I am nervous writing about this because it's not a conventional "dogwood trail" topic. My kids are good. Steve is good. Our life is good and happy and pretty (operative word) normal. We have a new puppy (Max) and we are all looking forward to the summer.
That being said, I have something to shout to the universe again. As before, when I talked about Nick and his struggles, my issue has to do with the dignity of the human person. It has to do with the belief that, unlike all other created life, we are made in the image of our Creator. And it is wrong to trample on the dignity and sanctity of that image. It is wrong to abuse women and objectify them for personal gratification. It is wrong to sell children in sex trades. It is wrong to ignore the poor, oppress the addicted, marginalize the mentally handicapped and ridicule the imprisoned. It is a sin against humanity and against God.
My heart, though, aches and is offended at the murders of our most innocent and perfect--the unborn children. And it is this topic I write about today.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before
you were born I consecrated you;
Jeremiah 1:5
1.3 million abortions are recorded every year. In the United States, it is the single most commonly performed elective surgery. And you can't watch it. You can't find it anywhere. No one talks about its truth.
1.3 million--That is a college football stadium sold out 13 times. That is the Vietnam Memorial (which holds 56,286 names) stretched for 40 miles. We, in this land of "equal opportunity" profess to believe "these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." But we kill 1.3 million of our people every year. That's 3,561 children EVERY DAY.
For what? What excuse can we give? What reason is good enough? We dehumanize Michael Vick, we retire his jersey, we call him all kinds of horrible names, we ostracize and humiliate him. Why--because he abused and killed dogs. Certainly an offense! They are innocent creatures of God! It should be criminal to treat a dog the way he did! But they are not children. They were not created in the image and likeness of God. They are not fetuses with a heartbeat and toes and little hands and brains that are murdered and discarded into stainless steel buckets.
As I listened to Fr. John Riccardo's podcast on the dignity of the human person (http://frjohnriccardo.libsyn.com/webpage/category/RCIA%20for%20Catholics), I learned more about the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Carhart. Though I certainly knew about the Court's decision to continue banning partial-birth abortion, I had never read Justice Kennedy's majority opinion. This is an excerpt from his opinion:
"The Act proscribes a particular manner of ending fetal life, so it is necessary here, as it was in Stenberg,
to discuss abortion procedures in some detail...
Abortion methods vary depending to some extent
on the preferences of the physician and, of course, on the term of the
pregnancy and the resulting stage of the unborn child’s development.
Between 85 and 90 percent of the approximately 1.3 million abortions
performed each year in the United States take place in the first three
months of pregnancy, which is to say in the first trimester. Planned Parenthood,
320 F. Supp. 2d, at 960, and n. 4; App. in No. 05–1382, pp. 45–48. The
most common first-trimester abortion method is vacuum aspiration
(otherwise known as suction curettage) in which the physician vacuums
out the embryonic tissue. Early in this trimester an alternative is to
use medication, such as mifepristone (commonly known as RU–486), to
terminate the pregnancy...
Of the remaining abortions that take place each
year, most occur in the second trimester. The surgical procedure
referred to as “dilation and evacuation” or “D&E” is the usual
abortion method in this trimester. Planned Parenthood, 320 F. Supp. 2d, at 960–961. Although individual techniques for performing D&E differ, the general steps are the same.
A doctor must first dilate the cervix at least
to the extent needed to insert surgical instruments into the uterus and
to maneuver them to evacuate the fetus... A doctor often begins the
dilation process by inserting osmotic dilators, such as laminaria
(sticks of seaweed), into the cervix. The dilators can be used in
combination with drugs, such as misoprostol, that increase dilation.
The resulting amount of dilation is not uniform, and a doctor does not
know in advance how an individual patient will respond. In general the
longer dilators remain in the cervix, the more it will dilate. Yet the
length of time doctors employ osmotic dilators varies. Some may keep
dilators in the cervix for two days, while others use dilators for a day
or less...
After sufficient dilation the surgical operation
can commence. The woman is placed under general anesthesia or
conscious sedation. The doctor, often guided by ultrasound, inserts
grasping forceps through the woman’s cervix and into the uterus to grab
the fetus. The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it
back through the cervix and vagina, continuing to pull even after
meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to
tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is
pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of
evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been
completely removed. A doctor may make 10 to 15 passes with the forceps
to evacuate the fetus in its entirety, though sometimes removal is
completed with fewer passes. Once the fetus has been evacuated, the
placenta and any remaining fetal material are suctioned or scraped out
of the uterus. The doctor examines the different parts to ensure the
entire fetal body has been removed. See, e.g.,
Nat. Abortion Federation, supra, at 465; Planned Parenthood, supra, at 962.
