Shame on Us if We Ever Neglect the Unborn

The NYT has just released a heart-rending story about “pregnancy reduction,” a euphemism for selective abortion.  Read the whole story here.  This is a snatch from the article, which made me sick to my stomach:

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician’s examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen. She didn’t want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny’s abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt.

Here is the whole piece, entitled “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy,” written by Ruth Padawer (HT: Denny Burk).

Much has been made of the so-called “culture wars” in our day, the fight over social matters that divide America roughly in half.  The media decries battles over abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, and other issues, and some evangelicals have joined the chorus, opting to focus primarily on causes that share universal approbation, like fighting sex trafficking.  I am all for working to end that heinous practice, but I find the championing of popular cultural causes (and ignoring unpopular ones) a devil’s bargain.  Shame on us if we ever turn away from the cause of the unborn.  Shame on us if we ever lose the will to stop fighting for the weak and marginalized.

Right now, there are needles “aiming at” helpless, innocent, life-exhibiting fetuses.  Shame on us if we turn away from the “shadows floating inside” expectant mothers.  In hope borne of trust in a great God, may we work with all our strength in peaceable ways to overturn this great evil.   In the process, we seek to extol the glory of Christ, who saves a fallen humanity even as it turns the knife on itself, killing offspring bearing God’s image in order to save money and steward time.  Our aims are twofold: to save human lives (the fetus) and to save human souls–the fathers and mothers, lost just like we once were, who opt to kill their children rather than love them.

As powerful as evil seems to be, after all, God’s grace is stronger still.

(Image: Katherine Wolkoff for the NYT)