While we are right to focus on the politics of the day, we too often, in our haste, forget our longstanding woes. Abortion is out of vogue in the current political climate, unless it is used as a club against its opponents. While Richard Mourdock and Todd Aiken still bear the scars of mis-statements (let us be gracious and assume this), and their subsequent defeats, a new abortion story is actually earning headlines of a different sort.
On trial in Philadelphia for the charged murder of seven babies born alive, Kermit Gosnell’s hands, crafted by God, have been used, it seems, not in the glory of his Creator, but as instruments of horror. Were Dr. Gosnell a lab technician, similar treatment of animals would be described as inhumane. What do we call these atrocities? The destruction of post-natal human beings by the snipping of spinal cords? The retrieval of live babies from toilets just so that they might be assuredly killed? One nurse, in her testimony, was so distraught by the killing of an approximately 30 week old boy that she took a cell phone photograph. She said that Gosnell joked the baby was old enough to walk to the bus stop down the street.
George Orwell, in his “Politics and the English Language,” talks of modern political writing as largely a “defense of the indefensible.” The New York Times refers to Gosnell’s victims as “viable fetuses” since they were already born, but in the process of death. The phrase is so clinical, sterile, and white that it tempts us to pass by this defense of the indefensible. The phraseology is a deliberate attempt to pull a verbal shade over the terror the language is meant to describe. Though the Times no longer pretends to subscribe to the virtues of objectivity, I wish it could muster some degree of righteous indignation to paint Kermit Gosnell as the monster he indeed appears to be.
For a colorful description, see Mark Steyn’s commentary. Be warned, however, for the stories and links are graphic and disturbing.
Jeff Haymond
March 22, 2013
Mark–
I am afraid we have all become numbed to the horrors of our wickedness. Almost as a matter of self-defense, our culture collectively uses language or argues aspects of the issue which distract from the key issue of the death of one of God’s children by the deliberate actions of individuals also created in the image of God. If we were to focus on that, we would be unable to tolerate it. And if we could not tolerate it, we would have to say why. Why can we not simply treat a fetus as simple protoplasm or a tumor? We would be forced to acknowledge an overarching source of morality that most of our society simply doesn’t want to accept. It is thus easier to talk clinically, and above all ignore the reality of life. But then we are confronted with images like this one (it’s ok, you’ll feel good!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoq0aOjNJgY
Grant B.
March 24, 2013
“Anti-science” “anti-choice” “anti-women”
Framing the language of the debate is the first step in winning the battle. We’ve capitulated far too easily in this respect.
Nathan Dollison
March 26, 2013
Perhaps in addition to the term “pro-life”, we should call ourselves “pro-abortion control” and start using statistics.
The gun-control lobby is out there using the figure of over a million killed by guns in the US since 1980. Why don’t we fire back with the 50 or so million that have been killed by abortion.
Katie Kendrick
March 28, 2013
Aborting babies while they are still in the womb is bad, but his choice to kill babies once they are born takes it to a whole other level. He was killing babies with scissors! This makes me sick. This is murder. The fact that it did not even seem to faze him is sad. This shows how far away our country has gone past its roots. Our country is so focused on things like gay rights when we are killing millions of babies each year. It is sad that our Nation even has court cases like this. @ThomasMach