Rant, Rave, and Dismay

I am so dismayed by the ignorance of the attacks on Planned Parenthood and the gullibility of those who swallow the false information they are being fed that I feel I must speak out. Today was the final straw when I read that PP had sliced through a dead baby’s face to retrieve its brain. I am neither anatomist nor pathologist (I did work for one for a while) but I feel quite sure that’s not the path to the brain. It’s one more outrageous fabricated lie that Pro-Life people are falling for, like photo-shopped and staged videos.

Let me say up front that I am not in favor of abortion. I was unable to bear a child, but through God’s grace I have four wonderful children, all adopted. They are the foundation of my life, and raising them was pure joy (well, most of the time). I would have been heartbroken (but silent) if either of my two daughters or two daughters-in-law wanted an abortion. But I know there are circumstances where that is the wisest course—a defective embryo that would have a short, miserable life; a pregnancy that endangers the mother’s life; even a baby with no one to care for or love it once it enters this world. The big point is that’s an individual woman’s decision—it’s not one to be made by men who will never know the trauma of abortion, the heart ache. Pro-life advocates seem to think it’s a birth control method; I assure you that for mothers who make that decision it is much more of a life changer than that. I bless the women who gave birth to my children, and each year on each child’s birthday I saw a prayer for that birth mother who must remember and wonder and long for her child. I want to tell her how well he or she is doing. But those women were fortunate to have an alternative—a reputable maternity home, few of which exist today. Poor women in that day often resorted to back alley, coat-hanger abortions which often rendered them sterile and sometimes robbed them of their lives.

Back to Planned Parenthood, abortion is only 3% of their mission. Most of it is providing preventive health care to indigent women and contraceptive and other counseling. By so doing, they have prevented thousands upon thousands of abortions—that’s their main mission. If a woman comes to them determined to have an abortion, they make sure she has the safest procedure possible. And only if the woman voluntarily releases the fetus, do they donate fetal tissue, from which they make no profit. But you and I and our families and friends profit immensely from the research that results.

Those stories about live fetuses, selling body parts, all those exaggerated stories are propaganda and those who fall for it should be embarrassed. If you really want every fetus to be born, even defective ones, then step forward, say you’ll raise and care for and love and provide medical attention for each and every baby. Otherwise, please educate yourselves on the distinction between reality and scare techniques.

Rant over. May be resumed at a later date.