Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. There is a battle going on in this country. This battle is the abortion battle. It is said that the contenders in this battle will never sway each other. These contenders are pro-life or pro-choice. They pass each other in the streets everyday and yet, knowingly or unknowingly, they are sworn enemies. Let me ask you something: Who is the real enemy of the pro-life camp? Is there any person or thing that pro-lifers could destroy in order to remove this practice from our country? Are abortionists the enemies? Is Planned Parenthood the enemy? I challenge you to consider that the true opponent of the pro-life camp is nothing more or less than a mindset. This battle in front of us can only be fought in the mind. Without an understanding of the opponent’s mind, victory is impossible. So let’s take a moment to examine the pro-choice mindset and what fuels the abortion industry.

The first major and most obvious aspect of the pro-choice mindset is that developing fetal tissue somehow does not constitute a human person. Abortion advocates will use any means necessary to hide the medical and genetic facts about life before birth. Therefore most pro-choice individuals are quite nearly in complete ignorance to the fact that tiny pre-born persons can have heartbeats as early as 18 days after conception. They do not know that these small persons can have brain waves, perfectly formed fingerprints, and the complete ability to feel pain early in their first trimester of gestation. I was once confronted by a woman who was furious about a graphic sign of an aborted baby that she had seen. She demanded that, “That’s not what they look like! You wanna know what an abortion looks like?” She said, “It looks like a can of V-8!” I was shocked! These people do not seem to realize that fetuses simply look like small babies. Maybe they do not understand that there is no other medical phenomenon after conception that could constitute the beginning of a new individual. The developmental stage of the child somehow makes the child non-human and therefore disposable. This make little to no sense considering that so many of the women who get abortions are under the age of twenty and therefore still respectively in developmental states themselves. It is understood that a five year old child, who is still growing and therefore in a developmental stage, is just as human as a forty-five year old adult. In fact, preference is usually given to provide further protection for the young child, and yet pro-choice individuals continue to label children in the first nine months of their lives as “optional.” This is ignorance in its poorest and most deadly form.

The second thing that we must consider about the pro-choice mindset is that modern culture does not lend itself easily to enforced morality. Pro-choice people are unwilling to demand any consistent system of right and wrong for themselves or others in their culture because tolerance is god in this nation. The more a person is accepting and tolerant of others, no matter how others around them might live or what their backgrounds may be, the more enlightened that person is. This is one reason why the Wiccan religion has done so well in recent years. It is the embrasure and acceptance of the whole human condition and therefore a religion in total lack of a concept for the need of public morality of any kind, beyond tolerance itself. What this means is that although pro-choice people individually may not ever choose to have a surgical abortion, that person would still be utterly disgusted by the idea of forcing morality on anyone else. It is illogical for a pro-choice person to demand that they have a right to do as they please with no interference, all the while trusting the fact that they can call the police if someone attacks them. What pro-choice people are really saying here is that they do not want to interfere with the murder of a young child they have never met, but still expect their own lives to be protected under law. If a pro-choice woman has a right to kill her child, who’s to say that an attacker doesn’t have the right to kill his victim without interference? This is chaos and hypocrisy.

Another major reason that the abortion industry has prospered in this country is that organizations such as the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood have masked abortion as a humane instrument which brings about personal quality of life through population control, planned pregnancy, and reproductive freedom. Planned Parenthood pushes the idea that unplanned pregnancies will lead to lost hopes and dreams as well as economic ruin. All the while these organizations deliberately market a sex driven culture, where education on birth control is key, and personal satisfaction is the rule. If an unplanned pregnancy would inconvenience the life of the mother, then she should stand up for her rights to do whatever she wants to do. No one should be able to force her into taking up responsibility for her actions. These organizations thrive on the mindset that women have been repressed and therefore deserve every liberality they want or feel they need. Planned Parenthood asks pregnant women to ask themselves a list of questions before making their decision. These include questions like: “Can I afford to have another child?” “Can I afford to have an abortion?” “Will I get the things I want in life if I have a child now?” What pro-choice individuals are really doing here is asking if God can or can not provide for them. They are questioning God’s provision and plan right to His face. God is the one who has planned these pregnancies. He is in control. There is no such thing as an unplanned pregnancy because God cannot be surprised. If a mother chooses to follow God and seek His provision, she will always find it. If a mother questions and rejects God’s provision for her, she is cutting herself off from her only source of help.

These are simply a few of the ideas that have caused the continuing prosperity of the abortion movement. It is vital that pro-lifers understand these elements in order to bring truth into the lives of those who have been so badly deceived. Abortion will never end in our country until a revival of the heart and mind changes individuals and turns them towards the truth. Then and only then will we be able to heal the wounds of this battle and live in the truth of God’s design, plan, and provision.

Published in VSHL Lifesaver, August 2001