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Contending for the Dignity of Life

Kirt Wiggins, President, Caring Network

Regardless of whatever else may come of it, August 19-22 was a bad week in Chicago for the life of babies.  As the Democratic presidential convention was conducted at the United Center and McCormick Place, Planned Parenthood ran a mobile health clinic that offered free chemical abortions, free vasectomies, and “emergency contraception,” and Americans for Contraception set up an 18-foot-tall inflatable intrauterine device (IUD). 

The open-air offerings proved, organizers said, “what is possible when policies truly support accessible reproductive health care.”  In fact, it demonstrated the debauchery of those who continually find new ways to advance a culture of indignity and death. What these activists are seeking to make accessible is the opposite of reproductive health care. An abortion is not reproductive; it stops reproduction. It’s not health; it’s death. And it’s not care. It is callous destruction of human life that, for most women, results in long-term, persistent regret.

The New York Times called the convention’s role “a head-on display of new, unbridled abortion politics.”

This political activism on the streets outside a major party convention is contrary to the very foundations of faith and the recognition and protection of human value. Not to mention its failure to respect the decorum of the public square. The crass, flippant, and disrespectful advancement of abortion and the debasing of medical procedures flies in the face of the private and even sacred protection of human life and experience.

A pro-life advocate on site said: “This is a very serious and a very complex situation that’s being trivialized by Planned Parenthood. It’s being diminished, and it’s being disrespected, the fact that this is a very complicated, very complex decision that these women are making, and, unfortunately, it’s a carnival. They have blow-ups. They have food trucks. It’s a bit of a show, unfortunately, and it diminishes the severity and significance of vulnerable women.”

While we are alarmed by the abomination of the crass political support of abortion, the profane public abortion trailer and vasectomy tent next to the food trucks in the streets of Chicago, it is a fitting “advertisement” for the obscene and heartbreaking abortion industry in full mien in Chicago, throughout Illinois, and beyond. 

The protection of life in the womb has been strengthened in many areas since the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to the states. But in other states the rulings have embroiled the opposing sides in ever-more-vitriolic argument.  While the political arguments over abortion will rage, the real battle is not in courts or statehouses. It is in every human heart. 

At Caring Network, we know this because we are engaged every day in the counseling and support of women who are making decisions about unexpected pregnancies.  These are personal, often agonizing, struggles over life impacts, relational concerns, and spiritual understanding. We know these issues not at a governmental, political, public level, but at the heart level. 

We know that regardless of the intense, acrimonious arguments, women facing unexpected pregnancies are struggling with deeply personal, soul searching, existential crises.  And what is almost always missed in the crass and tone-deaf public encounters—like the scenes on the streets of Chicago—is that these personal decisions are deeply spiritual and of great concern to a loving God who is and has been involved in the issue of life since day one. 

The Biblical View of Life

For the celebration of abortion is an affront to the fundamental, scriptural value of life. The pre-born baby, like all human life, is “God-breathed.” Scripture tells us that “the Lord God “breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” (Genesis 2:7 NLT)  

Human life is valuable and sacred because it is elevated above the rest of creation. Jesus said: “You are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Matthew 10:31 NLT) 

Human Life—Personhood– Begins at Fertilization

If you strip away the politics, religious teachings, societal and personal preferences, economics, and practicality, and look at the scientific scholarship, it is necessary to conclude that human life, personhood, begins at fertilization, and that abortion is act that ends human life.  It takes the life of human person.  That was the finding of a study by John Janez Miklavcic and Paul Flaman

published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, titled Personhood Status of the Human Zygote, Embryo Fetus.

Its conclusion reads, in part: “All human beings have an end to their lives as persons in this world. In this article, the question of when personhood begins is posed. This work reviewed the stance that personhood begins at fertilization, as well as several other stances which argue for personhood at an arbitrary point after fertilization. In light of the biological evidence and philosophical arguments discussed herein, it is most reasonable to support the notion that personhood status is present at the point of human fertilization.

Some may choose to justify or ignore abortion’s result, but this study makes it clear that you cannot deny that abortion is the taking of a human life.

The Dignity of Life

It is widely accepted that human life has dignity. Even people who are not religious generally agree that people hold a special value that’s tied solely to their humanity and has nothing to do with their class, race, gender, religion, abilities, or any other factor other than them being human. The dignity of the human person that is the foundation of a moral society is under direct assault by the unfettered use of abortion to end human lives.

In fact, for centuries, religions around the world have recognized a form of human dignity as we now understand it. Most (if not all) religions teach that humans are essentially equal for one reason or another. In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, it’s because humans were created in the image of God, becoming children of God. Dignity is something that a divine being gives to people. In Catholic social teaching, the phrase “Human Dignity” is used specifically to support the church’s belief that every human life is sacred. This defines the church’s dedication to social issues like ending abortion and the death penalty.

Human Rights

Some seek to establish abortion as a human right, which requires enormous—actually impossible–ethical gymnastics, when it is clear that at the human person in utero has the human right to live. 

Grace Melton of the Heritage Foundation writes: “Abortion is not a human right. It has no basis in natural law, international treaty law, or the moral teachings of the world’s major religions. Debates about conflicting rights and abortion should start by describing what induced abortion is: the termination of a pregnancy that results in the death of an unborn human being. The human rights system exists to protect the rights of humans, especially the weakest. The right to life is the first right. Enshrining abortion as a human right does not expand the scope of rights—it subverts the very concept of rights.”

This is why we saw as abhorrent the retailing of abortion in the streets of Chicago.  At Caring Network, we move forward with great urgency, seeking to bring God’s love and compassion to abortion minded women, and to equip them to choose life. We are laboring to light candles every day, even as we curse the darkness. 

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