The Catholic News Agency published a wonderful article which asks why abortion, after 38 years, continues to be such an issue in our nation and why we, as yet, have not changed this so-called "right to abortion." The article follows:
Abortion is an extremely difficult topic. Most people would imagine that, as a priest, I have personally dealt with people who have, after difficult and serious decision, felt that an abortion was the only way "out" of a difficult situation. Priests counsel and assist many people who are suffering in life, and those who suffer after an abortion is most likely included. A number of years ago I was trained as a "Rachel's Vineyard Priest." It can be a wonderful time of healing and and forgiveness. It is always a difficult and gut-wrenching decision.
There are two groups of people who know how difficult this decision is for them. First there are the sidewalk counselors who stand outside abortion centers - in rain and snow, sun and storm - to witness to the sanctity of life and encourage people to pause, just for a moment, to consider the seriousness of their decision and how it will ultimately cause them great harm (emotional and, perhaps, physical as well). Many of us probably saw the recent news story about Dr. Kermit Gosnell of Philadelphia. He was a doctor who performed abortions - catering to minorities, immigrants and poor women - who was charged with 8 counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and 7 babies who were born alive, but whom he allegedly killed with scissors.
 |
| Dr. Kermit Gosnell |
The news reports say that Dr. Gosnell made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could. According to the Philadelphia district attorney, his patient, Karnamaya Mongar, died in 2009 when she was overdosed with anesthetics. He added that patients were "subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society." At the time his clinic was raided by health authorities, a high-school student without training or a license was administering anesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics. Dr. Gosnell has been the subject of numerous malpractice suits, including another woman who died of sepsis and a perforated uterus.
This most recent case is just one in a long list of patients who have died or been severely injured during an abortion. It reminds us that abortion is anything BUT safe - the mother's life it in danger.
The other group of people who know the difficulty of the decision to have an abortion is the people who work there. For many years Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion, has taught its employees to reassure women that it's just a bunch of cells, or that they have no feeling - that this is a simple and safe medical procedure. But now, the truth has been told.
There is a new book entitled "Unplanned" written by Abby Johnson, who is a former Planned Parenthood Director. The following is an excerpt from the book in which she explains her conversion from pro-choice activist to pro-life activist, as she watched an abortion being performed live on an ultrasound. CAUTION: THIS DESCRIPTION MIGHT BE TOO GRAPHIC FOR SOME YOUNGER READERS:
At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula. It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought. The fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.
The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.
“Beam me up, Scotty,” he said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction — in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.
I had a sudden urge to yell, “Stop!” To shake the woman and say, “Look at what is happening to your baby! Wake up! Hurry! Stop them!”
But even as I thought those words, I looked at my own hand holding the probe. I was one of “them” performing this act. My eyes shot back to the screen again. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor, and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone. And the uterus was empty. Totally empty.
This is the truth of what happens inside the clinics where abortions are performed. As people who believe that every life is sacred as a reflection of God, we can no longer push this issue aside and soothe our conscience by saying that it is one issue among others when we vote each year. Abortion is not just one issue among many important issues during an election, it is THE issue - most others have legitimate differences of opinion on how to deal with important matters - differences which are not immoral. However, abortion is an intrinsic evil that can NEVER be justified - that has now legitimate "differences of opinion." Abortion intentionally kills a developing child in the womb of its mother. There are currently 1.3 MILLION abortions each year in the United States alone. Multiply this by the 38 years of legal abortion and we can estimate that nearly 50 MILLION children have been aborted - and this doesn't count the two states that refuse to report their abortion numbers to the federal government.
50 MILLION abortions.
It is a number to big too comprehend,
and too big to ignore.
No comments:
Post a Comment