The Sanctity of Human Life

By Bobby

While in college, I had the opportunity to work with the South Carolina Citizens for Life's Holly Gatling, something which I still do some volunteer time.

I mourn today on the thirty-sixth anniversary of one of America's biggest travesties, created by a liberal court system which has slaughtered more than 50 million in its thirty-six years of terror -- more slaughtered than ever killed in every war fought by this nation. To put that in perspective, the total number of babies killed by this act of terror called Roe v. Wade is more than 14,700 times the number of people killed (about 2,800) in the acts of terror against Americans combined by Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terror network. Those acts of terror include the slaughter of American troops in Somalia, the slaughter of a CIA agent through a hijacking in Ethiopia, the Khobar Towers, the twin homicide bombings of United States Embassies in Africa, and of course, the September 11, 2001 quadruple homicide bombings in Shanksville, the World Trade Center Buildings 1-7, and the Pentagon.

The horror of some abortionists' tactics, as mentioned by Illinois nurse Jill Stanek at the 2003 South Carolina March for Life, explained how children who are given live births are allowed to die within a few hours. This gargantuan "abortion" is a gross mistake. After hearing this grotesque practice at Christ Hospital, declared a second-trimester abortion (between 13 and 26 weeks), Mrs. Stanek notes the abortionist (who is not a doctor, because he has violated the Oath of Hippocrates, which states he will not induce the murder of his patients) induces medicine which permits the cervix (the opening at the bottom of the uterus) to dilate prematurely. Such actions permit the baby, which is premature (19-23 weeks), to be ejected, and therefore, a baby is born.

Unfortunately, with the procedures of this type of "abortion" where an actual baby is born, the hospital never takes care of the child. The child is clearly premature, born halfway through the cycle of 40 weeks which it takes to mature a child from conception until birth. The nurse is relegated to tending to the baby for as long as it lives sometimes as much as eight hours. The hospital is told in these "abortions" the child is to be treated as if it was an elderly person who has informed the living will they do not want to live. The baby is intended to die -- the baby will not be allowed to live, and unlike actual premature births, the child is not allowed to be treated in special chambers or in special units designed for premature babies.

For someone who has a second cousin who was born premature it breaks my heart to see some premature babies are given a chance to live and others are left to intentionally die.

Mrs. Stanek has testified in Washington many times in regards to this gruesome procedure, and learned her employer, Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, didn't like her testimony in Washington in mentioning the fact these live children are left alone in soiled "utlity rooms" to die, so the hospital, run by the United Church of Christ (any surprise, considering the President is of this faith) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, started a "comfort room," which offended Mrs. Stanek. She proceeded to take photographs of the questionable room, and had them placed into the Congressional Record to show the depths of despair they now give to aborted children.

What is even more gruesome is the "comfort room" contained a camera which allowed the aborted child, as born alive, to have pictures, baptismal, foot printer, and baby bracelets of the children who live less than a few hours they aborted.

That is totally nonsensical and shows the depths of despair the abortion lobby has come.

On August 5, 2002, President Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act to protect such children, and Mrs. Stanek stood by his side. Sadly, there is a push in Congress to declare this law, along with the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, void by passing the new Freedom of Choice Act bill endorsed by Congressional leaders and the President.

Abortion isn't just a woman's issue either. The grief of the 36 years of Roe v. Wade also hits men, sometimes even harder, as I learned working a Women of Faith conference in Charleston (SC) in June 2002, as founder Stephen Arterburn admitted to the 12,000 women in attendance plus the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center staff, Women of Faith staff, and the conference volunteers of his story when he was young he admitted he had his girlfriend impregnated and had their child aborted. To this day, even with a wife and a daughter, he still feels guilty about the one child he let die on the operating room table because he didn't want it. The grief of the father isn't always mentioned, but it is there. The sadness of the father is part of the problem and rarely do we hear his side of the story. But after hearing Mr. Arterburn's side of the story, it's clear it goes both ways. The father finds out about the child which he lost because the woman killed the child he had. It's his child he lost, and he understands it. While a woman may say "convenience", the man will say "it's my child you're killing". The truth is the father's grief is worse than what most people will admit.

It's clear to me. There has been too many years of murder of children at will created by a court fiat which makes no sense.

The concern now is that everything we have seen to protect human life is now being overturned by the most pro-abortion leadership in this nation, complete with a Congress that has established rules on who may debate and discuss issues. Is our entire accomplishment of the past two decades to be wiped out by one federal law that codifies bad court decisions as law, based on the attitude of legislators who do not represent me at all, decide? As a South Carolinian, what does it say when your legislators are now meaningless and we are letting California, Nevada, Washington, and states over 3,000 miles away determine what feels good is the law, when our legislators say otherwise?

I am afraid my twelve March for Life appearances and the hard work we have done will be wiped away by one law passed by legislators leading by feelings over 3,000 miles away.

The sanctity of human life, whose declaration posted this week by the White House has even been taken away by the new leadership, seems to be lost.

In these twelve marches, I'll never forget Suzanne Vitadamo talking about her evil brother-in-law who killed her sister in order to marry the other woman (2006, ironically on the day she spoke, Michael Schiavo married "the other woman"). I cherish Kathy Troccoli's "A Baby's Prayer" from my first march in 1998 (something that finally gave her an elusive Dove Award three months later). I hear from those who have suffered from having abortions in Olivia Gans (2000), Norma McCorvey (2001), Vera Lord (2004), Jennifer O'Neill (2005), and Beatrice Fedor (2009). I enjoy listening to heroes of the fight such as Wanda Franz (2002), Phill Kline (2008), Steve Mosher (1998), and David Beasley (1998 and 2009). I also have heard from one who suffers from the attempt at aborting her in Gianna Jessen (2007).

I've also through the National Right to Life Convention also heard Sean Hannity and learned more about life than I ever thought.

I cannot imagine the gruesomeness Point of Grace's Leigh Cappillino admitted when she talked about the abortion she had as a young lady (which is referenced in the group's song "Heal the Wound") when I've attended one of their concerts, and I cannot imagine what one man whose fatherhood was stripped by the gruesome practice admits what it is like to have an empty crib because of the stupidity of the idea that killing the baby is appropriate, as Stephen Arterburn has mentioned.

I mourn today for 36 years of children slaughtered by a court which does not understand. But does America understand we have a President and Congress willing to declare the right to kill babies is protected? If life is no longer protected, what can we have? Have we lost the sanctity of human life?