doing the exact same thing - hiding the true picture of abortion by not showing pre-abortive mothers photos of unborn babies, much less photos of aborted ones? Or by not providing ultrasound images of their baby prior to the abortion procedure as required by law in some states?

 

Do the displays of graphic abortion photos "decontextualize" abortion?

The photos do the exact opposite - they help to contextualize abortion decisions. Some pro-choice groups claim the photos "decontextualize" or remove the abortion from the circumstances which compelled it. However, since the vast majority of abortions are purely elective, the photos actually provide the proper context to decide whether the desire to relieve oneself from the common burdens of pregnancy is sufficient and compelling justification to kill an unborn child.

 

To claim abortion photos "decontextualize" abortion decisions is like claiming Holocaust photos decontextualize the Holocaust or lynching and slavery photos of African Americans decontextualize racism, murder, and slavery. The photos do not decontextualize the crimes - on the contrary, they reveal the crimes for what they are.

 

Throughout history, perpetrators of injustice continue to use such ludicrous claims in an effort to hide their murderous deeds and continue to have the freedom to victimize their victims - and so it is with pro-choice advocates and the wholesale slaughter of unborn children - right up to the moment of birth.

 

Won't the display of graphic photos of aborted babies cause women to get even more abortions?

Did the display of Emmett Till's body cause more lynchings or.... did it stop the lynchings and bring more awareness of injustices in our society, and improve the civil rights of other African Americans like Till?

 

Did the photos of the Holocaust victims tend to bring about more genocides into this world or.... has it brought a greater understanding of the suffering and injustices which humanity must never repeat?

 

Testimonies abound of those who were encouraged to keep their babies after seeing the abortion photos and many lives have been saved. While many other women see the photos and have abortions anyway, any dubious claim of women’s increased tendencies toward having an abortion - as a direct result of seeing graphic photos - is completely baseless and false. In such cases, the women were going to abort their babies - regardless of seeing or not seeing the photos.

 

Doesn't the display of graphic photos make pro-life groups look 'bad' or fanatical or extremist?

Did the display of Emmett Till's corpse make his mother look 'bad'? Or did it expose the perpetrators for the fanatical murderers they were – and make the murderers look bad?

 

Do Holocaust photos make those who display them look 'bad'? Or does it expose those who show prejudice and bigotry toward Jews to be the murderers and extremists?

 

Just as Till's mother used her son's body as a last resort in bringing justice to an extremely tragic situation, the photos of aborted babies are a last resort to a nation which has remained complacent and willfully ignorant for over forty years regarding the killing of 55 million children. It is those images and photos of grave injustices, both past and present, which make it impossible for us to pretend that taking a human life is a morally inconsequential act.

 

"I went up to the lab one day and on the pathologist's table I saw what I thought was little rubber doll until I realized it was a fetus…I got really shook up and upset and I couldn't believe it. It had all its fingers and toes, you know, hands and feet…I never thought it would look so real. I didn't like it."  (Planned Parenthood employee quoted in "In Necessity and Sorrow", Magda Denes, 1979)

 

Isn't it preferable for pro-life groups to show photos of live fetuses in the womb and live children instead of bloody aborted ones?

Everyone should decide which method they are most comfortable with and can use effectively, given their own temperament and that of their respective and varied audiences. Who knows? Some pregnant women may be won over – and their baby’s life spared -  by one method or the other.  Some pro-choice advocates may be won over by one method or another, if they are open-minded.

 

But we should also keep in mind how positive change came about in the past. In his book, "Bury the Chains" (2005), author Adam Hochschild speaks of how Britons eventually came to abolish slavery: "Groups of captives, ranging in size from a few to six or eight hundred, were forced-marched to the (African) coast, the prisoners' hands bound behind their backs, necks in wooden yokes." Many died in severely overcrowded ships on the long journey to England.

