Abortion should not be merely an intellectual issue

Letter to the Editor by Mark Baker/Assistant Registrar

When you think about this topic, what kind of a response do you have? Do you feel some­thing in your gut, or merely in your head. When I was a stu­dent at Whitworth I would have definitely said I was pro-life. Killing babies is wrong. Period. Yet, my assent to this topic was limited to my head. I did not feel it. It brought little emo­tional response when I thought about it or discussed it. That is no longer the case. Now, when I hear the word abortion, discuss the topic or drive by a billboard promoting Planned Parenthood it affects me. My stomach turns at the thought of children being vacuumed out of their mother, piece by piece. It makes me an­gry. And I think this is right.

Abortion should not be an intellectual topic. If it is for you, then I would argue that you haven’t wrestled with it enough. Ignorance is the greatest friend abortion has. That is the only way we have allowed 52 million children to be killed over the past four decades in our country.

The change for me happened when I had my first child. Dur­ing my wife’s pregnancy it seemed surreal that our child was growing inside of her. How­ever, when our son was born, the weight of the past nine months truly hit me. That was the first point in my life when I realized how much I hate abor­tion. And that is when it moved beyond an intellectual topic for me.

I wish I hadn’t waited until I had a child of my own to wres­tle with this issue. I wish I had fought my ignorance much ear­lier in life. I wish I had viewed websites like abort73.com sooner.

What are you thinking or feeling right now as you read this letter? In 100 years I think people will look back on this era of our country with horror, unable to comprehend how we (Americans) and specifi­cally Christians within America stood by and allowed this atroc­ity to occur. I plead with you as young people not to let this is­sue lie dormant in the back of your minds. Find out what you believe. Fight your ignorance. But don’t just believe it. Feel it. And then do something.