Mother and Baby- We love them both.
Many women who regret their abortions say, ‘If only they had told me it was a baby.’ Some abortion advocates refer to the human being in the womb as tissue, clump of cells, uterine contents or product of conception. Deplorably, some have even called the baby, a parasite. In working to legalize abortion, it was important for the pro-abortion movement to dehumanize the child in the womb, to distance abortion from the reality that it kills a living human being.
An editorial in the September 1970 California Medicine Journal, “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society”, said:
“Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or-extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”
Abby Johnson, who quit her job as director of a Planned Parenthood clinic, says she was instructed to not refer to the ‘baby’. Speaking the truth about the development of the child in the womb is important and showing women pictures of prenatal development or ultrasound imagery is empowering. Women should be given scientific information about their developing baby.
The focus should be on caring equally for both. The mother may choose to raise her child or choose adoption when she does not wish to raise a child at this time in her life. Adoption is also a loving option. Sadly, we live in times where some believe abortion preferable to adoption.
