abortion, race and the deceit of intentions

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, politics, , , 9 Comments on abortion, race and the deceit of intentions

I ran across this article from 2006 that sheds a lot of light on our human “intentions” to do good.  We delude ourselves with claims for good intentions, even when evil results from them.  

In this story, the Dutch PM got his nose out of joint after a high European official likened the Dutch policy of killing ill or disabled babies to Nazi practices.  It was a true observation.  Of course, the Dutch PM wasn’t embarrassed by the killing of the babies, only of being compared to a Nazi.  Sad.

Here’s what the author,Wesley J. Smith says,

But they [Dutch officials] claim that the Netherlands’ infant euthanasia program is substantially different: Dutch doctors are motivated by compassion whereas the Germans’ were motivated by the bigotry of racial hygiene. Of course it is the act of killing disabled and dying babies that is wrong, not the motivation.

I can’t help but think of the racism of abortion when I read this.  A highly disproportionate number of African American babies are killed by abortion each year.  If we were told that African American babies were being killed because of racial genocide we would be outraged.

But when we hear that African Americans represent only 12% of the population of the United States, yet they account for 35% of the abortions performed in this country (according to the Center for Disease Control), no one seems to care.

Abortion is wrong no matter what the race of the baby.  But, if you’re pro-choice (or just apathetic), doesn’t it make your skin crawl just a little to think that by not opposing abortion you are giving tacit endorsement to the disproportionate killing of a race of people?  If the killing of babies doesn’t make you shudder, how about the lopsided killing of a race?  

Having something in common with Hitler should make us uneasy.  But abortion itself should be the real shame-producer.

Even when we believe our intentions to be good (ie I don’t want a young African American woman to have to have a baby, with no father and no money if she doesn’t want to), it doesn’t make the results any less horrific (ie the unequal killing of a particular race).  

It’s like China’s abortion policy: it results in the killing of baby girls in much greater numbers than boys.  I’ve heard pro-abortionists bemoan this fact.  They like the “one-child policy,” but think that there should be no discrimination in aborting.  What kind of perverse thinking is this?  The answer isn’t to become an equal opportunity killer.  The answer is to stop killing.  

If it’s wrong to abort more girls than boys, then it’s wrong to abort at all.  If it’s wrong to abort more African American babies than white babies, then it’s wrong to abort babies.  

Pro-abortionists’ intentions may appear to be good.  We hear things like, “Let’s make abortion rare.”  The intent behind a statement like this seems good, but the ugly practical reality goes like this: “Let’s keep abortion legal.  Let’s fund abortion with tax-payer dollars. Let’s give young kids condoms and hope they don’t get pregnant.  Let’s get rid of any and all restrictions to abortion.”  

In other words, pro-choicers who intend to make abortion rare, end up making it common.

Proverbs 8:36 “..all who hate me love death.”  Proverbs 12:10 “..the mercy of the wicked is cruel.”

sunday misadventures

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, confessions, everyday, questions, , , 9 Comments on sunday misadventures

Every parent knows the strange things that can happen on a Sunday morning that prevent you from getting out your door and into the doors of church.  

It’s a universal phenomenon.  

The baby spitting up moments after getting her sunday clothes on.  The preschooler who’s missing a shoe.  The school-age child who is buckled in the car, only to remember they forgot the baby bottle they’ve been collecting change in that is due back this very Sunday.

This Sunday surpassed our usual Sunday slow-downs.

It started with Elianna.  My 17-month-old’s nose started to drip blood out one side like a leaky faucet, just a I’m getting coats on the older two.   By the time I reached her, she had smeared it everywhere and looked like she came straight from Nightmare on Elm Street.

We made it to church on time, but were slowed by a lack of parking and long lines at the kids’ check-in.  When I sat down for the service, the announcements had just begun.  I’m thinking, not too bad.

After church, I herd the kids to the car by myself, because Tom had been to first service, having played on the worship team.  He left after he was done playing for second service to head home and shovel/salt the driveway for small group at our house later that night.  So it’s just the kids and me.

The kids are buckled and I hear Eliza push the lever to close the automatic sliding door on our minivan–not unusual, however, the sounds I heard upon the door latching were quite out of the ordinary.  Her screams still echo in my head as I write this.  

Her hand was shut in the door.  The 3-5 seconds it took me to find the button to re-open the door and free her hand were some of the longest in my life.  

I generally think of myself as cool under pressure.  But it took everything I had to contain the utter chaos I felt inside.  I wanted to scream for help and tear my clothes.  And I hadn’t even had my hand shut in the door!

So, I quickly find a friend who’s cell phone I can borrow to call Tom and tell him I’m heading for the ER, just certain that her hand is broken.  Her crying is still pretty intense and the hand looks ugly.  He agrees to meet me there.  But, after returning the cell phone and having my friend look at it, things didn’t seem quite so bad.

