Wichita's Shame and the Case of Kermit Gosnell

Well...here I go again...jumping head first into a rather heated topic. Now this is hardly my first time speaking out about abortion. I have written blogs, posted in chat rooms and even prayed at clinics...not to mention the long conversations that I have had with women both thinking about abortion and who are post abortion. As you might guess, I am no novice to the controversy. For those who know me there has never been a question of which side of the fence I am on. I have shared and respectfully argued my pro-life views many times over the years but since Dr. George Tillers death, I have said little. His death was not a win for the side of pro-life. It was a tragedy. However, the fact remains that with Tiller gone the life expectancy for the unborn in both Wichita and the midwest jumped considerably. Rather than to beat a dead horse though, I chose to remain silently thankful that Wichita was no longer abortion central. Besides...what good does it do to keep ranting about a law that is likely not to change? Also, people seem to have become indifferent to the subject. In fact....there came a time when I wondered if there was really anything left to say on the subject and even if there was....was there anybody listening? I have felt this way for a while and then two occurrences made me feel as if perhaps it was time to speak out again. The first occurrence was the fact that the abortion clinic in Wichita, empty since the murder of  Tiller, has been reopened as a working abortion clinic again and the second is the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell...and I use the term doctor very loosely in his case. Both to me are alarming and need some commentary.

Before I continue...let me give you a little background as to where my pro-life attitudes and convictions come from. As a child I was always taught that human life, all human life was special. Each of us was created with a purpose and none of us would die until we had fulfilled that purpose. We all mattered and each of us deserved the right to life and the respect of that life from conception to natural death.  I was also taught from the time I was old enough to understand certain concepts....that human life begins at conception. While I may have simply taken my mothers word for this early on...I mean after all, she was a nurse....when I became pregnant with my first child the understanding that I was carrying human life was immediately driven home. With each movement, each kick and each hiccup I knew that I wasn't an incubator for a fetus but that I was carrying a human life. A baby, and that life was as precious to me as my own. I was also taught that when there is injustice in the world...it is not only my right but also my duty to speak out about it and try my best to change it.

Apparently the pro-life blood line in my family is strong as before there were blogs, facebook or twitter for people to speak their minds on, there were newspaper editorials. My mother was no stranger to the Wichita Eagles editorial section as several times a year she would write in speaking her mind, often on abortion. They usually printed it and I am sure that Mom often wondered herself if anyone was reading? Was anyone listening? My aunt too is pro-life to the core and during the Summer of Mercy in 1991, she was on the front lines with Operation Rescue mounting a peaceful and prayerful demonstration in front of Tillers clinic. A woman in her late fifties at the time, doing nothing more than praying in protest to the atrocities going on behind the closed doors of the clinic. It was an act of civil disobedience that under other circumstances she would likely have been applauded for but instead she was hauled away in a police wagon with others who chose to also peacefully challenge a law. They were shown the accommodations of the Sedgwick Country jail for 48 hours. If they thought this little stint in jail would frighten my aunt or deter her from her cause in any way...then the joke was on the police and those who had her arrested. As the story was relayed to me, my aunt talked with guards and inmates whom she said treated her and the other protestors very kindly. Perhaps it was her steadfast faith, her reciprocated kindness or quite possibly the fact that she looked like somebody's mother which caused those inside to show her the gentler side of a normally ugly place. Whatever the case, she was no worse for the wear and certainly not ready to quit fighting the good fight.

As I have gotten older, I realize that when anything is offered on a silver platter....it is likely to be taken. Abortion is no different. Abortion is marketed as a fix to a problem. A way out of a tough situation. For years Planned Parenthood would give free pregnancy tests to young girls in our area. If they weren't pregnant then PP would strongly suggest the girl get on birth control and the girl would leave PP with a bag full of contraceptives, the relief that she had dodged a bullet this time and the go ahead to get back out there and have sex again. If however, the girl did turn out to be pregnant....she was immediately handed pamphlets on abortion. Many of these girls were young, hardly legal and scared as hell. They were afraid to tell their parents, afraid for people to find out and PP perpetuated the notion that abortion was fast, safe, easy and their golden ticket out of a bad situation. Just lay down your money and you are in and out. So many young girls bought into this. They were never told that they were actually carrying human life. They were never given the risks and most importantly....no one ever explained to them that abortion was an act that once completed, can never be undone. No one ever told them that abortion would haunt them for years to come.

