Via the Corner, I ran across this video quite a while ago. It's a video from Northland Family Planning Center explaining that women who have abortions are good, that it is a normal experience, that women don't need to be perfect, or martyrs. Apparently the motto at Northland is:
"We do sacred work that honors women and the circle of life and death. When you come here, bring only Love."
Perusing the rest of their website reveals some other interesting tidbits, such as
this page purporting to provide information on options for pregnant women. It asks a question, "Is now the right time for me to bring a new life into the world through my body?" You can then select one of three answers for additional information:
No: In which case, you are directed to a page entitled "
Abortion: Which method is right for me?" This page has a very short section on making the decision, then dives right into the technical details of what to expect with the various "procedures." In other words, the assumption is that you will have an abortion and only need to decide which method to use.
I don't know: You are directed to the "
Pregnancy Options Workbook." Reading through it, you run across info like the following:
Everyone who is facing a pregnancy must answer one basic question: "IS THIS THE RIGHT TIME FOR ME TO BRING LIFE INTO THE WORLD THROUGH MY BODY?"... Here are some other questions to think about. Do I want to have a baby? Will the child have a father who is “there”? Can I afford to have a child? What will happen to my goals, my hopes, my life? What will happen to my partner´s life? Who can help me raise a child? Can I raise a child by myself? How will my family react? My friends? How will this affect my other children (if any)? Is my body healthy enough? In other words: "Is this the right time for me to be responsible for a child?"
Is it just me, or is the general theme of that reasoning one of "have you considered how difficult it would be to raise a child?" as opposed to highlighting the blessings of children? Reading some of the additional data, it seems to mostly be presented in similar fashion, ie the "costs" of having children. Abortion is of course suggested prominently as an option, along with plenty of resources on obtaining one.
Yes: Here's the kicker. You would expect a page on caring for your baby, pre-natal care, what to expect, etc. But instead, you are linked to the exact same page as the "I don't know" answer. While the "not keeping the baby" answer leads to almost no discussion of choices and the assumption you are having an abortion, the "keep the baby" answer leads to an attempt to talk you out of it.
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Several years ago, I ran across
this article, describing the practice of "selective reduction." That would be the euphemism for killing one or more babies in a multiple pregnancy, while leaving others alive. The article is still hard to read, even though I've read it multiple times. I just have a hard time even fathoming it. It's long, and disturbing, but I encourage you to take the time to read the whole thing.
Now Emma [the pregnant lady] was on the table, and everybody was looking at four fetuses on the sonogram. The screen had been turned so that even Emma could see it. Evans [the abortion doctor] decided that in addition to B [the doomed baby], he would eliminate D [the other doomed baby], because of its position, farthest from the cervix, and most accessible after B. Just now, on the sonogram, D happened to be visible, moving and waving. "D is really active. That's what I hate to see," said Jane [the pregnant lady's partner], who had woken up in the middle of the night worried about the "karma of what we are doing."
Evans prepared two syringes, swabbed Emma with antiseptic, put the square-holed napkin on her stomach. Then he plunged one of the needles into Emma's belly and began to work his way into position. He injected the potassium chloride, and B, the first fetus to go, went still.
"There's no activity there," he said, scrutinizing the screen. B was lying lengthwise in its little honeycomb chamber, no longer there and yet still there. It was impossible not to find the sight affecting. Here was a life that one minute was going to happen and now, because of its location, wasn't. One minute, B was a fetus with a future stretching out before it: childhood, college, children, grandchildren, maybe. The next minute, that future had been deleted.
Evans plunged the second needle into Emma's belly. "See the tip?" he said, showing the women where the tip of the needle was visible on the ultrasound screen. Even I could see it: a white spot hovering near the heart. D was moving. Evans started injecting. He went very slowly. "If you inject too fast, you blow the kid off your needle," he explained.
After Evans was finished injecting, D moved for a few seconds, then went still. Now, as we watched, there was something called the effusion: a little puff. "When I see that effusion, I know it's done," Evans said, taking "one last look at D before I come out," to make sure D was gone.
"Want to see your twins?" he asked the women, who did. On the ultrasound, he showed them the living fetuses, moving vigorously in their sacs. The women thanked him profusely. "Thank God there are people like you," Jane said.
...
AFTER THE PROCEDURE, I ASKED EVANS IF WHAT HE HAD JUST DONE WAS AN ABORTION. "Technically, this is not an abortion, a procedure that kills the fetus and empties the uterus," he said. "The bottom line is, abortion ends the pregnancy. We don't end the pregnancy. We very specifically don't end the pregnancy."
Tell that to the babies you just "reduced." Seriously, I can't even fathom that this is reality in this county. I can't fathom seeing my child on an ultrasound, and then watching a doctor plunge a needle into him and kill him... and then thanking him afterward. I can't fathom looking at Noah or Levi every day for the rest of my life and realizing that he had a twin... but we killed him. And at least in this article, most of these are performed on women who went through great trouble and expense to get pregnant in the first place by artificial means.
Absolutely mind-blowing. And not what I would call "good" or "normal" in any sense of the word, by any of the parties involved, as Northland Clinic would have you believe.
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A second article on how ultrasounds have shown some abortion workers the truth of what they were involved in. Dr. Harris, when she was 18 weeks pregnant, performed an abortion on an 18 week old baby. "Harris felt her own child kick precisely at the moment that she ripped a fetal leg off with her forceps:
'Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.' "
Amazingly, she is still performing abortions. Others, however, are not.
Read the whole article for some points of their stories.
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Finally, for an excellent book on abortion and right to life issues, which also delves into more general theological arguments, check out Scott Klusendorfs "
The Case For Life" See
here and
here for reviews. Not much I can add to what they said...
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Pray for our country, that 37 years ago legalized the murder of the most defenseless of people...
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