The Cost of Abortion

If self-gratification is our highest good, then any act (up to and including the murder of a child) becomes good if done in its pursuit.

This helps explain why the arguments have shifted from "safe, legal, and rare" to open demand to kill children up to and even beyond birth.

On June 14, 2013, the late Rush Limbaugh said in his monolog, "I think abortion is at the root of so much that has and is going wrong in this country....but what in toto it all means, culturally, in terms of the sanctity of life, how that’s crumbled, I think it’s almost at the root of everything... it’s clearly had a profound impact on our culture, our society, and our politics, I think in ways that people don’t even stop to consider.

Be informed, not misled.

Why the Left is willing to now admit abortion kills a child and still supports it.

Elle Reynolds, with  The Federalist, published an article yesterday that shed light on the hysteria that's driving the pro-abortion movement.

She says the bottom line is self-gratification. 

I agree with her. In a generation that believes actions have no real consequences, and self-gratification is the highest good, we see the new willingness to call abortion what it is. Murder. We can now look ourselves in the mirror and say, "What some call evil is actually good."

Reynolds says, "Any sinful culture — as all are between Eden and glory — might allow or excuse the killing of an innocent child. But the times such an act has been celebrated have historically been tied to religious rituals in which a child was sacrificed to a supposed deity. In our post-religious culture, that sacrifice is laid on the idol of self."

It's all about "me." Not "thee."

A quick look at social media shows you more than you want to know.

“I’m killing the babies!” an activist in front of the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City screamed while wearing a one-piece swimsuit with dolls stuffed inside.

“Kill those [expletive] babies,” one demonstrator screamed at the Supreme Court last week.

“I am pro-abortion. PRO. ABORTION. if I don’t want to be pregnant? vacuum that [expltive] out of me like a dental assistant with my saliva,” one Twitter user remarked.

These are some of the more moderate posts. Many are demonic.

Elle Reynolds says, "Mankind has been committing the sin of selfishness for millennia. Indeed, it was elevating his desires and conceit above the commands of God that separated man from his perfect communion with God in Eden. He has continued to practice selfishness and greed ever since."

"It’s why civilizations have gone to war, overthrown governments, raped conquered provinces, abused the vulnerable, robbed, murdered, lied, and cheated," she says, and, "Selfishness is nothing new, and neither is abortion, which was practiced by the ancient Egyptians (and surely even earlier)."

A number of gods are mentioned in the Bible, including  Baal, and Melqart, worshipped by King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, Ashtaroth, Molech, and others.

Baal required the killing of children, but perhaps Molech is best known for the custom of his worshippers sacrificing their children to the god by fire. Jeremiah (32:35) spoke about this practice.

Reynolds says:

Selfishness isn’t unique to our moment, but it does manifest today in a particularly straightforward way. If we believe the highest telos of our existence is self-discovery, our lives cease to serve any higher purpose than ourselves.

It makes sense, then, that our culture would glorify abortion because, by that paradigm, killing an inconvenient baby is a means to self-empowerment. If eugenicist abortionists pushed to kill off babies for the “good” of society a century ago, now they purport to do so for the “good” of the individual woman.

It’s why abortion activists can, in complete seriousness, advocate for the murder of a full-term child. It doesn’t matter to them that the baby is a living being — if he or she conflicts with a woman’s self-love, that baby doesn’t deserve to live. It’s perfectly consistent with our culture’s increasingly popular perception of having children as a fulfillment of their parents’ wants instead of a responsibility to cherish that requires sacrifice and self-denial.

The late Rush Limbaugh saw this day coming nearly a decade ago.

On June 14, 2013, Limbaugh said, " Abortion is at the root of our cultural decay."

They’ve got to come up with money. And they know this: If you use the popularly accepted figure of 1.3 million abortions a year, go back to Roe vs. Wade 1973, 52 million taxpayers haven’t been born, is the way Washington looks at it. They don’t look at it morally. They don’t look at it in any kind of cultural way or any kind of cultural impact. They just say we’re 52 million people short. We have 52 million fewer people paying taxes. We gotta replace ’em. Hello amnesty. The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass in order to keep themselves alive as Santa Claus, to keep winning elections and stay in power. But Washington overall, much as they hate people, much as they hate their base, much as they hate the middle class, they still need people working and paying taxes, regardless how many people are gonna be paying a lot or a little. The illegals income levels might be such they wouldn’t be paying much, but it’s better than nothing.

Limbaugh continued, 

"So one of the reasons for amnesty is to replace the 52 million people aborted. I just want to tell you something. I really think that abortion is at the root — you could do a flowchart — I think abortion is at the root of so much that has and is going wrong in this country. I think that the number of abortions themselves, but what in toto it all means, culturally, in terms of the sanctity of life, how that’s crumbled, I think it’s almost at the root of everything. And if it’s not at the root of everything, it’s clearly had a profound impact on our culture, our society, and our politics, I think in ways that people don’t even stop to consider."

He concluded with this: 

"We need 52 million people that we don’t have. We need the taxes of 52 million people that don’t exist. They were conceived. They were going to be born, but something happened, and they’re not here, but we need ’em. Our birthrate is not at replacement levels. That’s what he means by this fertility business. It’s not a matter of fertility. It’s a matter of abortion."

ABC News is reporting that birth and fertility rates in the United States dropped to record lows again last year, according to provisional data in a new report published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ABC says, "The number of U.S. births in 2020 fell 4% from 2019, the lowest level since 1979. The figure is double the average annual rate of decline of 2% since 2014 and marks the sixth consecutive year that the number of births has dropped, according to the report."

Takeaway

Reynolds concluded with this: 

"If self-gratification is our highest good, then any act (up to and including the murder of a child) becomes good if done in its pursuit. If we are our own arbiters of truth, then moral reality ceases to become an inhibition, and life itself ceases to become an inherent good. If limiting the licentious indulgence of our own desires is “oppression” and therefore the greatest sin, then the anti-abortion crowd becomes the bad guys."

"Until we confront the self-idolatry of our culture, many people will truly believe abortion is not just a 'necessary evil' but a self-empowering good," she said. "Merely convincing them that abortion takes the precious life of a baby does nothing to shatter that paradigm if they value their own imagined 'empowerment' more than that life. The message their mania requires is that something true, good, and infinitely worthy could exist that is greater than themselves."

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.