I find it difficult to find a lot of fault with young girls in their teens who have abortions. Teens are notorious for making bad decisions. I do however find fault with parents who force or coerce their daughters into having abortions. I also find fault with grown women who know better choosing abortion as birth control....sometimes multiple times. I also find fault with clinic workers who tell half truths to would-be patients and treat the women as if they were on an assembly line giving them little thought or care. Why should they? This is a one time deal. They aren't paid enough to get invested in these girls. I think though the ones I find the greatest fault with are the hard core pro-choice women. No...I am not talking about the ones who claim pro-choice status but rarely think about or speak of the subject. I am talking about pro-choice women who are on the front lines fighting for abortion at all cost. In my humble opinion there is no more dishonest group nor a more dishonest title than pro-choice. And pro-choice women while claiming to fight for women in reality are turning their back on their own.

Pro-choice sounds good coming out of the gate and with women being deemed second class citizens for so long, it sounds like something women can get behind. However, if you really think about it and dissect what pro-choice really stands for, you soon realize that it is a ruse and a mantra filled with dishonesty and misinformation. PC women will tell you that they support women's rights? To that I say....."Really?" Yes...they support some women's rights but certainly not all women's rights. There have been millions of girls...not yet women, who have died over the years not by guns, cancer, heart disease or any other disease. They have died at the hands of a doctor under the direction of their mothers. Why aren't pro-choice women and men for that matter.....fighting for these soon to be women whose lives are cut short before they even have a chance? What is worse is these girls who are condemned to such awful deaths by someone elses "choice" are complete innocents as are the boys whose mothers decide that their lives are also too inconvenient to continue. So pro-choice which is a very broad statement and sounds all inclusive, suddenly becomes much smaller, much less impressive and very restrictive on just who they feel should have a choice. It comes down to the fact that yes they support choice.....for the woman who wishes to abort her child. They do not however support choice for the father who helped create the child and who wants the child to live, nor do they support choice for the life who is about to be destroyed and literally has no voice. The bottom line is......they support choice for the few. They support choice for women and not even all women. Only the select few who see someone elses life as insignificant when it stands in the way of their own desires. And again I ask the questions that I have asked again and again. Who would ever choose to die as those unborn babies do? Just what kind of choice is that?

In a piece I wrote several years ago Ask Them What They Mean By Choice, I had many people comment on some of the points I made about abortion. Of course I hit some pretty sore spots with those who disagree with me on the subject but one paragraph in particular seemed to cause the most upheaval and in a couple of cases....even outright anger. I will share it with you now.

"So here's the deal. I will never agree with abortion and I will always pray for those who find abortion as a solution to a problem in their life. However....if you are going to have an abortion, support abortion, or participate in an abortion....then at least be honest about what you are doing. If you choose abortion.....this is the reality of what you mean by choice: A child was created who was not wanted for whatever reason. This child is a living human being who is in early stages of growth, but very much human and very much alive. Because you don't want this child/can't keep this child/feel like having this child may cause you mental or physical issues, rather than allow this child to have a life even if it is not with you.....you are going to have an abortion. An abortion is YOUR choice....NOT and I repeat....NOT the unborn child you carry's choice. By having this abortion....you know this child will not be anesthetized during the last horrendous moments of his or her life. You do know that the child will be dissected and torn apart inside you....while still alive. And finally.....you have full knowledge that this child....a child you created will end up in a garbage bag and taken out with the rest of the trash and disposed of....not with any form of dignity.....but as nothing more than waste! This is what is meant by choice in the case of abortion. Also remember....that if these same acts were imposed on you....they would be considered illegal, unconscionable, unethical, and completely inhuman which would likely carry either a sentencing of life in prison or more likely a death sentence for those involved with the act. However...do it to an innocent unborn child....it is merely a choice. A choice with no consequences which leaves many to repeat the act over and over again. If this is your idea of choice....I think I will pass."

