There’s one more section from the Time Magazine article I discussed yesterday which bears some thought. It comes near the end of the article, and offers this quote from Frances Kissling, “a long-time abortion-rights advocate, and former president of Catholics for Choice.”
Kissling opposes the specific state laws pushed by pro-life activists but says the pro-choice movement’s effort to “normalize abortion” is counterproductive.
“When people hear us say abortion is just another medical procedure, they react with shock,” she says.
“Abortion is not like having your tooth pulled or having your appendix out. It involves the termination of an early form of human life. That deserves some gravitas.”
It’s hard to overstate the amount of hypocrisy and double-speak in this short statement. And it begs some questions:
- If abortion isn’t “just another medical procedure,” what is it? Are people right or wrong to be “shocked” by that idea? If it shouldn’t be “normalized,” why not? Is Kissling just out manipulate perceptions, or is she after a clear discussion of truth?
- Why is abortion not like “having your tooth pulled,” exactly? Isn’t that the line we’ve all been sold for a couple generations? I can’t imagine being taught in my public schooling that abortion was fundamentally different than any other operation. The immediate question would have been–why not?
- Kissling’s answer to the question is itself pretty shocking, for someone in the center of the pro-abortion movement: “It involves the termination of an early form of human life.” What does this mean? What is “termination”? Is it killing? What is “an early form of human life”? Is it a person? Can there be such a thing as “human life” without a human? What is she saying? (Can you imagine hearing this from the mainstream media, who regularly say “fetus” to make us forgot we’re talking about a baby?)
The fact that this kind of speech can be used to cover and obscure what’s really happening, even when a proponent of the cause admits what’s happening in the pages of Time, displays where we are really heading as a culture. We are not interested in determining what actually is, only in securing our ability to make life-style choices without interference or consequence. And we’re willing to kill in order to have our way.
Paul says of God-rejecting people (in Romans chapter 1) that they “suppress the truth” (v.18), they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (v.25), and they refused to keep God in their thoughts (v.28). I can’t help but notice the active verbs here, and see it connected to our current national dialogue about Abortion. We are even willing to step over what science tells us about babies in the womb, and what the consciouses of the very advocates of abortion tell them about the human status of the unborn, to have what we want.