Who needs hope when you have these guys?

Late-Term Abortion: The Human Side of the Tragedy

Posts like this make my blood boil. Let's brush aside for now the fact that it's a total lie that late abortions are done for compelling fetal indications. Anybody who does even rudimentary research learns quickly that most late abortions are done for the very same reasons as earlier abortions. Let's brush that aside for now, and just look at those cases where there is a grave prenatal diagnosis.

What abortion does is close off all possible hope. And that's "the human side". Oh, yeah, let's embrace despair. Off to the abortion ward, ASAP, while Mom's head is still reeling, while she's still in shock, while she's too stunned and devastated to resist. It's the compassionate thing to do.

Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want any misdiagnosed fetuses who are actually healthy to slip through and be born alive and live a normal life! Sure, Mom will be happy, but when that happens, it undermines "choice"!

Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the baby to have even the brief opportunity to know love. We wouldn't want people to have a chance to get attached to him. We wouldn't want any love or joy in with the grief! We wouldn't want any conversions to the idea that even a short life can be worth living. Mom might have precious memories to treasure, but that would undermine "choice"!

Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the trouble and expense of surgery that gives the kid a life. Not only would this undermine "choice", it's so much more expensive than just administering a lethal injection and being shed of the trouble. Mom might think it's worth it, but why should we have to foot the bill for her sick baby, right?

Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want to risk the most horrible possible outcome of all -- One of them nasty disabled kids being foisted off on the world. Yeah, sure, Mom would love the kid, but not only would this undermine "choice", it would make the rest of us tolerate the sight of those horrible disabled kids!

Let's embrace abortion, by all means. It's so much easier for the rest of us than perinatal hospice, than providing the long-term love and support that gets a woman through a pregnancy after a difficult prenatal diagnosis, than pretending that killing the baby somehow erases the mother's grief. Yeah, it's over for the doctor, it's over for the neighbors, it's over for the friends. It's never over for the mother. But we can pretend it is. We can avoid our own pain if we just shunt her off to the abortion clinic and have her get rid of the painful reminder that life isn't always happy or fair.

Maybe the prognosis is right. Maybe the baby will only have a tragically short life. But as Sojourner Truth said, "If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little halfmeasure full?"

Abortion takes away that little halfmeasure in the cases where the grave diagnosis is actually right. And it takes away an entire healthy lifetime in far too many cases where the diagnosis is wrong. And maybe it will even take Mom's life, too. It makes absolutely sure that there will be at least one untimely death.

Explain to me how this is any way to show love or compassion. Maybe I'm just too freaking clueless to see it.

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