SEEING ABORTION: BY BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

SEEING ABORTION: BY BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH- HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM -MON. APR. 22, 2019

REF. OCCATHOLIC, APRIL 31, 2019

   "We stand at a pivotal point in the great moral debate over abortion in our country - not because new arguments have emerged, but rather because laws so breathtaking in their barbarism have been passed, and a film so visceral in its presentation of the reality of abortion has found a wide audience....

  
  The legal protocols now in effect in New York, Delaware, and a number of other states allowing for the butchering of a child in the womb at any point in his or her nine-month gestation - and indeed, on the clinic and hospital table, should the child by some miracle survive the abortion - have sickened much of the country. And they have allowed people to see, in unmistakable clear terms, the full implications of the twisted "pro-choice" ideology.

  
  If a mother chooses to bring her baby to term and to be born, that child is, somehow by that choice, the subject of dignity and worthy of the full protection of the law, and if a mother chooses otherwise, even a new born baby struggling to breath on, on operating table can be murdered and discarded as so much garbage. Biology and metaphysics be damned: our subjective decisions determine reality - and the result is state-sanctioned infanticide.  So obviously insane, so clearly dangerous, so unmistakably wicked are these laws that they are causing many people to reconsider their position on abortion.

    
Unplanned (the movie), the story of Abby Johnson's wrenching transition from from director of a "Planned Parenthood" clinic to vocal opponent of abortion, has proven to be a surprising popular film, despite its rather grim theme and despite considerable institutional opposition. As many have pointed out, Mrs. Johnson is playing a role anagolous to that plagued by Harriet Beecher Stowe to the nineteenth century. While there were plenty of arguments on both side of the slavery debate at the times, nany advocates of slavery underwent a conversion to abolitionism, not because of national demonstrations but precisely because of the influence of Stowe's vivid presentation of the concrete reality of slavery in Uncle Tom's cabin.

  So today arguments and slogans on both sides of the abortion controversy are well known, and most people seem more or less locked in their respective camps... The film opens with the event that proved decisive for Abby John herself. As director and administrator of a Planned Parenthood clinic, she was certainly aware of what was happening on the premises, but she had rarely been involved in an actual abortion. One afternoon she was summoned to the operating room  and asked to hold the device hat allowed the doctor to see the ultrasound image of the child in the womb. As the physician went about his work, Abbey could clearly see the child resting comfortably and then reacting violently as a suctioning device was inserted in the womb. To her horror she then saw a tiny arm sucked off, only to reappear moments later as a bloody soup in a catheter next to her. As she watched unable to take her eyes off the horrific display, she saw the severely wounded baby continuing to evade the device, until a leg disappeared, then another arm, and finally the baby's head ... 

   
 With that, she ran from the room, vomited in the bathroom, and resolved to dissociate herself forever from "Planned Parenthood." The film makes clear that she had heard arguments against abortion all of her life, for her parents and husband were ardently and vocally pro-life, but she made the decision ... Her hope, obviously, is that her film will have a similar effect on many others.

     
One of the most memorable scenes in Unplanned deals with an odd little party that took place at the clinic after hours. Abby, it turns out, was pregnant, and her colleagues,all female, gathered together give her a baby shower. Out came the balloons, the thoughtful presents, ... all meant to show their joy at the birth of a new baby. But then we realize ... these good friends of Abby, have spent their entire day killing babies of other women, Indeed, the blood of those procedures is on their shoes and scrubs. 

How is this scene possible? The condition for this possibility is the lunatic ideology of "choice... if the baby is desired have a party, if the baby is unwanted, kill him and cast his remains in a dumpster...

In 1850, lot of good and thoughtful people defended the institution of slavery. Now, only insane people would. In 2019, lots of decent and thoughtful people defend the pro-choice position. One can only hop ... that this viscerally disturbing film will hasten the day when only insane people would."

George H. Kubeck