The Normalization of Abortion in America is Anything But a Modest Proposal

There’s one great advantage to working closely with social media as the ACLJ’s Director of Social Media Advocacy: access to a large number of ideas and worldviews.  Every day I sift through thousands of comments and as I read it doesn’t take long for a trend of ideas to emerge.

As these trends start to materialize, ideas of my own start to bubble to the surface and at times the impulse to respond becomes irresistible.

One such idea that I see far too often is that it is mercy for a mother to abort her child if it means it will spare him from suffering.  Suffering…never mind that the abortion process very much involves suffering on both the part of the child and the mother. 

It’s confounding.

Kill in order to spare death.  Dismember in order to spare pain.  Eviscerate in order to bestow mercy.

As those ideas roll around my mind, it’s hard not to think of the work of Jonathan Swift entitled “A Modest Proposal” that suggested the solution to the ever growing problem of poverty in early-1700s England was in fact cannibalism - to literally eat the year old children of the impoverished masses.  

His argument – which keep in mind was purely satirical – is that instead of actually addressing the needs of the poor, allow the poor to “breed” and sustain the life of a child until a year old, only to then provide the yearlings as sustenance for the gentry and beyond.  

Why does such a suggestion shock our senses?  Even the senses of the most pro-abortion in our ranks?  Because of human dignity.  Human life has value, and that it would be instantly cruel to slaughter, by Swift’s calculations, thousands upon thousands of children even if the sacrifice were for the benefit of the masses.

If Swift’s proposal is so shocking, why is the proposal for a woman to kill her unborn child, to not only spare him from suffering but to spare society from solving the seemly unsolvable problem of poverty, totally accepted as a natural part of women’s rights?

It’s devastating.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen protests broadcasted across social media of enraged persons touting that we must kill the fetus lest it be born, be unwanted, and then be forced upon the taxpayer’s conscience.

To hear it tears at my innermost person.  The part of me which exists in all of us that tells us that human life has value – beyond just that we have a body but that we have the ability to reason which is what sets us apart from mere beasts.
           
Value human life enough to hold on to it.  Value it enough to protect it.  Not only within the womb but also outside of it. 

If we are called to be the Hands and Feet of the Almighty, we must protect those mothers who find themselves pregnant in the worst time in life and under the worst circumstances.  And not just with our tax dollars.

Pro-life pregnancy centers across the country are paramount to the care of women who find themselves pregnant and in crisis.  These centers go above and beyond just the needs of the mother and child and cares for the advancement of her full person, surpassing even the months of her pregnancy.

And I’ll go a step further and ask for us to refute the calls of the critics that say, “Well, I don’t see you out fixing this poverty problem, helping the unwanted homeless that plague our cities and towns.”

We have a duty to serve the poor, to solve the problem of poverty to the best of our ability, and not just settle for the “solution” to just kill them before they become our “problem.”  That is no solution at all.

All human life has value, the born and the pre-born.  Help us protect it.

Please consider signing the ACLJ’s petition to defend pro-life pregnancy centers across this nation.  They’re constantly under threat from pro-abortion forces that want to see their doors closed for good.  The work of these centers is invaluable and that’s why we need your help.  Sign and share today.