I had one of the worst days I’ve ever had at dental school yesterday. I almost threw up, I wanted to cry, and I was angry. The best part was that it was all before 9:30 in the morning. We are required to go to the hospital once during the year to view the results of an autopsy. Sometimes they show pictures, sometimes they bring out organs, and usually the cases are older people who died of strange cancers or other diseases.
Yesterday I witnessed (what I believe now to be) one of the most horrific visual things I have seen and caught a glimpse at the evil things that good people will allow. The case was not one that I was familiar with, and I will not claim to know all the facts surrounding either the disease or the proposed solution, but I do know that aside from my intellect and the objectivity that I try to keep about medicine and science, my soul recoiled even as the presenter began.
“Conjoined Twins.” That was the title of the presentation, and that was where I began to feel sorrow. This was an autopsy, so I was saddened that a couple of babies were the source of the autopsy report. Remember, I have two little boys, my wife is pregnant, and I have many friends who have struggled (or are struggling) to become pregnant. Babies die in utero, babies die immediately after, babies die from SIDS, and in other countries some babies aren’t even named until they’re three months old because the life expectancy on infants is so low. I’m not sad that babies die, I believe that if God knows us and forms us in our mother’s uterus, he certainly loves those that are never given the chance to live. Isaiah 49:15-16 says:
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.
In that passage, he refers to Jerusalem and the Israelites, but it applies no less to the situation I am describing. His love has been shown when he took nails on the cross and “engraved you on the palms of my hands.” All that to say, I have no qualms about whether babies that die in utero or after go to heaven or are known by God, His word is pretty clear. God is the god of compassion, love and mercy, just as surely as he is the god of all justice.
It is the “justice” that brings me to the meat of the issue. The presenter began talking about the name “Siamese twins” and the “Bunker Brothers” and the history and etymology of conjoined twinning. She then began to show pictures of the twins. I began to feel darkness overwhelming me and a sense of urgency to throw up when she said that all these pictures were taken following the “voluntary termination of the pregnancy.” Ugh.
I have not been, and am typically not that outspoken about political issues that swirl around this year’s presidential election. Most likely I will never be. However, when I was presented with the reality that abortive procedures occur in the US with little or no sense of conscience or remorse, I was brought to the point of nausea, anger, oppression, and sadness that I had previously never experienced. I understand the issues of life-saving of the mother and incest or rape pregnancies, or even the enormity of realizing you will be faced with a child with developmental challenges your whole life as a parent. I am not ignorant. But I cannot, in any way, fathom the lack of spiritual awareness that has fostered a nation that according to the Guttmacher Institute, whose figures are cited regularly by both sides in the abortion debate, “In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million abortions in 2000.” I do not pass judgment on the mothers and families that have made that decision, but I can’t help but be outraged at a society that encourages, supports and fosters that type of murder.
I don’t know if you reading this are a believer in the God of the Bible or not, but I do believe that any single one of you who has held a baby, even a baby born prematurely could tell me that that is not alive. Alive with a spark, alive with the creative power of God, alive with awareness. Pfft. Snuff it out. Pierce the skull with a pair of scissors and suck out the brain. Call it a fetus, call it a choice, call it a collection of tissue, call it pathology. See the young girl weeping or the woman who still thinks about how old her child would be. Conjoined twinning is a dangerous, unpredictable phenomenon with uncertain success rates for survival of the children. Yet when faced with that kind of decision, the weight of a society is impressed upon mothers and fathers who have heard and seen “pro-choice” and “Roe v. Wade” proclaimed as the progressive thought of our times and the parents cannot but be influenced away from a moral foundation into a dangerous pit of death and destruction of life.
Again, I don’t know the science, but I know the morality and “soulishness” of decisions like this. We, for those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, can’t continue to be non-judgmental about this, wishy-washy, a “gray” area, or any of the other superlatives we use to describe our attitude of indifference. Bumper stickers all around Portland tout “End-Less War” in reference to Iraq, when next to them is a sticker that says “Pro-choice.” You tell me, statistically, which is more dangerous: 1.2 million a year or 4,180 in 5 years. You tell me, intelligent and discerning reader, which is morally more dangerous: a president in support of legislation that moves our nation closer to a moral “gray” and proclaims tolerance for many moral issues; or a president who may cause our nation to lose wealth or internation status while attempting to preserve some moral foundation. Revelation 3:16-18 says this:
So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich…
In a world of relativism and moral grays, we as believers in Christ ought to be lighthouses to point the way, do not conform to a society that says, “Accept all” and mocks Christians for being unloving when they take a stand on an issue. Be hot for the Lord, and be cold towards deeds of darkness and this present world climate. I’m out.
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