In her Aug. 9 letter ``Abortion's Dark Ages,'' (Akron-Beacon Journal) Peggy Phillips decried the days of illegal abortion and feared the return to a time when ``many women will be forced to endure such dangerous procedures that put their lives at risk.''Never did she sympathize with fetuses that may experience horrific pain during pregnancy termination. Medical advances now make us privy to more scientific data regarding childbearing from conception forward than in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided. DNA tests predict babies' sex at five weeks after conception. Pregnancy calendars inform us in Week 6 of the ``beginnings of the central nervous system,'' which receives pain signals.
Pro-abortionists' desire to keep abortion legal is more about parental convenience and abdication of responsibility than anything. It's a wrong mind-set I too employed in the past, growing up in a self-centered society whose laws during most of my life made it OK for me to murder children.
There have been darker times than the back-alley abortion days. In Sparta, circa 500 B.C., Greeks tossed healthy babies off cliffs. Infanticide was the accepted norm in their adult-focused society and reflected in their laws. No wonder many prosperous and egotistical ancient communities were obliterated. Divine retribution lives on.
Prenatal 3-D ultrasounds in living color make developing babies more real to us than ever before, morphing abortion into an exercise tantamount to infanticide. People who recognize this are putting political power behind newfound understanding. It's why more than double the number of African-Americans like me living in our crucial swing state of Ohio voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than did in 2000.
Despite the bloody war on terror, I'm grateful the Bush administration is winning another silent, sinister war. John Roberts and Samuel Alito sit on the Supreme Court poised to enact change. I look to states with legislation like South Dakota's with bated breath.
Yes, unwanted pregnancy because of rape is unspeakable. Irresponsible and lost teens bearing unwelcome children must be shamefully awful. Desperate pregnant women ingesting poison is horrible. But none of these arguments ever turns two wrongs into one right and makes me concede, ``OK, ripthose little limbs apart.'' Why should innocent children take the brunt of adult mistakes?
I agree with pro-abortionists on this: Right-to-lifers should put money where our mouths are and support disadvantaged kids -- financially, emotionally and spiritually -- who are already born. But this argument is largely a smoke screen evading the real issue: It is not OK to take the life of a baby, be it on this side of the birth canal or the other.
This op/ed was originally printed Tuesday, August 29, 2006 in the Akron-Beacon Journal.
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." Mother Teresa
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