The crying slowed to an intermittent whimper and the hand was now bending and recognizable.  

After making an ice-pack with a plastic target bag and some handfuls of snow, we decide to go home.  At home, Tom is waiting anxiously for us in the garage.  He examines the hand and by now, it is swollen some, but moving well.  And Eliza is cheerful.

But wait, there’s more.

I begin cleaning and vacuuming for small group.  Pretty soon, Eliza comes upstairs saying, “There’s a big flood down there.”  I think, hmmm, maybe Tom overflowed the toilet.  Nope.  Eliza says, “It’s in the laundry room.  Daddy’s cleaning it up.”  

Turns out, Tom had turned the faucet on in our utility sink in the laundry room.  He was going to clean out our Bissel wet vac, which had been used the prior Sunday to clean up vomit (we were all sick), when he got the call about Eliza’s hand.  He had quickly forgotten the water in the sink during the mayhem of the moment.  Thankfully, he cleaned up the flooded laundry room, with no damage to the house.  

And here’s my confession.

When he told me that he’d forgotten about the water turned on in the sink, my first reply was, “Oh, you went to watch the game and forgot about it?”  Ouch.  Nothing like assuming the worst and being 100% wrong.  Well, I’m hoping for a very uneventful next Sunday.  And if I can’t get that, I’ll settle for a Sunday sans blood, mangled hands or floods.  

Do you have any Sunday stories?

pro-life reading for the youngest among us

By: Abigail Dodds
everyday, mustread, politics, recommendations, , , , , 1 Comment on pro-life reading for the youngest among us

I just read Dr. Suess’s Horton Hears a Who! for the first time last week.  The kids got it for Christmas and it’s one of the Dr. Suess books that I’ve never read.  I was really missing out!  

This now replaces Green Eggs and Ham as my favorite Dr. Suess book.

Most surprising of all, was the amazing pro-life message it offers.  Horton, a large elephant, discovers a voice coming from a speck of dust.  He comes to find out that it’s not just a voice, but a whole town called Whoville that lives on the speck.

So Horton, lovingly and protectively, guards the speck, now lodged on a clover.  Carrying the clover everywhere he goes, his motto repeats, “Because, after all, a person’s  a person, no matter how small.”  

He faces persecution from a kangaroo and a pack of monkeys, who are set on boiling the clover in beezle-nut oil, in order to get Horton to give up his obsession of protecting the clover.  They don’t believe that there are any people on the speck.  They think Horton is crazy and don’t care about the supposed Who’s of Whoville.  

Finally, after Horton as been mauled and beaten, the Who’s of Whoville shout as loud as they can, all together, with even the smallest Who doing their best, and the monkeys and kangaroo hear the Who’s at last.  

The town is saved and the elephant smiles saying, “They’ve proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.  And their whole world was saved by the Smallest of All.”  

The book ends with the conversion of the kangaroo.  He says, “From sun in the summer.  From rain when it’s fall-ish, I’m going to protect them.  No matter how small-ish.”

Some make subjective the issue of aborting babies, saying, “Is this really life?”  But we know that babies in the womb are alive; they certainly aren’t dead.  Or, “Is it viable?”  The time of viability keeps getting younger and younger. Or, “Is it a human?”  Well, it definitely isn’t a monkey or an elephant.  

The question is, will our society protect the smallest among us?  Those who, like the Who’s of Whoville, have no way to protect themselves from the bigger people around them.  

I want to be more like Horton.  Even beaten and mauled, he protected those who could not protect themselves.  He made converts out of people that had boiling beezle-nut oil.  

Horton had guts and love.  We could all use a little more of those.

tips on praying for the children in our lives

By: Abigail Dodds
body of Christ, everyday, , , 3 Comments on tips on praying for the children in our lives

Who knew that when I became a parent I would be catapulted into a world of desperate prayers?  

Nowadays they range from the urgently practical (Lord, I pray that Eliza would have flushed the toilet and put the seat down, as Elianna heads for the bathroom) to the ridiculously selfish (Lord, please make my children good readers) to the deep inward utterings (Lord, please save their souls, keep them from evil, don’t leave them to their own devices, help them love You!)

I found this list on the desiring God blog and thought those of you with little ones (or big ones) might appreciate it.  Or if you are a friend, uncle, youth worker, grandparent, these could be helpful.  

I can’t think of a better gift to give to children and their parents than to commit to pray for their children in this way.  

That Jesus will call them and no one will hinder them from coming.

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matthew 19:13-15)

That they will respond in faith to Jesus’ faithful, persistent call.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

That they will experience sanctification through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and will increasingly desire to fulfill the greatest commandments.

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

That they will not be unequally yoked in intimate relationships, especially marriage.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

That their thoughts will be pure.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

That their hearts will be stirred to give generously to the Lord’s work.

All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. (Exodus 35:29)

That when the time is right, they will GO!

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

What do you pray for your kids or the beloved children around you?