A reflection on "Choice"

There can be little doubt that one hundred years from now the world will look back upon abortion in much the same way we today look back upon the American slave trade and the Nazi treatment of Jews.

For the dehumanization the unborn experience in 2007 is precisely the dehumanization that Blacks and Jews experienced yester-year. You see, if we can think of them as only 3/5ths of a person, well they become much easier to abuse and kill.

Hence the widespread use of terms like "choice" and "reproductive rights" to describe abortion, and terms like "fetus" and "product of conception" to describe the unborn child.

And while the semantic debate rages on, thousands of innocents are put to death every day. They are killed in what is supposed to be the safest place for them to live: their own mother's womb. It is worth noting that the mother is quite often a victim herself -- not from rape (which accounts for roughly 1% of abortions), but of ignorance, peer pressure and deception. The cost of abortion, we should remember, is always the same: one dead and one wounded.

Confronted with this unspeakable horror, many of us on the pro-life side are left with what feels like shackled hands and feet. We gather and protest at our nation's capitol in the hundreds of thousands year after year, but somehow the news cameras are never rolling. We vote pro-life, encourage others to do likewise, yet having the executive and legislative branches of government on our side is insufficient -- as we are still unable to ban even the infanticide of partial-birth abortion.

It has been 34 years and 46 million dismembered-deaths since Roe. The question deserves asking: Have we made any progress at all?

The answer is, little though it may be, we have. Hearts and minds are being changed, but it has not been through the debate of words and ideas, so much as through forcing a long hard look at the horrific face of "Choice".

As every campaign for social reform has used graphic pictures to reveal injustice to those who would much prefer turning a blind-eye, so the pro-life movement must use images of "Choice" to convince Americans that abortion is an act of violence which kills a baby. We have no other option.

America will not end abortion until America sees abortion.

Let us contribute to the seeing, lest our own complacency in the face of this evil demand justice (of a price too high) for the abuse of these most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.

Visit http://www.abort73.com

Then tell your friends to do the same. You and I might not be able to stop the killing. But we can stop the pretending.