And Then You Can Kill the Baby … Provided You Read the Right Font First
Down through the annals of time, there have been some memorable quotes to inspire humanity to do away with grave injustices.
Recall this recognizable abolitionist battle cry: “You can’t own another human being unless his papers are properly notarized!”
Riveting.
Or maybe you’ll remember how the women’s suffrage movement was spurred to action by Susan B. Anthony’s “if you like it, then you should’ve put a ring on it.”
Spine tingling.
I could go on citing others, but they would all pale in comparison to this ultimate mic drop courtesy of the Kansas state legislature: “you can’t kill that baby until you read our 12-point, Times New Roman font first!”
That’s right. The latest “pro-life” bill from one of the reddest states in the Union says it’s okay to kill a kid, provided you read some disclaimer information first. Which the state demands be written in 12-point, Times New Roman font. Apparently we’re now more concerned about layout uniformity than we are when life begins, or the One we’re responsible to for not protecting it.
Move over Braveheart, Knute Rockne, and Winston Churchill — for you now have company in the fiery quote department. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, or Maya Angelou, couldn’t have coined a phrase any better. In fact, it might just be time to go ahead and retire the English language altogether after this. For I can’t imagine anyone commanding our native tongue with more panache.
I kid, though, because I care.
For several reasons, the pro-life cause is my top priority. To wit:
It’s more than a litmus test, it’s a window to the soul. If I’ve learned one thing during my decade-plus in politics, it’s that I can tell you exactly how principled and trusted an elected official will be based solely on their stance on life.
It’s the gateway unalienable right. As Reagan once said, “All of your other God-given rights are sort of a moot point if you don’t have the right to life.”
The most precious natural resource for any civilization is its children. They represent future existence itself, let alone a culture’s hopes for the next generation, and the sustaining of its way of life. For example, who knows what precious talent has been wasted among the 56 million American babies we’ve killed the past 44 years. Could one of them have discovered the cure for cancer, pioneered a new clean and renewable energy source, or made some other transformative contribution to society?
My 15-year old mother had a choice to make once Roe v. Wade was declared. Thankfully, for me, she chose life when so many others in her situation did not. Nothing drives home the point of what we’re really talking about here than realizing you were one decision away from being unjustifiably executed.
Finally, if those reasons aren’t good enough for you try this one. The maker of Heaven and Earth, not exactly a being you want to be on the wrong side of, says He “hates hands that shed innocent blood.”
More Americans have perished via the abortion holocaust than all the wars this country has fought in combined. If the amount of persons we’ve killed via abortion were their own country, they’d be the 24th most populous nation on Earth. With more people than Spain, South Africa, Iraq, Australia, and Canada.
Needless to say, the abortion holocaust is the moral crisis of the age. And yet, when staring into the mouth of madness, the best we can muster against such evil is this bureaucratic drivel. But before you get on your high horse, consider this is actually an upgrade compared to what some pro-lifers were advocating in Montana in 2015. Where they wanted a bill that said it was perfectly fine to kill a kid provided he/she was anesthetized first.
At least what Kansas is pulling here is just another lame attempt to earn some pro-life Webelos badge for politicians, so they can claim they did something by doing nothing. I mean, could you imagine the homosexual lobby being satisfied with “you can still get your ‘marriage’ license, provided you read Romans 1 in the original King James first?” Yeah, me neither. But they actually are trying to win, so they don’t pull nor are satisfied with cheap political parlor tricks like this.
Sadly, what was being advocated in Montana wasn’t lame but wrong. Imagine if we said a child murderer could escape prosecution provided he anesthetized the young boy first? Check it, that’s exactly what we said. Unless now we, pro-lifers, also don’t believe life begins at conception? If that’s the case, we’re really no different substantively from our opponents. We just find abortion-on-demand icky.
There’s a difference between being pro-life and anti-abortion. One seeks to eradicate this blight on our supposedly enlightened society. The other merely seeks to regulate it down to “acceptable” levels and practices.
It is a testimony to how much God values life, and the righteous nobleness of our cause, that we pro-lifers have made the strides we have given how confusing our messaging and tactics seem to be. We consistently try to win our argument by granting our opponents’ premise.
Like we often have quality of life arguments (as in when does a child feel pain) and not sanctity of life arguments (as in when is a child a child). The former is the same utilitarian basis for the child-killing industry we’re trying to stop. The latter is the actual humanitarian basis for our mission.
This is one of the reasons why we often tout a bittersweet achievement — the largest annual march on our nation’s capital. Yes, we should note the courage of conviction it takes for thousands upon thousands of activists to make the wintry trek to chilly Washington, D.C. each January. However, does any noble cause really want to celebrate its 44th annual march? Shouldn’t our goal be to not need a 45th annual march, or a 55th annual march, or a 65th annual march?
We say so in our hearts, but not always in our minds as a movement.
Not when we waste precious political capital on just drug the kid first, or read the fine print ahead of time. Or bills that prohibit killing prior to a certain stage of prenatal development, which the likes of Gosnell just ignore anyway because they know states won’t enforce them (and Pennsylvania didn’t in his case). Let’s face it, if your conscience is seared to the point you don’t think twice about murdering innocent humans for a living, simply lying about the particulars of what you’re doing isn’t a bridge too far in the integrity department.
The killing won’t stop until we make it stop. And we won’t make it stop until we actually concoct a strategy with that goal in mind. Just make sure that strategy is in 12-point, Times New Roman font. (For more from the author of “And Then You Can Kill the Baby … Provided You Read the Right Font First” please click HERE)
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