Saturday, February 16, 2008

Planned Parenthood Gives Pro-Lifers New Name


I was reading the AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution Newspaper) this morning and found a readers response section on abortion. The topic is hot in Georgia because the state is proposing a human life amendment. Several people have interesting view points to say the least. One of the comments came from the Georgia head of Planned Parenthood. She was clearly upset that her organization has been condemned by those of us who are pro-life people. She took the opportunity to call us names and shout jabs at us. I even saw that she came up with a new name for us: Anti-choice Activists. That got me laughing out loud. She can't be serious about this can she? She sarcastically brought up how we are for a "culture of life" when we do "nothing" in her mind to promote the culture of life she invisions. She scrambles off all of planned parenthood's accomplishments in regards to providing birth control. So why is she so mad? We don't support her organization and this is why:

Are we anti-choice activists?
- First of all, what the heck does that even mean? In this context I guess you could say that we are against the choice to terminate the life of a baby. Abortion is not an acceptable choice. Pro-lifers are just as pro-choice as pro-choicers except for the fact that we don't support the choice of abortion. Pro-choice simply means endorsing abortion. Everyone has been blessed and cursed with free will. God allows us to make choices: both good and bad. We are not saying that nobody has a choice, because God has made us so that we do have a choice. We have a choice between good and bad, right and wrong. The fundamental difference is that we disagree on what is right and what is wrong. This is because we disagree on what is life and what is not. It is not that we are anti-choice because we understand that as humans we have been given free will. What we believe is that choices have consequences. Yes a mother, a father, a doctor all have choices. You know who else has a choice? A murder, a rapist, a drug dealer and all those other criminals who made the wrong choice.

When discussing the issue of abortion, I don't know how the term choice ever surfaced. It isn't completely black and white, but to me you are either in one of three thoughts of mind: anti-abortion, pro-abortion or uneducated. Certainly there can be extreme circumstances such as the mother's health is in serious danger, but these cases are very rare. The difference between all these groups is their perspective on life. If I were the head of planned parenthood it would be very simple. I would simply have a sign on the room that says in big bold letters: If you are not ready to be a parent, do not have sex. That's it, class is over. Nothing more needs to be said. Instead we have people at planned parenthood taking the exact opposite position. Their sign says something like this: If you have sex and don't want to get pregnant, use this birth control that I am handing out to you now. This will protect you against an unwanted pregnancy. You can have sex, but just make sure to use protection. Oh yeah, and if it doesn't work for some reason the baby isn't alive until birth so you can get rid of it in the first trimester.

What kind of message does that send? Birth control is just a false sense of "security" for people who want to enjoy the physical pleasures of sex without having to "worry" about the consequent result. In my opinion, birth control and abortion are directly linked. I'm not saying that birth control is the same as abortion, but I think that it's widespread acceptance has changed the way people perceive life. I know that several people say that they use birth control but would accept a baby if it was God's choice. The problem is that many people place more trust in some "magical pill" than they do in God. When society encourages sex out of wedlock by handing out birth control, they are showing a lack of faith in our young people and a lack of faith in God. Life is the greatest gift God has given to us, and we must always protect life from beginning to end. If we do this, God will bless us more than we can even imagine. The hardships that life brings pales in comparasion to the blessings and joy life provides. I pray that our society as a whole will awaken to the message of life and to the message of God.

1 comment:

Jen said...

Re: the use of birth control

I don't really mean to air my dirty laundry but I'm saying this because I feel like it's not fair to assume that the only use of birth control is to not have a baby. A lot of women take birth control to control their periods. When I was in high school and in college, my periods were so severe and the cramps were so painful that I was throwing up and fainting because of so much pain. Also, the doctor told me that I should not be bleeding as much as I was so she put me on birth control as a means to control the hormone levels and to regulate the cycle-- some women take the pill to regulate their cycles because some months they won't have a period and some months, they'll have 2 in one month--is that fair for a woman to suffer more than she has to each month by having 2 periods??....So, the pill also has health benefits for women other than "killing" babies. I just feel that it's not fair to assume that women take birth control for ONE reason.