Something Old, Something New

It was only a matter of time. For years we were told that over-population was going to spell disaster for this planet, and that we were all headed for doomsday. Well, those predictions turned out to be just a wee bit overblown and somehow the earth has managed to survive. Now, however, environmental extremists have figured out a way to take their latest pet cause, global warming, and marry it to their past obsession of over-population. In so doing, they are trying to resurrect the outdated idea that human beings should put serious limits on procreation. OK, so it’s not a defunct practice in China, but do we really want to pattern ourselves after that red country?

Their argument is this: having children is bad for the environment. John Guillebaud, co-chairman of the Optimum Population Trust, was quoted as saying, “The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account.” And isn’t that what most couples do when they consider the pros and cons of having a baby?

Let’s see, on the one hand we’ve got the miracle of childbirth and the resulting precious gift from God. On the other hand, though, we’ve got to consider the carbon footprint left behind by that precious gift from God. Oh, I hate these tough decisions.

What this tells me is that the environmental extremists and those who are pro-abortion are, by and large, singing from the same hymnbook. Those calling for population control today will be working tirelessly tomorrow to loosen restrictions on abortion in this country. Democratic members in the House of Representatives are, in fact, already considering legislation that would do precisely that.

Just two weeks removed from the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on partial birth abortion, there is already a concerted effort underway in this country to prevent any further erosion of a woman’s so-called “right to choose.” It’s called the Freedom of Choice Act, and you can read all about it at http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/FOCA2007HR1964.html. (Thanks to Angel from my comments page for this information. We may have disagreements in other areas, but we both believe in the sanctity of human life.)

One of the things that the pro-abortion crowd insists upon is that abortion be allowed to protect the health of the mother. But the way they define health allows for abortions to be performed simply because a child is going to add stress to the mother’s life. The Supreme Court has even said, “Mental & physical health may be taxed by caring for a child.” With all due respect to our past and present justices who helped write that brilliant opinion, all I can say in response is DUH!!! Of course it’s taxing caring for a child, but does that mean that if the stress gets too tough we can just kill them? Using that logic, if a woman’s husband becomes a quadriplegic and she doesn’t feel like taking care of him she should just put a bullet in his head.

I’ve also been told that, as a man, I can never understand how traumatic it is for a woman to have an unwanted pregnancy. That may be true, but by that logic we should kill every child who has ever traumatized its parents. If that were the case, I would have been dead a long, long time ago. Let me just take this moment and say thank you to my mom and dad for not killing me when I made your lives miserable. Unfortunately, many in our world today don’t feel that a baby in the womb should get the same protections that I had after I was born. Northeastern University professor Eileen McDonagh has said, “The fetus massively intrudes on a woman’s body and steals her liberty, justifying the use of deadly force to stop it.” When I read garbage like that, I feel that cold chill going down my spine again.

But let me get back to our subject. To me, it is the height of hypocrisy when those who work so hard to save the life of a tree have no problem snuffing out the life of an unborn child. I can respect the environmental extremists who stand up for life because at least their position is not inconsistent. But for someone to care more about reducing emissions than they do about reducing abortions seems like a case of misplaced priorities.

With the renewed concern today about over-population, this will be just one more excuse for the pro-abortion crowd to find new ways to devalue life in this country. Despite how they try to spin it, the truth remains that unborn babies in our country continue to be regularly discarded simply because they are an inconvenience. And that, my friends, is an inconvenient truth.