By
Stu Engle
A teenage boy, full of life, is running toward his mother who is describing how great a kid he is. Before he reaches his mother's awaiting arms, the boy, her son, disappears. She aborted her son 13 years earlier.
That commercial has stayed with me for more than a decade. Why? It has a powerful message. Abortion kills---human potential.
Abortion disminishes the concept that life is sacred. The result- a society has been emerging in which murder is a way of life. We have already seen this phenomenon at the end of this century. There was a time a person could keep his door unlocked or picking up a hitchhiker was acceptable- not today- not with the value of a human life being cheapened. I believe that policies like abortion have had a hand in changing our society's concept of life.
That effect will have a long-reaching virus on our society. The short-term solution has an ugly side effect. A friend of mine impregnated his girlfriend. He wanted me to say having an abortion was o.k. I supported the adoption alternative. His answer, "I thought we would adopt some day and that would be like trading."
He could rationalize his decision but the real reason he wanted his girlfriend to have an abortion was his sister's unwanted pregnancy had caused embarrassment to his family and he did not want to face his mother with this problem. Abortion was the quick solution. Eliminate the mistake and go on as though everything is normal.
Does he and his girlfriend, now his wife, feel the same way? Is she like the woman in the commercial- now regretting making a life and death decision because of the difficulty it would have caused in the short term? Living with the memory that you killed what could have been a life would be a terrible burden. Yet, thousands of people have that recessed in their memory chips. How has that memory cheapened humanity? The number is growing. Only time will tell.
Choice is always the word most often used with having the right to abort. Of course there is a choice, but it does not occur after the fetus is conceived; the choice occurs when the man and the woman decide to have sexual intercourse. Why do abortion activists avoid this argument? The choice that is acceptable is "Live for today, forget tomorrow." The word "choice" rightly fits our modern world. The choice of the modern world is "no responsibility."
Abortion supported by society will define our speck on the timeline as much as slavery and witch burning have disgraced other eras. Our lack of humanity in many things is epitomized by our abortion standard as is this standard by most of the "civilized" nations.
An immediate change cannot be done politically, nor do I want our government to force an abortion law on society. Instead, an overwhelming majority must understand that life is sacred. This can only be done with continued education of our youth. Future generations must see what an abomination abortion is and then demand its removal from acceptance.
Commercials such as the one I mentioned at the first are powerful. Life must be celebrated and valued at all costs. The current practices of radical groups of murdering abortion doctors and bombing clinics are not acceptable. An eye for an eye- I don't think so. This clouds the message and only gives fuel to those who believe abortion (murder) is permissable in the modern world.
A humane society, as we know it, cannot survive if abortion continues to take hundreds of thousands of the human potential from coming into existence. Maybe life has already been cheapened to such an extent that there is no going back. The future could be a cruel, cold world. For our children's sake, I hope not.