Seeking Common Ground on Abortion

Reported in The Wichita Eagle, May 23, 1996

Rodney Dangerfield complains he doesn't get it. Bill Clinton demanded it and now Peggy Jarman (now Peggy Bowman), a founding member of the ProChoice Action League and Propaganda Minister for the deceased Dr. George Tiller - a leading abortionist in Wichita, has joined in the chorus and whines that she wants it too.

Complaining about pro-lifers, Jarman said, "If they could show me one ounce of respect or appreciation or consideration for the law which is on the books - which is what they all said they wanted - then maybe we would have someplace to go."

Jarman would have us believe she should be respected for her attempts to find "common ground" in the abortion debate. Jarman can hardly be commended for seeking common ground though. Where is the common ground between life and death?

I would only remind Ms. Jarman that "Abortion Kills!" There is no common ground for a dead baby. Unlike the position Pro-aborts take, Pro-lifers don't just prefer life to death - the sanctity of life is a conviction. Abortion is wrong. It will always be wrong. Nothing can change that.

Jarman said in 1992, "It is very, very tough for pro-choice people to weight the advantages and disadvantages and pluses and minuses on how do you compromise. Where do you draw the lines?" (Wichita Eagle, Mar. 29, 1992). Indeed, where does Jarman draw the line? What "common ground" might she be referring to. What law did she support that she wants us to "respect" her for?

It couldn't be the following because they haven't passed into law, nor does she support them:

Surely it's not Jarman's resistance to allowing a pregnancy counseling center from locating on the same block as the killing center she defends.

It wouldn't be the law which passed requiring abortionists to report the number of abortions performed to the Department of Health and Environment. Jarman said in relation to that measure, "There seems to be an insidious desire on the part of the anti-choice leaders in the House to do everything possible to make abortion as inaccessible as they can, because they know they can't outlaw it." (Wichita Eagle, Feb. 5, 1995).

Surely it wasn't the so-called "Miscarriage Bill" that makes the death of a "product of conception," (not "human being") if in connection with another felony or misdemeanor, a crime. Pro-aborts strongly opposed that bill, saying that while they didn't oppose the concept, the measure went too far because the wording of the bill might include death by abortion. Jarman said, "The problem is that viability is not this exact point in time." (Wichita Eagle, Apr. 8, 1994).

That leaves only legislation that passed in 1992 which placed some restrictions on abortion but kept legal abortion on demand for most cases. House Bill 2646 requires doctors to notify at least one parent of a girl younger than 18 who is seeking an abortion and would require minors to receive counseling before and after an abortion. It would make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion after the fetus is able to survive outside the womb unless it was necessary to save the woman's life.

Jarmans' compromise on this bill came only after an earlier attempt to pass legislation that would make abortion legal in most cases with few exceptions.

Many loopholes exist for doctors to avoid notification of a minors parent.

Some compromise!

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. [Isaiah 5:20]

We must remember the people who want to promote unrestrained sexual license have made abortion on demand a universal right with Roe vs. Wade, and history will record - if anyone survives to write it - that the holocaust of abortion has far surpassed the Holocaust of Nazi Germany in the sheer number of innocent victims.

Have we really become desensitized to the scope of that horror?

Liberal politicians and other pro-abortionists continue to speak glibly of "a woman's right to choose." Do they understand that the "choice" which they defend involves violent death on a scale unknown in human history?

We must worry about a society that allows harm to come to the innocent with impunity. At a National Prayer Breakfast, Mother Teresa rebuked our President and the nation, when she said, "The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

She further argued, "By abortion the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world...So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."

The test of a civilized society is how it treats the most vulnerable - the old and sick, the young and ignorant, the poor and disabled, the homeless and despised, the dispossessed and imprisoned. The least among us. Once upon a time there would have been no hesitation to include in such a category life in the womb. Now there is a "serious" question about whether it is human life at all. At one time, blacks were not recognized as human beings. This was the rationale behind the slave trade that brought black Africans to the United States. They were transported in slave ships that held them confined in the same manner that livestock is confined when shipped to the slaughter houses. In Nazi Germany, only the Aryan race was considered human, and we know the consequences of that thinking. The treatment of Jews and other non-Aryans was similar to that of animals. And the Nazi genetic experiments remain a source for horror stories even today.

