The humanity of the unborn should be obvious to everyone by G Shane Morris for Christianity Today
Last week my first-grade daughter, Astrid, heard me mention abortion in conversation with my wife and asked me what it meant. It took no time for me to reply: “Abortion is when they kill a baby before it’s born, when it’s still inside its mommy.” Astrid’s eyes grew wide as she processed this horrible new feature of her world. She has seen her mommy pregnant twice, and those pregnancies ended in two little brothers. It’s strange to think that on Thursday morning, my little girl woke up not knowing that many like her brothers (and her) are legally killed before they have a chance to breathe. Now she knows. Welcome to America, pumpkin.
No matter what ideologues say, we all know (or at least once knew) that abortion involves killing unborn babies. Many have since suppressed that knowledge, and with J. R. R. Tolkien, I am a firm believer that people can—like a certain 500-year-old jewelry enthusiast who convinced himself his “birthday present” wasn’t acquired by parricide —come to believe their own oft-repeated lies. Many do talk themselves into believing, somehow, that vacuuming out the calvaria of preborn children is not murder. Born children intuitively know otherwise.
Now, I’m not saying my child’s reaction proves the pro-life cause. Little ones have been deployed too often as shock-troops in the culture wars. Videos of kids explaining why everyone should just get over gay marriage because “love is love” are in no short supply. Although, given how frequently these grade-schoolers parrot familiar progressive slogans, I do wonder how original their opinions are. Still, just because kids are predisposed to reach a certain conclusion doesn’t mean that is the right conclusion. Kids probably start out thinking the earth is flat.
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My point is rather that the humanity of the unborn is obvious to everyone—so much so that adults look unbearably awkward trying to deny it in front of youngsters. I think especially of the recent video of the founder of Shout Your Abortion, who attempted to act nonchalant as she justified abortion-on-demand to preteens. “It’s like a really crappy dentist appointment,” she lied, having first-hand knowledge of the practice.
The very premise that abortions are things to be shouted is a tacit admission that something more consequential than a filling has taken place, and she knows it. Watch how quickly she corrects one boy who dares to suggest adoption as an alternative to the absolute exercise of a woman’s right to choose (She says: “Do we want people to just have all those babies?… So, what do we do with them?”) Listen as she agrees with a young girl who describes abortion as “You basically go and get rid of the baby from inside you.” Notice the slight pause as she chooses her words while describing the procedure (“they just…suck the pregnancy out”).