Some doctors, especially later in the second
trimester, may kill the fetus a day or two before performing the
surgical evacuation. They inject digoxin or potassium chloride into the
fetus, the umbilical cord, or the amniotic fluid. Fetal demise may
cause contractions and make greater dilation possible. Once dead,
moreover, the fetus’ body will soften, and its removal will be easier.
Other doctors refrain from injecting chemical agents, believing it adds
risk with little or no medical benefit...
The abortion procedure that was the impetus for
the numerous bans on “partial-birth abortion,” including the Act, is a
variation of this standard D&E...
The medical community has not reached unanimity on the appropriate name
for this D&E variation. It has been referred to as “intact
D&E,” “dilation and extraction” (D&X), and “intact D&X.” For discussion purposes
this D&E variation will be referred to as intact D&E. The main
difference between the two procedures is that in intact D&E a doctor
extracts the fetus intact or largely intact with only a few passes.
There are no comprehensive statistics indicating what percentage of all
D&Es are performed in this manner.
Intact D&E, like regular D&E, begins
with dilation of the cervix. Sufficient dilation is essential for the
procedure. To achieve intact extraction some doctors thus may attempt
to dilate the cervix to a greater degree. This approach has been called
“serial” dilation...
In an intact D&E procedure the doctor
extracts the fetus in a way conducive to pulling out its entire body,
instead of ripping it apart. One doctor, for example, testified:
“If I know I have good dilation and I reach in
and the fetus starts to come out and I think I can accomplish it, the
abortion with an intact delivery, then I use my forceps a little bit
differently. I don’t close them quite so much, and I just gently draw
the tissue out attempting to have an intact delivery, if possible.” Rotating the fetus as it is being pulled decreases the odds of dismemberment... A doctor also “may use forceps to grasp a fetal
part, pull it down, and re-grasp the fetus at a higher level—sometimes
using both his hand and a forceps—to exert traction to retrieve the
fetus intact until the head is lodged in the [cervix].”
Intact D&E gained public notoriety when, in
1992, Dr. Martin Haskell gave a presentation describing his method of
performing the operation... In the
usual intact D&E the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix, and dilation
is insufficient to allow it to pass. Haskell explained the next step as follows:
‘At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides
the fingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus and “hooks”
the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down). While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying
traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon
takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He
carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his
middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the
tip of his middle finger. [T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or
into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads
the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter
into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter
still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely
from the patient.’ H. R. Rep. No. 108–58, p. 3 (2003).
This is an abortion doctor’s clinical
description. Here is another description from a nurse who witnessed the
same method performed on a 26-week fetus and who testified before the
Senate Judiciary Committee:
‘Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed
the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he
delivered the baby’s body and the arms—everything but the head. The
doctor kept the head right inside the uterus…The baby’s little fingers were clasping and
unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the
scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a
startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is
going to fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a
high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains
out. Now the baby went completely limp…He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the
placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the
instruments he had just used.’
Dr. Haskell’s approach is not the only method of
killing the fetus once its head lodges in the cervix, and “the process
has evolved” since his presentation. Planned Parenthood, 320
F. Supp. 2d, at 965. Another doctor, for example, squeezes the skull
after it has been pierced “so that enough brain tissue exudes to allow
the head to pass through.” Still other physicians reach into the cervix with their forceps and crush the fetus’ skull. Others continue to pull the fetus out of the woman until
it disarticulates at the neck, in effect decapitating it. These doctors
then grasp the head with forceps, crush it, and remove it. Id., at 864, 878; see also Planned Parenthood, supra, at 965.
Some doctors performing an intact D&E attempt to remove the fetus without collapsing the skull. Yet one doctor would not allow delivery of a live fetus
younger than 24 weeks because “the objective of [his] procedure is to
perform an abortion,” not a birth. The doctor thus answered in the affirmative when asked whether he would
“hold the fetus’ head on the internal side of the [cervix] in order to
collapse the skull” and kill the fetus before it is born. Another doctor testified he crushes a fetus’ skull not
only to reduce its size but also to ensure the fetus is dead before it
is removed. For the staff to have to deal with a fetus that has “some
viability to it, some movement of limbs,” according to this doctor,
“[is] always a difficult situation.” (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-380.ZO.html)
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose
life in order that you may live, you and your descendants."
Dt 30:19
Please join me in praying for these children. Please pray for their mothers and the healing these women will need. Please pray for the "doctors" and nurses who perform abortions. And please pray for our country and our humanity.
http://hopeafterabortion.com/
http://hopeafterabortion.com/?p=106
