Reflections on the death of Jane Hodgson

The recent death of abortion promoter/practitioner Jane Hodgson brought to my mind what's termed the "greying" of the abortionist pool. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, cited by Medical Students for Choice, 57% of current abortionists in the U.S. are age 50 or older. NARAL indicates that 85 abortionists retire out of the pool of willing perpetrators every year.

Trying to get a handle on exactly how old abortionists in the US are, I did a search for "elderly abortionist." I found:

We cannot forget the elderly abortionist in Phoenix -- John Biskind -- who sat eating his lunch while one of his patients -- the late Lou Ann Herron -- "bled out" despite his staff begging him to help the woman who eventually died. (Biskind graduated from medical school in 1954, which gives you an idea of what the writer meant by "elderly." I think Biskind is currently in prison after having allowed Lou Ann to bleed to death in 1998. Does anybody have an update?)

OR discovered that Yeomans had replaced the elderly abortionist Sherman Zaremski at both the Wichita location and at Aid for Women, Zaremski’s Kansas City, KS abortion mill that is currently embroiled in a Federal trial concerning its opposition to the mandatory reporting of underage sex abuse. (Zaminski was born in 1933, which makes him about 73 years old.)

In 1994, while the legislation was in process, the statewide news media reported that an 80-year-old abortionist (who also is deceased) was charged with performing an illegal second trimester abortion in Columbia. .... The Richland County Grand Jury declined to indict the elderly abortionist, and his medical license was not suspended. (So this guy is beyond greying -- but the fact that he was still perpetrating abortions at age 80 indicates how old some of those practicing abortionists in the "over 50" category might well be.)

Abortions were once again committed by the unknown elderly abortionist who drives a white Camry.

Mildred S. Hanson is an elderly late-term abortionist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Known as "Millie" among her fellow NAF members, Hanson was born in 1923, making her about 83 years old.)

As elderly abortionist Kenneth Wright drove from Fresno to Bakersfield's "Family Planning Associates" abortion chamber, women were driving hours from places like Ridgecrest and Lancaster to surrender themselves and their babies to the abortionist's knife. (Wright has been licensed in California since 1961, just to give you an estimate as to his age.)

I searched medical board records for an idea of how old some of the old familiar faces actually are. Raymond Showery, the abortionist who killed Mickey Apodaca, was born in 1928. That makes him around 78. Arnold Bickham, who killed Sylvia Moore, was licensed in Illinois in 1967, so he's no spring chicken. Moshe Hachamovitch was born in 1936, making him about 70 years old. Curtis Boyd, who performed the fatal abortion on Vanessa Preston, was born in 1937, so he's about 69.

Now, usually when people start looking at how old abortionists are, they're focused on how much longer they'll be in practice, be the person a prochoicer lamenting the "greying" of the "provider" pool or a prolifer happily anticipating yet another pair of bloody hands hanging up the old curette. But I'm looking at something that I think all Christians ought to be thinking about: These folks are perilously close to following Jane Hodgson to their eternal reward. And though we can't judge the state of another person's soul, what's visible to the public won't give one very sanguine hopes that they'll rise in glory.

As I said earlier, everything I've heard from Hodgson indicated that she really thought she was making the world a good and happy place by promoting and perpetrating abortions. C.S. Lewis postulated (as expressed in The Screwtape Letters) that God cuts folks a lot of slack for meaning well even when they were doing pretty deplorable things. But "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil...." (Isaiah 5:20) isn't a really reassuring bit of Scripture when we reflect on what awaits an unrepentant abortionist when he goes to meet his Maker.

Now, I'm certainly hoping for mercy for myself. I can't pray for less than mercy for others. And these folks are getting close to the wire. They need our prayers. And it certainly can only improve our own spiritual health to pray for our enemies. We're instructed, in fact, to do so. (Matthew 5:44)