Choosing How To Burn: Remembering Dred, Learning from Scholl, Reversing Roe

On this day in 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott case that African-American citizens were not equal to other human beings and citizens in our country, therefore they were denied their basic Constitutional rights. Later with the 13th amendment, that decision was reversed and slavery was finally ended. It wasn't because everyone agreed it should end, and believe me, many many people were offended. Some lost their livelihood, their "way of life", while others gained a fought-for freedom by so many soldiers, legislators, freed men and women, regular people who called themselves abolitionists and spoke out, and of course, the then-former slaves themselves. The government was wrong, which isn't uncommon, but the amazing thing is that the government admitted they were wrong AND CHANGED IT.

The Nazis used the same arguments to dehumanize Jews and other groups causing 12 million+ people to be wiped out, while every day people kept silent of their disapproval or joined in on these round-ups and mass murders out of fear or believing such lies.  America and the rest of the world were horrified when they discovered the truth of how much these people were stripped of their rights and treated worse than animals.  The Jews had been blamed for society's problems, propaganda, when all they were doing was existing.  They were a target to heap all others' inconveniences and problems upon.  And everything Hitler and his followers did were considered legal in their country... because they called the shots, literally.  And gas chambers and mass graves... Our nation and the rest of the world called these actions what they were - hate crimes - and ordered justice to be done.  We fought a war against them, put them on trial, and eventually the whole world-wide built museums recording the devastation and atrocities carried out - and honored all the victims, those that died and those that survived... because they were people who deserved the same rights as everyone else.

In 1973, our Supreme Court once again decided that some were not "created equal" and therefore did not deserve the same basic human rights that the rest of us have - the right to keep their lives. In 43 years, our country has stamped "approved" on the murder of over 56 million preborn babies. Our government has been wrong, the church has been silent, but will we admit we've been wrong? Deadly wrong?

My prayer is that my children's generation will see abortion clinics the way I see Auschwitz in Poland and old slave quarters in the U.S. South - places where horrible atrocities USED TO occur on a daily basis. But why not now?! Why can't we stop being afraid someone will be offended? When will we come alongside these women who feel this is their best option with an unwanted child to let them know all of their options - better options?! If the government won't change on its own, then we must do what those before us have done - awaken our culture from apathetic sleep!

Abortion is killing 3 thousand of our own a day, and we are either desperate to justify it or ignore it...

When will we call it what it is - WRONG! When will we demand that our government admit it has been wrong once again and demand change?!

Instead we have used slogans and propaganda to further this grave sin by calling it many things that it isn't.  When will science stop saying, "It is the woman's body, so she should choose"... the baby's body isn't hers - be scientists using basic science! It is not "just another form of birth control", because instead of preventing pregnancy or birth, it ends life.  A favorite of so many is that aborition is "a sad necessity to save women's health" and "a reproductive health issue"... when any doctor, nurse, and even abortionist could tell you that reproduction has already occurred when there is a fetus.  Or how about those who call for equality for all people, but then decide that since a fetus is not fully developed, they are less human and therefore are not protected with the same rights from the Constitution that the rest of us are... THAT IS AGEISM at its most basic definition... and at its worst.

  When will we stop saying it is for rape victims, because less that 1% of all abortions are for cases of rape and incest!  When will we stop saying it is a matter of necessity when 92% of babies diagnosed with Down's Syndrome in utero are aborted... perhaps from inconvenience or fear or vanity?!  And when will people stop calling it "pro-choice" when so many former abortion clinic workers and women who have had abortions have come out to admit that the clinics they were in (including Planned Parenthood) never allowed these women to know what their other choices and options were?!  These clinics have quotas to meet, and they thrive upon the rhetoric that a baby isn't a baby until the woman carrying the baby thinks of it as such... how is that medical science?!

