In 2007, my wife and I visited Washington D.C. and while we were there we went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many images imbed themselves into your mind as you walk through a place like that but the one thing that often comes to mind is the walls. At various points in the museum there are higher than usual walls separating the “display” from those visiting the museum. The walls are solid and designed to be too tall for children to see over. Why are they there? Behind these walls are videos of horrible atrocities committed by Nazi scientists and others working in the notorious concentration and death camps of WWII. They are meant to shield the innocent from the “disturbing” images that were recorded. We have built a different kind of wall in our society. Not walls designed to protect the innocent but walls that keep us comfortable in our supposed ignorance of the true nature of the holocaust that is going on all around us in the United States of America.
Over the past few weeks, an organization known as The Center for Medical Progress has been releasing videos on the internet of undercover footage recording doctors and leadership of Planned Parenthood. The filmmakers posed as potential buyers for fetal tissue samples “collected” from abortions carried out in Planned Parenthood clinics. The initial videos were disturbing because of the cavalier nature in which these employees of Planned Parenthood discussed the strategic crushing of human babies to preserve specific organs that are more valuable to medical researchers. The disturb factor has increased as more videos come out which actually show some of the “tissue samples”. As I watched, I was horrified to see “doctors” flicking little eyeballs around petri dishes and describing how the brain was blasted out of the skull in the tray by water as they washed the sample for examination. Little arms and legs are clearly visible amidst the “more valuable” parts of the body. The doctor in the video describes the “sample” as “war torn” and towards the end of the video exclaims, “we have another boy.”
I don’t want to apologize if that description “disturbed” you. It should disturb you, horrify you, make you want to cry, scream, shout, and do whatever you can to stop these murders from happening.
The parallels between The Holocaust and the holocaust which has extended over four decades in our nation are numerous. The one parallel that haunts me the most this week is complicity. General Eisenhower marched German citizens through Nazi death camps after the camps were “liberated” in order to make them face the reality they had turned a blind eye to or even profited from. The Center for Medical Progress has torn down the walls and marched us through the clinics of mutilation and death that occupy buildings in our town centers down the street from restaurants where we dine and blocks from the movie theater where we sit for hours to be entertained. If we do nothing we are even more complicit than those Germans who stood by and did nothing as their neighbors were tortured, starved, experimented on, mutilated and executed. We are more complicit in our inaction because we do not face the threat of imprisonment, torture or death for our efforts to thwart abortion.
In reality, the abortion issue is not more of a problem today than it was before, The Center for Medical Progress didn’t expose a new horror-it drew back the curtain and exposed a reality that has been taking place for years in our country. They have also made it impossible for us to plead innocence through ignorance.
What can we do? Awareness is important but it is just one aspect of the solution. The Center for Medical Progress has done us a huge favor by highlighting the problem and accelerating the conversation. Here are some more things we can all consider as we seek to solve this problem:
- Keep the discussion going--don’t be silent
- Talk about it with your family and friends
- Write a blog about it
- Share articles and updates on the issue in person and via social media platforms
- Engage people who promote the pro-abortion agenda
- Encourage your church to speak to the issue and celebrate “Right to Life Sunday”
- Stay informed
- Follow organizations that are on the front line of the issue
- Stay up to date on legislation that is before state and federal legislatures
- Seek to enact legislation that will inhibit the abortion industry
- Contact your legislative representatives and ask them to:
- support pro-life legislation
- oppose pro-abortion legislation
- defund Planned Parenthood
- Write proposals for legislation that would promote life
- Support your local crisis pregnancy center
- Donate financially
- Participate in fundraisers
- Raise awareness of the center
- Volunteer time
- Support organizations that seek to undermine the abortion industry
- Prayerfully consider adopting an unwanted baby
- Prayerfully consider “adopting” a young woman who has an unwanted pregnancy and feels like she has no option but to abort her baby.
- Pray
- For the lives of the unborn in our nation
- For the demise of organizations promoting the abortion agenda
- For the repentance and salvation of those involved in the pro abortion movement
- For the hearts of those women who are considering aborting their babies
- For courage and success of those opposing abortion and promoting life
- Proclaim the Gospel
- Tell people about the hope and redemption available through Jesus Christ
- Live lives that demonstrate the change of the Gospel that takes place in the lives of Jesus’ followers
We cannot remain silent or still. We must speak and live in ways that clearly articulate and demonstrate a care for life. Certainly we must stand up to defend the unborn babies who cannot defend themselves but we must also demonstrate love to the mothers of these babies as well as those who promote and practice abortion.
Resources:
Videos from The Center for Medical Progress
This page lists a whole host of literature and other resources to help you discuss and think through the abortion issue.
The weekly podcast for the month of August 2015 from The Association for Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) is dedicated to the abortion issue.
Contact information for U.S. Senate
Contact information for U.S. House of Representatives
“The Briefing” a daily podcast from Dr. Albert Mohler (President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). Dr. Mohler stays up to date on issues of significance in our world and offers insights from a Christian worldview.
