Abortion: Where Conscience Meets the Womb | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I may not know the precise moment when life happens, but it is indeed miraculous. .... The moment when the miracle of life occurs, like a switch being flipped, when life all of a sudden infuses a mass of cells. Unlike all other living things which man has been granted "dominion over," only man shares that special bond with God for he is blessed with a deep and quick intelligence, foresight, a complex memory, advanced reason, and profound wisdom. And so we know God loves us. This is why we are supposed to always respect and celebrate this bond we have with God.

    So what happens when a woman is carrying a viable fetus and wants to abort that unborn child? She presents quite a dilemma to God, doesn't she. On the one hand it is her body. Yet on the other hand, she was created to be able to bring children into the world. And still on the other hand, there is the fetus, the growing child, who, although has been miraculously infused with life only asks for a few short months of shelter and support in the mother's womb. While God indeed loves all his children, we know from the Bible that He has a particular bond to those who are helpless. He wants us to do what he would do.

    Mother Teresa once said: "There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby and a dead conscience." She also commented: "It's a shame that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

    I was thinking about what this country stands for - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. If anyone knows about our Founding Fathers, they meant what they wrote and they wrote what they meant. Words mattered to them and the order of words mattered. The sentence structure dictated the exact meaning. "Life" is listed first.

    What happened to our nation's foundation? What happened to the "innate rights of human beings," defined by those 7 words - "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" - that our Founders worked so hard to embrace and protect in our Constitutional and to engrain in our national fiber? A living fetus living inside a woman's uterus has no rights under our laws or Constitution yet homosexual men have the fundamental right to sodomy. California says there is a fundamental right to marry a same-sex partner, in contradiction to both the laws of nature and the Bible. According to Roe v. Wade, women have the fundamental right to an abortion on demand (up until the last trimester) yet according to Judge Roger Vinson, the district court judge for the Northern District of Florida in the case of the 20 states against Obamacare (Florida v. Sebelius, Oct. 14, 2010), there is no fundamental right in general for a person to determine his or her own medical treatment. Where is our collective conscience? Where is our moral compass pointing these days? Why is it so important that women have the right to terminate a life inside them without condition?

    Our society is so uptight about religion in anyplace other than within the church walls or in the home where no one has to know about it. They cry "Wall of Separation" to demand that religion be removed from the sphere of government and absent from the thought process. Religion and morality have no place in the legislative process or in the halls of justice, they cry. Yet the "Wall of Separation" equally demands that government can't support a position that denies God's law. Government may not endorse religion or promote religion over non-religion, yet every decision either has to fall on one side or another, doesn't it. Every decision is someone's moral judgment or reflects someone's view of religion/non-religion. Obama and Nancy Pelosi want Obamacare to cover abortions. They refused to include language preventing government funding for abortion. Well, that's a moral and religious stand. Government is endorsing an absence of religion. Government currently funds Planned Parenthood, the largest national supplier of abortions. Again, that's a position that has the government supporting non-religion.

    We all sense that our country is on the verge of being overwhelmed by the many complicated issues, challenges, and crises it faces. The results of November 2 were the result of such a sense of urgency. We know that when men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and so many others guided us towards independence and founded this great country... despite their personalities and their varying individual religious beliefs, they acknowledged that the success of their fragile endeavor rested firmly on the grace of God. They invoked the blessings of Divine Providence in government and for over 100 years we prospered greatly. And then we took God out of national life and then ignored him in making our laws.

    We are going to need to ask God's help and His divine providence if we are to pull through the crises - moral, political, and Constitutional - that we face. But first we need to let Him know that his laws are still in our hearts and minds. And the compassion and loyalty we seek from Him is the same we show to our fellow human beings. As Pope John Paul II said: "America you are blessed . . . . The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless. If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life."

    In closing, I want to share something that touched me when I read it:

"Elegy To The Unborn" by Dr. James R. McLane

One starlit night
As I gazed into the heavens
I knew each star was created by God.
The ocean of stars above me
Spoke of the sea of humanity
Around me and I realized,
I too was created with purpose.
I was created to be born alive
To run and play, to laugh and cry
To work and to grow old.
But most of all
To show love amidst hatred
And to bring hope in despair.
Each one of us was created
With this purpose
And our mother's womb
Became our passageway,
Our first universe.
From the moment of conception
The light of God breathed forth
An immortal soul,
A new human being of untold value.
As the beauty of the stars shone
I cried for my fellow man,
For millions of unborn babies
Had been crushed by humanity
And discarded as garbage.
Let us turn to the glory of Jesus
So all mothers and their unborn
Might be embraced by humanity
To bring glory unto God.


    FURTHER:
See: Ronald Reagan, "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," The Human Life Review, Spring 1983. Reference at: http://old.nationalreview.com/document/reagan200406101030.asp

    Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.