Maybe the anger following this was the product of the fact that I left no room for denial. Maybe it made them think or maybe it was simply more information than some who have had abortions ever thought about or were ever given. Most women I have talked to post abortion were given very little information above and beyond the standard "easy and safe procedure" info. Whatever the case....my email and my fb private messages were full of comments especially directed at that one paragraph. I was even stopped on the street a time or two so that people could tell me in person what they thought of that blog. Don't get me wrong....there were many that agreed whole heartedly with what I said, but there were also those that found it very disturbing. Yes...facts can sometimes be disturbing.

I am very sad that once again Wichita will have the shame of being an abortion hub. They say that the new doctor will only do abortions until 14 weeks....as if this deserves some sort of kudos. That is like saying I can only kill a child up until they are 4 years old....after that whether I like it or not...the law says they have to live. It is heart breaking.

And now a little about Kermit Gosnell. People are horrified that this man could have done such horrific things inside his abortion clinic walls....right? Actually I have heard more people upset over the conditions of his clinic and the treatment of his patients than I have over the fact that he killed babies after they were born. Leave it to pro-choicers to pick and choose what should be viewed as horrific and what should be down played. I find the whole thing sickening...but not surprising.

When a law is made that disrespects the voiceless and most innocent of human life and in fact takes it away......you have to figure that it is a slippery slope to the point where other human life will in turn be disrespected, harmed and even killed. With the path we are currently on...it is not a stretch to imagine that in the future no human life will be respected and human rights as a whole will be all but gone. Humans in all their imperfection seem to always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. Roe v. Wade just might have been the loaded gun that will do this. Man has always been his own worst enemy.

The reason that many pushed for Roe v. Wade in the beginning....was so women no longer had to risk their lives going to back alley abortionists. It is the cry that has been heard round the world by abortion supporters for years. If anyone ever dared say that Roe v. Wade might someday be overturned the first thing you will hear from abortion supporters is....."We will have to go back to unsafe back alley abortions." Funny that with abortion being legal and all, that so many abortion clinics are hardly the sterile and safe places that abortion advocates like to claim they are. With doctors like Gosnell running around....I would say a back alley abortion just might be safer. Truthfully Gosnell is not an isolated incident. He just simply got caught. There have been rumors of unclean clinics, less than sterile surgical implements and yes....even live birth abortions in clinics for years. Not to mention the women who have gone in for abortions believing it was a safe procedure only to have had extreme blood loss forcing further surgery and even hysterectomies, damage to the reproductive organs so that future pregnancies are impossible and even death. More of this happens than we think and some of it has happened right here in Wichita over the years. These are the dirty little secrets of the abortion world that pro-choicers don't want the world to know. Heck...some pro-choicers may not even know all the details themselves. I was once told that it takes a certain kind of cold hearted individual to be an abortionist, for even if they say otherwise, they know that they are destroying a living human life and going against the oath they took as doctors to "Do no harm." If they can be so cold and calculated as to perform such a lethal act many times a day, day in and day out....then what makes you think that they are going to take the Hippocratic Oath to heart on their already born patients? Bottom line...for them it is not about the woman. It is about the money! Yeah....this is quite a choice to support.

As time goes on....people seem to have become more immune to the thought of abortion and its consequences. What once was unthinkable, has now become an after thought to many and one that makes some roll their eyes during elections if it is an issue used to decide a persons vote. My thought has always been that if you don't care about all human life....then what makes me think you really care about any human life? That usually decides my vote. The current question that keeps me up at night is when we become a people who are numb to the death of innocents and blind to the facts surrounding their deaths then what does that say about our humanity?  I think the case of Kermit Gosnell sadly answers that question!