Gone

This morning I watched something that wasn’t just disturbing it was painful. It was a video taken inside an abortion clinic. In the video a woman was asking questions about what would happen during the birth of the baby. What happens if it’s breathing? Will I have to take a baby home? Will I have to take care of it?

The doctors responses assured her everytime that if ‘it’ was born alive she wouldn’t have to take care of it, wouldn’t get into any trouble, that the baby would most likely be in pieces and would die but it might take a little while.

As a mother, as someone opposed to abortion, as a Christian…as a person, I can’t imagine ever having an abortion. But I tried to imagine what it would be like without those beliefs. If I wasn’t opposed to abortion… And I couldn’t imagine hearing the things that I heard in that video and being able to go through with an abortion.

We give a shot into your stomach to stop the heart.

There goes the whole it’s not a baby, it’s just tissue, argument. The doctor even called the baby a baby once or twice.

 It usually comes out in pieces.

Forget whether or not a person is a Christian. Forget whether or not they’re for or against abortion. How about compassion? How about human decency? Can you imagine having your body ripped or cut apart? Piece by piece. The doctor did say giving the optional shot to stop the heart is the best because it means they don’t suffer.

Really? They’re going to cut this very tiny baby into pieces or use strong suction to rip it apart and the shot to stop the heart first is optional. That shot is the closest thing to anesthetic those babies get, wrong as they are, and they’re optional.

Can you imagine living in a world where everything is comfortable, no hot, no cold, very little, if any, pain…then the excruciating pain of having your arms, legs, and any or all other body parts cut or ripped apart? And there’s no pain relief given.

There is no separating my beliefs from who I am, from how I think and react, but for this moment I’m trying hard to separate them just long enough to figure out where a person’s thoughts and heart would have to be to be okay with the scenario I just described.

I love babies. There’s just something wonderful about being able to hold one, about being given the chance to love and care for one. It’s not work, it’s not a curse, it’s not something to be dreaded, it’s a blessing, a privilege. My love for babies, without any other belief or thought, makes it impossible for me to be able to comprehend the idea of killing one. I can’t even imagine not wanting one and I sure can’t understand the pure evil that would lead a person to kill one.

My belief in my Lord would keep me from being able to understand or accept the idea of killing anyone much less an unborn baby. Not too long ago I wrote a post about Noah. In it I talked about babies and whether or not Noah or any of his family had a problem going into the ark and leaving all those babies outside. That question, those thoughts, came not from myself but from questions I had been asked. From people that had questioned how God could kill innocent babies, about what they had done to deserve dying.

The number of people that died during the flood is numbered in the millions (I saw a few estimates online that put it in the billions). Whatever the number was we can assume that only a percentage of them were babies. So…10%? 20? 50? Our population today doesn’t consist of 50% babies. Chances are the population before the flood didn’t either. It’s said that since 1973 there have been more than 50 million unborn babies killed by abortion in America.

How many of those people that question how God could kill innocent babies in the flood are directly responsible for some of those 50 million aborted babies? How many of them are responsible simply because they support abortion? I highly doubt there were 50 million babies killed during the flood, or any other Biblical plague or destruction of babies. Yet many of the people that blame God for the death of babies in the Bible see nothing wrong with killing unborn babies today.

I have a family member that has always been against abortion but has said many times that cases of rape justify an abortion.

I have to ask why?

Why would rape, as horrible as it is, justify killing a baby that is as much a victim as the mother is? Why does something horrible have to turn into something heinous?

Did the Lord put any exceptions on…“You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13…Nowhere in there did it say you shall not murder except for…

Unborn babies.

Cases of rape.

Inconvenience.

Your body figure.

Scripture actually tells us that children are a blessing, a heritage.

It doesn’t say that babies conceived in less than ideal situations are an exception to that. It doesn’t say that babies born out of rape are anything less than any other baby. I can’t help thinking of what it actually takes for a baby to be born as a direct result from rape. In an ongoing situation such as incest the chances are higher but in a one-time situation…the chance of a baby being conceived have to be quite low, so low as to be close to nonexistent. Not only does the woman have to be raped but it has to happen during a certain time period for her. What are the odds of that happening?

I have known a little girl that was the product of rape. She was biracial and very much loved. Her mother chose to keep her and as a result she was a blessing, not only to her mother but to her extended family as well. This mother, this family, went through something horrible, but out of it came something good.

How many babies are killed because the mother doesn’t want the reminder?

The number is actually pretty low according to something I read online. According to that article 86% of abortions are performed for convenience. That leaves 14% to be performed for medical, rape, and all other reasons.

Convenience kills a whole lot of babies.

I can’t, for even a second, separate my belief in the Lord from my opinions on what is right and wrong. I tried after watching that video to do that just long enough to figure out what it would take to see that kind of ‘procedure’ as okay.

I couldn’t do it.

No matter the circumstances of any baby’s conception, it’s still a baby. It was formed because the Lord wanted it to be.

I had two very short months with the baby that grew in my womb a couple of months ago. When I lost it I grieved for that baby. I still hurt for it. Think of how it would be developing now if it hadn’t died, of how I would be feeling those precious movements inside me. I can’t comprehend the thought process that would let a person…a mother…go in and have a baby removed from her body the way one would have a wart or other blemish removed.

If my life was in danger from carrying a child…I would not abort it.

If the doctor told me I would die if I have the baby…I would not abort it.

Life and death are in the Lord’s hands.

He is the only one with the right to decide who lives and who dies. If I gave my life to give life to my child then the Lord simply used that child to end my days on earth. I would give my life for any of my children, an unborn baby I carried would be no different.

