On Abortion

"Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation." -Luke 11:51

“With suction complete, look for your Sopher clamp. This instrument is about thirteen inches long and made of stainless steel. At the business end are located jaws about 2 ½ inches long and about ¾ on an inch wide with rows of sharp ridges or teeth. This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When it gets hold of something, it does not let go. A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the Sopher clamp and grasping anything you can. At twenty-four weeks gestation, the uterus is thin and soft so be careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about six inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs. 

The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see white gelatinous material coming through the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. Many times a little face will come out and stare back at you. Congratulations! You have just successfully performed a second trimester Suction D&E abortion. You just affirmed her right to choose.”

-Anthony Levatino, Ob-Gyn, HHRG-114-JU00 (Testimony to Congress, October 8, 2015; Read full here).

I used to wonder how the Poles could see the smoke rising from Auschwitz and continue farming for potatoes and wheat and whatever was in season. I wondered that they didn’t abandon their tools and weep and pray and plead and fast until the camps were gone. Winter crop, spring crop, summer crop, fall crop, and the smoke billowing on the horizon.

Planned Parenthood sits just as squarely on Lagoon Avenue, Minneapolis, as the Mexican resturants and T-mobile stores and U.S. Banks. Unlike in the children’s books, there are no gargoyles out front, no haunting windows, no dark aesthetic to warn, “Stay away! This is the bad place!” It sits modern and sleek. Even inviting. There is no plume of smoke.

Down the street from Planned Parenthood, there is a McDonald’s. The abortion doctor can top off a day of chopping femurs and crushing brains with a Big Mac, fries, and a shake, maybe even on sale. 

I saw a billboard the other day that said, “Unrestrict Minnesota,” with a little girl in a cape standing like Superman, ready to conquer the world. Ready to throw off the shackles of that ancient misogyny that insists that women not murder their daughters and sons. Standing valiant, insisting for the right of her mother to have not had her. To have killed her. 

These are the morality experts: Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and all the professorial Ivy League crew that have advanced so far beyond premodern humanity. Now instead of bashing your head against a rock we have forceps that crunch and vacuums that whisk you away to be trashed with the Big Mac boxes. Before, they would have dumped you in the river. Barbarians.

Planned Parenthood describes Dilation and Evacuation: “It uses suction and medical tools to empty your uterus.” Medical tools. Yes. The ones that grasp and then rip. (Planned Parenthood)

And by the way, little one, in case you didn’t know, you’re “pregnancy tissue.” During D&E, the doctor will “use a combination of medical tools [the ones that grasp and then rip] to remove the pregnancy tissue out of [the] uterus.” (Planned Parenthood) I guess I'm 23-year-old pregnancy tissue, too.

Did you know that MedGyn carries top of the line “medical tools”? In their own words, “MedGyn carries a complete line of high quality forceps.” High quality--we need the best stuff, you see. You can see them for yourself, bright and shiny and ready to go! They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and you can get them with or without the ratchet. Whichever suits your fancy.

In the most sanitized versions, you get killed early by a poisonous pill. 

And you see, the fact that I have graphically described the murders of children will upset some people more than the fact that children are murdered in gruesome ways. I’ve heard enough poetry before to know that you should write about things that make you angry. Even if it makes some people upset. Right? Unless it’s the wrong people, I guess. Or, they’d say, the right people. Because the right people are the people who give a thumbs up and a knowing smile to the Planned Parenthood security guard who waves mothers into the death chamber, protecting them from the disgusting people who want to save their children from the forceps separating spine from brain, crushing through skull and heart alike. The right people are the people who vote for those who fight for those who’ve perfected the craft, who know just the right grip on the handle, who can guide the steel to just the right point. Or the wrong point. Right or wrong point, just get it done. Just as long as the baby comes spilling out at the end of the day in a mess of blood and brains. That’s all that really matters. So hack away. 

And please, when the day is over, go home and rest well. We need you to be well-rested. Get 8 hours of sleep and wake up and grab at least 8 oz’s of McDonald's best brew on your way into work so that you can feel more alive as you mete out death. And have a great time this weekend! Just because you are in the business of taking lives doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t live yours.

They say the Auschwitz guards partied hard on the weekends.

***

But why will you die? 

Why will you die and give death? 

Death-soaked culture, full of blood and brains and intestines and spines, why will you die? 

Our sin of murder makes us worthy of death. Anyone can safely ignore and survive my anger at abortion, which you've probably just detected. But no one can survive God's anger. God is the God of Psalm 139. He carefully knits the bones and sinew of precious babies in a private sanctuary until we invade and crush, kill, and destroy. He is the Creator God who made humans in his own image, only for us to slaughter those images (Genesis 1:27). He hates "hands that shed innocent blood." (Prov. 6:17). He cares for the oppressed, and hates oppression (Psalm 9:9, Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 14:31, Psalm 72:4, etc.). For the sin of murdering the innocent and helpless, we deserve death (Rom. 6:23).

Jesus was born for us. Alive. Living, breathing. God in the flesh. He came to this blood-soaked land to purify for Himself all those who trust in His blood-soaked cross (Titus 2:14). He did not come to judge the world, but to save it (John 12:47). He died for our sins, even the sin of murder (1 Cor. 15:3). We had no right to see his face! Hands full of blood and eyes downcast, rebellious, rejecting. 

Look up! Look to Him! He cries out from the cross we deserved, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!” (Isaiah 45:22) In the death throes that should have been ours for all the death we’ve inflicted, he cries out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). For all those who have torn a baby's body limb from limb, he was stretched upon a cross for that sin, taking the penalty in his own body (1 Pet. 2:24).

He defeated death. He died, but He lives forever, and gives life to all who come to Him! “Because I live, you also will live.” -John 14:19

Culture of death, turn to Christ for his double cure: cleansing (forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation) and reformation (change, growth, new life). His cross cleans us up and sets us free to live in the new life of his empty tomb! God created us to nurture and love life, not take it. He created us to raise up children in love and light (Prov. 22:6), not murder them. He created us to raise up children and point them to true life: Christ himself (John 14:6). 

Turn from death to life. Darkness to light. Murder to life-giving. Selfishness to love. Love the God who will forgive you, no matter what you have done! 

There is a day of judgment coming, and all those who choose death and separation from Christ will get what they have chosen: death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). Eternal death. Eternal hell. Eternal justice.

But. "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).

Why will you die?