 

But the British people were not allowed to see the horror. He continues, "...In England itself, there were no caravans of chained captives, no whip-wielding overseers on horseback...The abolitionists' first job was to make Britons understand what lay behind the sugar they ate, the tobacco they smoked, the coffee they drank." May God give us the wisdom to use our respectively chosen tools to bring the injustice and horror of abortion before a nation intent on living in a comfortable state of willful ignorance.

 

Aren't the graphic photos of aborted children fake?

Almost all pro-choice groups admit the photos are real. It would be ludicrous to claim otherwise. There are a few individuals who may contend the photos are fake and then try to hold up bedsheets in front of a photo display to block the view of others.

 

But this begs the question, "Why should any pro-choice advocate block the view of a counterfeit photo - which would only serve to discredit those who show them?" To falsely claim the photos are 'fake' only reveals their own dishonesty. It also puts them in the same company with those who falsely claim the injustices and genocides of the past never occurred.

 

This is why pro-choice feminist Naomi Wolf said, "The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers’ practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics....But how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making a judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view is unworthy of feminism." (Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” The New Republic, 16 October 1996).

 

The Future of Medical Ethics: Infanticide and the further degeneration of human rights

Princeton University bioethicist and atheist Peter Singer teaches university students that killing a newborn is morally permissible. He said, "We should recognize the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being's life." He personally "believes" newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

 

For Singer, who was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year in 2004, we must ask, "Where is the humanity in a humanist who champions infanticide?" and "How does he know for a fact that an infant 'doesn't want to go on living?' Did he prove this to be true?  Where did he get this 'fact'?"

 

In the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Ethics, a recent article abstract stated: "...the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled."

 

Infanticide is justified by the authors in the following quotes:

 

1) "The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual."

 

2) "If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all."

 

3) "The alleged right of individuals (such as fetuses and newborns) to develop their potentiality, which someone defends, is over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being because, as we have just argued, merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence. Actual people's well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of."

 

4) "In these cases, since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions."

 

5) "Indeed, however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential people to become actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero."

 

6) "What we are suggesting is that, if interests of actual people should prevail, then after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by giving up their newborns for adoption."

 

7) "Conclusions: If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn."

(Ref: 'After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?', A. Giubilini, F. Minerva, Journal of Medical Ethics, Feb. 23, 2012).

 

The above reasons to justify infanticide fail on some very basic levels:

 

1) Proposing preborn and newborn children are 'potential persons but not actual persons' is a subjective and personal philosophical/religious viewpoint rather than a scientific one. 'Personhood' is a metaphysical concept and, by nature, is scientifically unprovable.

 

2) Any philosophical or religious 'personhood' argument also violates the separation of religion and state and is therefore inappropriate for use in deriving civil law. Defining a metaphysical concept such as 'personhood' requires a co-mingling of religion and state rather than the separation of religion and state. Since pro-choice groups prefer the 'separation of religion and state', any definition of 'personhood' should be considered inappropriate for use in defining civil law if we are to honor this pro-choice preference and remain truly consistent with the 'separation of religion and state'.

 

3) For the authors to audaciously mention the financial and emotional 'cost' of raising a child, they conveniently ignore the cost and burden they themselves caused their own parents. This easily violates the ethic of reciprocity known as the Golden Rule: "Do not treat others in ways you would not want to be treated." The answer to the question, "Are you thankful your parents didn't abort you?" would promptly reveal their unjust double-standard which desires less for others and more for themselves.

 

However, one conclusion in which the authors cannot be faulted is "...the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn". In other words, if abortion is justified, those same reasons also justify infanticide. This is a logical conclusion, especially in cases of late-term abortions where the aborted child is biologically identical to the newborn child.

 

This is also why our laws legalizing abortion contradict our laws protecting newborns, premature children, and unborn children killed by violent acts against pregnant women (fetal homicide). Any civilized society is obligated to remove such legal contradictions, with the 'benefit of the doubt' given toward promoting life and safety rather than promoting death and extermination.