And yet…the same place where I read there are 50 million dead babies because of abortion also said there are over 3,00 0 babies a day that die in abortion.

I remember well the shock and upset that happened as a result of Sept. 11, 2001. People everywhere were talking about it. They were hurt. They were angry. They were afraid. Once the death toll came in it staggered everyone. Laws were enacted to keep anything like that from happening again. People took precautions. They changed their lives.

And yet…more babies are killed every single day in America than the number of people killed on 9/11.

We’re told to remember those that gave their lives for our freedom, those that died in war for us. We have a holiday that sets aside one day a year for just such remembering.

And yet…the number of babies killed by abortion in America each year is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths from all the wars combined.

Where is the holiday to remember those babies?

At least most of those soldiers were grown and the majority of them went into the military knowing what could happen. They chose to put themselves at risk.

Those babies did not.

But we honor the soldiers, remember their deaths. We have a holiday to remember those that died on 9/11.

Where is the holiday to remember the innocent babies?

Sin is rampant in our fallen world. Evil is excused. We put people in prison for selling drugs, send them to jail for not paying a parking ticket, give them fines for going fishing without a license or for riding in a car without a seatbelt. But…Every. Single. Day…we let women kill their babies.

And by many it is seen as a good thing. It’s excused. It’s overlooked. I’ve heard, and read that something like 90% of the American population claims to be a Christian. I’ve also read that the numbers are dropping and that 70 something percent of the American population claims to be Christian. So…if 70%-90% of Americans are ‘Christians’ than 70-90 percent of the 3,000 abortions performed every day are done on ‘Christian’ women.

Doctor’s don’t go around performing abortions on unwilling women. You have to sign a form, give your consent. These women walk into these clinics and ask to kill their babies. 70-90 percent of those women should have the basic understanding that doing so goes against the God they claim to believe in. They should know that it goes against what they supposedly believe. They should know…thou shall not kill.

And yet…they do it anyway.

Day after day, hour after hour, baby after baby, ‘Christian’ women are asking doctors to commit murder. If 3,000 abortions are done today in America and 70% of the women having them done are ‘Christian’ that’s 2,100 ‘Christian’ women that are violating the command to not murder.

It’s my understanding that thou shall not murder is one of the most widely understood and recognized ‘rules’ for being a Christian. People seem to understand that Christianity and murder don’t go together. But either a lot of the abortions done every day are done on ‘Christian’ women or the 10-30 percent of American women that don’t claim to be Christians are killing a huge number of babies.

I recently read an article where someone said they found more acceptance when they told people they were gay than they did when they said they were ‘Christian.’ My thought immediately went to the fact that if they were a homosexual than they couldn’t be a Christian. True Christians should be grieved by the sin of homosexuality. They should understand that God hates it and because He hates it they should too.

My thoughts are the same when I think about a ‘Christian’ woman having an abortion. Killing a baby is murder. There’s no way around that fact. Anyone that has thought about, considered or suggested an abortion has advocated murder.

I’ve heard of women that have had multiple abortions, heard of women that use it as a form of birth control. Pregnancy doesn’t have to mean a baby. It’s a procedure.

Is that what God thinks?

Is the Lord okay with murder? Is He okay with killing living newborn babies? Is he okay with abortions?

Many, many years ago there was a house in the town not far from where I lived that had painted the following question written in very large letters on their fence…

What if Mary had had an abortion?

I know now that there’s more to all of life, all of time, than what we can see here on earth. There’s a plan being worked out in our lives and in the lives of everyone through time to bring the Lord’s plan to fruition. Mary wouldn’t have had an abortion. She couldn’t have. Because she was specifically chosen by God to perform the task set out for her. The task given….to give life to Christ.

But in our day, the very nature of how she came to be expecting that baby would have been seen as a good reason to have an abortion.

Where would we be if she had?

I know it isn’t possible. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, have had an abortion. If she would have God would have chosen someone else to have his Son. I also know that the Lord allows the thousands of abortions that happen every day. For what reason we can’t know, but He does allow them.

But knowing that He allows it to happen doesn’t make the horror of what’s happening any less. It doesn’t make hearing things like what I heard on that video any easier. It doesn’t make me hurt for those babies any less.

My daughter’s all know I would gladly take and raise any child. They know I’d never refuse if offered a baby. A year or so ago we were driving past a field that had 3,000 pink and blue flags in it. Each flag was a representation of a baby that was killed by abortion every day. One of my young daughters asked me if I would take in all those babies if they were offered to me. Without hesitation I answered yes. She went on to ask me what we would do with so many babies. I don’t remember how I responded but I know my answer would be the same today as it was then.

Yes, I would willingly, happily, take in 3,000 babies today if it meant I could save them from abortion. There’s no way I could care for that many babies, even with the help of all of my family, but I would take them in, do the best we could.

Taking them in isn’t an option. Saving them from abortion isn’t an option. We are all given a certain number of days to live. For some reason those aborted babies are given only the days they have in the womb. Abortion is what is used to end their days.

The evil of abortion is impossible to understand for those of us that see it as wrong, as murder. Doctor’s that perform abortions are nothing short of serial killers. Nurses and assistants are nothing short of accomplices to murder. But it happens over and over.

It’s allowed by the Lord for some reason.

Why, we can’t know. As I write this…I’m struggling with knowing how to bring it to an end, struggling with what kind of title to give it. And as I write this I wonder if an abrupt ending isn’t the best way to go. Just cut it off in the midst of making a point, in the midst of writing, as those babies lives are cut off in the midst of living and growing.

They’re there one minute, oblivious to all the evil and pain of this world, and the next…GONE.