A little more than a month ago, 20 innocent children were savagely and senselessly slaughtered in their classroom at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a fact now being used by an opportunistic president to further his agenda. That same day, 150 times that many innocent children were savagely and senselessly slaughtered in America’s abortion mills.
Gary McCoy / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)
The next day, the same thing happened. And the day after that. And the day after that.
It’s been going on for 40 years now.
On January 22, 1973, my wife had been carrying the first of our two sons for three months when seven men in black robes handed down the most notorious Supreme Court ruling since Dred Scott. Consequently, our sons have grown to manhood in a country that has never protected its innocent unborn children. They have come of age with the knowledge that it is a crime to kill certain “endangered species” of animals, while realizing that one-third of their generation has been legally aborted before having the opportunity to draw breath.
America’s callous attitude toward the unborn is due in part to the overwhelming quantity of tiny corpses, now in the neighborhood of 50 million. For the last 40 years, they have been poked, poisoned and pulverized to death in the name of “choice.” As Soviet butcher Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said, “The death of a hundred people is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” This is so because, as human beings, we cannot wrap our minds around the enormity of the evil involved in such numbers.
Killing the innocent is wrong. We all know this intuitively. The events of September 11, 2001, are seared into our consciousness because of the heinous nature of the crimes and the horrendous loss of life. Yet we turn a blind eye to the methodical and deliberate killing of that many human beings every single day at the hands of “doctors.”
We wring our hands over the execution of a mere handful of people on death row, wondering if some of them may not have been guilty. Meanwhile, we continue to avert our gaze from the death of tens of millions of babies over the last four decades, every one of whom we know was innocent beyond any doubt.
Americans revel in individual rights, and this is one that has allowed us to take the life of one person to facilitate the convenience of another. Forty years after Roe vs. Wade, some people are still simply ignorant — many by choice — of the truth about abortion. I remember interviewing a prominent female elected state government official for an article I was writing back in the 1990s. A pro-choice Democrat, when asked what she thought of late-term abortions, this intelligent, well-educated, politically savvy woman said, “Abortion isn’t even legal after the first trimester.”
I was incredulous. “Excuse me,” I said, “but with all due respect, what do you think the debate over partial birth abortion is all about?”
With a blank stare, she said, “I never really thought about it.”
Too many Americans don’t want to let go of their preconceived notions about human beings still gestating in the womb. But there are signs that public opinion has been shifting over the last decade. A recent Time magazine cover story tells us that “40 years ago, abortion-rights activists won an epic victory with Roe vs. Wade…They’ve been losing ever since.”
Perhaps the generation that has been robbed of so many of its members is seeing the light. Or maybe it has to do with new medical technologies like 4D-ultrasound, which has given us the ability to see a baby clearly in the womb. In any case, a majority of Americans are now strongly against abortion. In fact, polls show that 7 out of 10 of us now want to see legal protections restored to pre-born children.
It’s about time.
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© 2013 by Doug Patton – Doug Patton describes himself as a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself more often than not. His weekly columns are syndicated by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Readers are encouraged to email him at dpatton@cagle.com and/or to follow him on Twitter at @Doug_Patton. For info on using Doug’s columns at your publication or website, please email Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com.