We need to consider and care for all humans when discussing this issue - the women who feel trapped and desperate, the babies they are carrying (no matter if the mother thinks of them as babies or not), the children already in foster care (pro-life AND pro-choice people need to do this), and even those clinic workers who perform these murders every day.  We especially need to reach out to those who have already had abortions.  They all need our love and the truth.  We all need to embrace the fact that for 43 years we have been wrong.  Deadly wrong.  But that doesn't have to be the way we continue!

See, the difference is that slaves could rise up and be joined by former slaves and other abolitionists to fight for their freedom.  Many Jews and their allies helped people escape during the Holocaust and worked tirelessly to rehabilitate them into good health and society when the war was ended.  But how can babies from the womb escape?  Fight back?  Cry out for their own cause?  Who is going to argue in court for their rights, because they cannot be heard?  It doesn't mean they aren't crying out; we just can't hear them.

"It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." - Reverend Charles F. Aked

No child should pay for the sins and troubles his or her parents have had.  Unfortunately it happens often - every 30 seconds, in fact.  So many of the arguments used today to support abortion were used, and found wanting, in previous eras of discrimination.  "The woman owns the fetus, therefore she has the right to end his or her life"... many slave owners used that one.  Many have said Blacks and Jews were inferior to others - it never made it true... just as a fetus is considered "less human" because he or she is in an early developmental stage.  "I would never have an abortion, but I wouldn't keep someone else from having one"... sounds an awful like those who would never own a slave or turn over a Jew to the Nazis... but I wouldn't stop my neighbor from doing so.  "We shouldn't free the slaves, because the quality of their lives would be horrible"... this is a very common argument to support abortion in our age.  So many in our culture think a baby should be killed just because they have a higher chance of having a difficult life than others.

That isn't love.  That is the easy way out.  It would be more work to take in these children.  It would take time and resources to give these women help if they want to raise their own children.  It would require more than just a slogan and a $400 trip to Planned Parenthood to make sure each child's chance of a difficult life was lessened.  Real love does the hard thing.  Real love takes the time and resources and makes beauty from ashes.

Hate is an apathetic selfishness that says, "Leave me alone and do what you want."

Sophie was executed in 1943 for her participation in the resistance movement against the Nazis during WWII.

Sophie Scholl, an anti-Nazi activist who was executed by the guillotine with her brother, Hans, her quote continues.. "It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control... But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn." O₂  : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom

Many fires have been started in the fight for the rights of the preborn.  Many of those flames have died down because 43 years and 57 million murdered babies feels like the fight has been lost.  Slavery in the U.S. lasted approximately 250 years.  Antisemitism is as old as Bible times.  And we feel defeated after only 43 years?!  But a new spark is catching fire across our nation and the world; abolitionists have been trying to engage our culture in the discussion.  To change our culture's thinking.  They are offering to adopt these women's unborn children.  They are fostering children already born.  They are pleading with these women outside abortion clinics and offering them real help.  They are offering free ultrasounds, counselling, and financial help with no strings attached.  They are celebrating heroic birth mothers who choose life for their children.  They are calling out the sin of silence so disgustingly prevalent in our American churches and government.  They are also helping those working in abortion clinics to leave this line of work, find other work, and begin to heal from the the years of daily death caused by their own hands.

We should remember Roe and thank God that this evil was ended in our country. We should listen to Holocaust victims' stories and allow ourselves to be horrified of not only the evils bad men have done, but also of the horrors decent men allowed through their silence.  We must reverse Roe. We need to end AGEISM in our generation!

"Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did." - Sophie Scholl's Statement to the Volksgerichtshof [People's Court] of Judge Roland Freisler (21 February 1943)

 "Am I not a man and a brother?" picture to the left was used in abolition materials in the 1800s to educate people about the humanity of slaves, and that their captivity, sale, and being owned as property was wrong, criminal even.
The picture on the right was taken by Abby Johnson, a pro-life proponent, of her own miscarried child who died in her womb at 7 weeks. She is a former abortion clinic worker who now works to educate our culture about the horrid truths of abortion and runs a ministry called "And Then There Were None" where they rescue abortion clinic workers from that line of work!

For more on this topic go  here.