“If it is a joyful, welcome event, then that fetus deserves all the protection we can muster. If it is an unwanted or tragic prospect, that woman deserves loving support and access to the competent and compassionate care I mentioned before, including support to terminate the pregnancy or support her in her other choices.”
These are the words of Dr. Duane Dowell in his video detailing why he supports abortion.
What jumped out to me about Dr. Dowell’s video was his wording. It’s a basic understanding that to pro-choicers, the decision to abort a pregnancy is based on the mother’s feelings or circumstances, so those statements will come as no surprise to any informed Christian. What caught my attention was his first use of the word ‘deserves’.
If a pregnancy is “welcome”, then the child “deserves” to be protected; if not, then the child…doesn’t. What’s notable here is that ‘deserving’ is a characteristic typically only attributed to living things (of course, it’s already been generally established among the pro-choice crowd that a ‘fetus’ is a child, a fact that did not deter most supporters- I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to why that is) but we’re also told that the child’s value depends entirely upon how the mother thinks and feels.
This thinking goes against an idea that’s hugely popular in today’s society that a person’s value isn’t diminished based on outside opinions (think body acceptance movement, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.). All in the same breath, the society that tells an overweight woman that she’s worthy of love despite what others may think readily condemns an unborn child to an agonizing death if the mother doesn’t want it.
Here you’ll find multiple physicians who deem it their “moral duty” and their “God-given calling” to provide as many abortions to as many women as possible, saying that their lives feel more and more fulfilled with every ‘procedure’ they carry out.
This is what we’re up against. These aren’t movie villains rubbing their bloodstained hands together and dreaming of murder. They’re people, just like us, and they believe every word they say.