It was a secret.
I was carried quietly by a 17-year-old girl.
No one in her senior class knew I existed.
I’m grateful that she gave me life through adoption.
It’s not hard to imagine, then, that the topic of abortion stops me in my tracks.
I remember the first time it happened.
I was in college, reading my favorite magazine.
I noticed an entire page dedicated to, “Your pregnancy! Your baby!”
How magical this was!
Then I flipped a few pages more and what WAS, suddenly WASN’T.
The topic was now abortion. And “wantedness.”
Suddenly the delightful baby was a burdensome choice, a blob of goo, now a wedge between my dreams and me.
The magazine I read that day and the pro-choice movement, in general, has made repeated, intellectually dishonest attempts to change the language of what they do.
Chuck Swindoll once said, “Why do abortionists and those who profit from abortions so often hide behind euphemism? Why the secrecy and sleight-of-hand? Even before Roe v. Wade right up until now, people and politicians have hidden behind jargon like ‘fetus’ and ‘products of conception,’ and ‘calvarium.’ Now, even words like ‘procedure’ and ‘technique’ are used as if they have no real meaning. Everything good and right and true exists in the light, according to Ephesians 5. Evil tries to hide, and hidden evil flourishes. Everything this industry tries to hide, including the humanity of the fetus and the reality that this “procedure” kills, and just how brutal it is, we must expose.”
Changing the language of abortion does not change what happens.
Abortion takes a human life.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today.
See also: Matt Clark: What to expect from the Supreme Court today
Mississippi’s attorney general is defending the constitutionality of her state’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
Who knew that at 15 weeks, your baby could make whole-body movements, move their arms and legs, stretch, and make breathing motions? By 15 weeks, the unborn have eyes and teeth. Their heart has long been beating.
I still remember dog-earing the colorful pages that displayed how babies develop. They gave it to me during my first visit to the OB.
I was a first-time mom and pored over that magazine.
God’s handiwork dumbfounded me.
It’s funny; while reading that magazine, the college magazine from years before still haunted my thoughts.
What WAS, wasn’t - with the flip of a page.
It wasn’t true then.
It’s not true now.
When the court hears this case, listen carefully to the euphemisms that will be used. Though euphemisms won’t save the pro-choice cause.
Truth will.
What is the truth?
According to the science of embryology, the unborn are fully human, distinct individuals, complete with their unique DNA from conception.
From the moment of conception, they are part of our human family.
My prayer?
That the Mississippi ban stands.
I am thankful that we have the chance to look at Roe with fresh eyes.
And to clarify the question Justice Henry Blackmun had, which was, can we know when life begins?
Yes.
Radiologist Dr. Grazie Posto Christie in the Wall Street Journal said this.
“The Supreme Court will soon reconsider the decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), which made abortion legal in America through all nine months of pregnancy. At that 'point in the development of man’s knowledge,' as Justice Harry Blackmun put it in Roe, there was simply no consensus about when life begins. In other words, the fetus could not be said with any certainty to be alive and therefore wasn’t worthy of legal protection.
“As a diagnostic radiologist — whose youngest patients are fetuses, who are very much alive — I submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization urging the justices to rethink Roe, a case premised on a claim about science. I was joined by two other female physicians, a neonatologist and an obstetrician, who also value their youngest patients, believing that whether inside their mothers or born, premature or full-term, they are worthy of respect and protection.”
Francis Schaeffer, in Escape from Reason: A Penetrating Analysis of Trends in Modern Thought, said. “We cannot deal with people like human beings; we cannot deal with them on the high level of true humanity unless we know their origin-who they are. God tells a man who he is. God tells us that He created man in His image. So man is something wonderful.”
I’m grateful that, though I was hidden for nine months, my 17-year-old birth mom openly gave me life.
In this case, for these unborn children, will we not do the same?
Amie Beth Shaver is a speaker, writer, and media commentator. Her column appears every Wednesday in 1819 News. Shaver served on the Alabama GOP State Executive Committee, was a candidate for State House 43 and spokeswoman for Allied Women. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
