Willing Away the Little Ones

A chorus of voices in the media call us to heed the genocide in Darfur, regard the AIDS epidemic, be concerned about Global Warming and care about the poor in our cities. It seems to me that there is an equally pressing cause far from the African savannah in a place overlooked by Bono and Angelina Jolie. It's here. In Birmingham. Within walking distance of my own safe little house.

On February 20, 2006 a woman known only as "Patient A" visited Summit Medical Center here on the Southside of Birmingham. After an ultra-sound performed by someone who wasn't a doctor, Patient A was told she was 6 weeks pregnant. She was then subjected to a chemical abortion performed, again, by someone who had never attended medical school. Six days later, Patient A delivered a stillborn six-pound, four-ounce baby. Doctors say it was nearly full-term.

It's beyond my comprehension that in this town of medical doctors, first-class hospitals, and a renowned medical school that this should take place. This isn't about the spurious right to choose, this is about something more common and in this case, more sinister. This is about money in someone's pocket.

This incident is tragic for the woman and tragic for the child, but the tentacles of tragedy extend a little further in this case. This case is a tragedy for women. Women, of course, bear the brunt of the consequences of sexual irresponsibility. This was always true and this will always be true. But this makes me see how our sexuality is a commodity in the free-market of American debauchery. On the front end, a woman is a stripper, then a prostitute, then a victim of abortion, all the way, generating money and fueling the seedy economy of sex.

From now on, I won't be as "tolerant" of those people who support abortions on demand in America. Would they be tolerant of someone who said "genocide is all about choice. We should respect the rights of Africans to be slaughtered." No. I doubt they would.

Abortion is murder. And that's all there is to say about that. Except for one thing:


"Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them." Susan B. Anthony (1889)