Babies are...

So, if babies are not the enemy, why does the United States abort minimally 846,181 pregnancies (In 2006, 846,181 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). I chose this statistic because I am sure it minimizes the impact of abortion so I could not be accused of bias) a year? What are the causes for so many abortions- many sources putting the abortion number at 1.5 million per year. If babies are not the enemy, what is?

• poverty
• a promiscuous society and
  
• general dehumanization are a few reasons why abortions are so common.

Although women can and must always choose good over evil, staring at an empty cupboard must make it more difficult to choose life. Living in a society where there are very few good jobs which don't require higher education (an education that is financially out of reach for much of the U.S. population) also contributes to this poverty. Times have changed. When I was a young child, there were four kids, only my dad worked (at a job which did not require a college degree), and we had a house and a half acre to play around in. Now, living in the same area, my four kids have a townhouse with a cement patio even though they have a mom with a Master's degree who works part-time and a dad with two Master's who has a good full-time job. We are by no means poor, but it seems to be harder to earn a good living nowadays.

I was picking up my big girls from choir when there was a debate over music perferences. My girls said they enjoy classical music along with Elton John and the Beach Boys. A few of the kids made fun of them; I tried to be a cool mom and suggested to them that they go to youtube and find the 'backing up song.' Basically, it shows how talking can be turned into a pop song with a computer and autotune. A cute little boy- the one who still sings the soprano parts- mentioned that Katy Perry uses auto-tune more than Lady Gaga. Says he: Gaga is the true artist whose meat dress will soon be in a museum. It is a promiscuous society that allows an eight-year old boy to listen to and watch the videos of these two so-called artists. When a good boy with an intact family finds their music and videos to be acceptable, we are setting ourselves up for acceptance of evil- one of those evils being abortion.

A 6-pound baby was found in the garbage today, just another news item on the radio. My last baby was 4 pounds, and her neighbor in the NICU was born just under 2 pounds. So, this is personal; I admit it. When a society condones the dehumanization of the smallest, weakest and oldest, it is a sick society. Yes, the ancient Spartans would expose an imperfect child to the elements, but aren't we supposed to be better than that now? For believers, we are all sanctified by Christ. We are made in God's image, so all life is sacred. For others, science shows us that humans develop from a fertilized egg and are always human. The fetus, no matter how small, never was something other than human. But in the early months, the baby looks strange, so we can destroy the life? Analyze a two-year old's face. His proportions are different than a teenager's. Then, compare the teenager with a middle-aged adult. They will also look different from each other, but they look the way they do because of the stage of development they are in.

My theme needs to be developed much more- Red Cardigan's blog is a good pro-life blog to peruse. I just find it sad and ironic every year that Roe v Wade and Martin Luther King Day are so close to one another. Would Dr King be pleased (as Obama celebrated Roe V Wade so his daughters will have choices) that so many African-Americans, a disproportionate number, do not exist because of abortion? He had to know the work of Margaret Sanger, founder of the eugenic Birth Control League, later named Planned Parenthood. King's niece now makes it her life's mission to speak out against abortion, perhaps to heal from the pain of having had two abortions herself. The mercy of God is so great! One last thing...

"There are currently 15,000 mentions of Jared Loughner [shot down 6 in Arizona 2 weeks ago] in the news recently, according to Google. But as of Sunday night there are less than 1,400 mentions of Dr. Kermit Gosnell [soon to be on trial for the murder of two women and for murdering seven babies who survived abortions]. That’s 10 percent. Truly, silence is the deadliest bias." (Creative Minority Report)

update: OK- Fr Barron says it best again.