Life, Death, and Dominion – Part II: “…But for the Grace of God…”

June 5, 2008 | Posted by Steve

(This is Part II of a multi-part series on the emotionally-charged topic of abortion.  Please read “Part I:  The Journey Begins” for important background.)

Argue your case as much as you wish.  Your complaint will fall on deaf ears here at NoMoreGreed.com.  You will never convince me that there is anything pleasant or sweet about the act of abortion.

Nobody delivers flowers congratulating the mother on getting rid of the unwanted parasite.  Nobody celebrates the annual “abortion day” with a party and cake.  Even abortion proponents will confess in unguarded moments that abortion is, at best, a relatively “safe” procedure if conducted in a well-regulated, well-staffed environment.  Beyond that it is best not to dwell on the details because the reality is harsh; the act is invasive, irreversible, and bloody.

The very notion that a woman would voluntarily subject her body to such mutilation leaves me dumbfounded.  It is a violation, whether submitted to willingly or not, that redefines her control over her body in twisted, objective terms.  The “fetus” attached to the walls of her womb through an intricate network of blood vessels, drawing life sustaining nourishment from her body, must become more “thing” than “being” or else the horror of the choice to remove it becomes pervasive emotional baggage none wish to bear.

Yes, a woman has a certain degree of power over her body in the choice to carry or abort a child.  The woman has the power to walk into the abortionist’s office.  She has the power to permit the abortionist to reach into her womb.  She has the power to let that same abortionist extract a miracle from her and discard it with other equally unwanted miracles.

She does not, however, have the power to change her mind once the baby is removed.  Once it is removed, retreat is no longer an option.

We are not talking about wart removal.  “Simply apply this solvent twice a day for the next week and then we’ll freeze the wart and remove it.”  This is no virus, no cosmetic blemish to be corrected.What we are talking about removal of life.  This is no minor surgery, superficially nipping and tucking here and there to improve one’s outward appearance.  This is invasive clipping, snipping, and suctioning designed to avoid months of nausea and the potential for a lifetime of rippling inconvenience.  Once in a bygone age we referred to the process in hushed tones, reckoning silently with the stigma of the act.  These days we practically shout it from the rooftops, “I support a woman’s right to ‘choose’!”

If you detect an edgy harshness in the way I describe the process and act of abortion, please do so in the understanding that mine is a perspective drawn from the front lines of life.   My take on this scourge is driven by the look in that teenager’s eyes 30 years ago and by the experience of having been in the delivery room for all three of our children.  I can both relate to the emotional minefields of adolescence that drove that young girl to have sex in the first place even as I can’t possibly relate to the notion that abortion is a viable option to correct such a major “mistake.”

It is a position of both absolute moral certitude and ultimate human compassion that leaves me emotionally drained.  I both resent the ease with which some wish to offer the option and embrace the reality that were it not for an extra dose of sublime grace along the way I, too, might have fathered my own toss-away child.  I was once driven by passion and hormones as a young man to nearly engage in pre-marital sex without “protection.”  In the essence of the age-old phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I…” something truly miraculous stopped me from crossing that boundary before the damage could be done.  It is a moment of “choice” I have never regretted and yet have never fully understood.

Had I crossed that boundary, had I succumbed to those socially inflamed sexual desires, I might have been the father of an equally-dead child of my own once the reality of the situation settled in with my girlfriend at the time.  I’d like to believe I wouldn’t have aborted the child if faced with the same dilemma, but in those B.C. days, (“Before Christ”), I lived by a more relativistic, morally ambiguous standard.  Personal comfort and convenience governed my choices more often than steadfast, bedrock, moral absolutes.

So for as much as the very notion of aborting a child in-utero is abhorrent in the concrete, the notion that I could also stand in judgment of the woman facing the moral dilemma that has driven her to that choice leaves me speechless.

The essence of my dilemma is caused by a simple passage of Scripture, reminding me of my wobbly spiritual knees in the boldest and most unrelenting of ways…

“Let he who is without sin…”

(NEXT:  Part III – Hypocrisy, Hypnotism, and Hyperbole.)

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