Abortion is not only a religious issue, as Jarman and others might argue. It's a question of basic humanity which concerns the entire civilized society we live in. It is an issue of who lives and who dies. Loss of respect and elimination of safeguards protecting human life at early stages progresses to a greater loss of respect and safeguards for the protection of life at other stages of development. As Rush Limbaugh reminds us in his book "The Way Things Ought To Be, "It is incumbent upon us all to be concerned about the world we will leave behind. We also should be concerned about the values we transfer to succeeding generations. When we take actions that cheapen life, we are contributing to an overall decline in our society's moral values. By allowing abortion we are indirectly promoting values that encourage crime, illegitimacy, the dissolution of the family, and callousness toward the living, especially the elderly."

The Right To Life IS the "pivotal" human rights issue today, because once we abandon the basic democratic principle of equality - that ALL human beings deserve the protection of the law no matter what their size, their age or their degree of dependency - then the rights of all of us are less secure.

The real difference between Pro-Lifer's and Pro-Abort's is not simply a political difference. It is a difference in world view. It's the view that God created man in His image versus the view that man himself is a god. The bottom line is that it is an issue of idolatry - the same sin that has plagued man since the beginning of time and the same sin that had destroyed ALL civilizations who uphold it.

When Western culture began diminishing the Christian principles of createdness and the exalted individual, the worth and dignity of people began to diminish accordingly. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide testify to our world's devaluation of human life. This loss of absolutes destroys all grounds for the immeasurable dignity of every person. And despite their claims to the contrary, secular philosophies fail to provide a sure foundation for freedom against tyranny. When the state rejects God and attempts to assume His authority, it ultimately rejects the freedom and dignity of the individual. Fear, oppression, and persecution quickly replace freedom.

The real agenda behind the pro-choice movement that Jarman defends is that abortion is the sacrament of their religion of feminism. Their agenda is to see that there are as many abortions as possible - this is their primary mechanism of asserting their power. The second part of their agenda is that there is a huge amount of money involved. Abortion is a huge business in this country. It is probably the largest uncontrolled industry in our nation. With more than 1.5 million abortions a year at, say, $300 each equals $450 million a year. That's a lot of money being made on abortions.

No, I don't respect Peggy Jarman any more than I respect Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Charles Manson, Richard Speck, Jim Jones, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Satan himself. I am alarmed by Peggy Jarman and those like her who yield the power of the tongue to sway otherwise reasonable people to their unreasonable position.

Respect is something that is reserved for those who EARN it and it is something reserved for those who do something worth esteeming. Jarman has not earned respect and she doesn't promote a cause that merits respect. The death of millions of babies by abortion is hardly something worth holding up in high esteem.

Peggy Jarman and those who at earlier times became victims of the temptation to abortion ought to know that there is still hope for them. Sin has a terrible price, but the blood of Jesus Christ offers mercy, compassion and hope! While we cannot go back and change the past, we do not have to be the slaves of sin. In Christ there is true freedom from sin and shame (John 8:31-36). Though our sins be many, God's grace is more abundant in Christ (1 Tim. 1:12-16). There is forgiveness, even for the taking of an innocent life.

Without Jesus Christ, we can only expect barbarism. It may be the barbarism of an India out of control. Or, closer to home, it may be the barbarism of an ethos in modern American culture that so values fornication and technical control that we kill with impunity. But it is barbarism nonetheless. Without Christ, there is only decadence, debauchery and death.




The Slippery Slope
Once government begins to define life and humanity, there is no end to the possibilities for subjective and selective determination as to who will be allowed to live.

The Death of a Nation
America has attempted to thwart God's plan in at least 53 million babies.

The End of Abortion
The widespread practice of abortion will end ... someday.

The Real Inconvenient Truth

The Culture of Death
Bill Clinton's Final Solution

Partial Birth Abortion
The only difference between partial birth abortion and homicide is a mere three inches.

Chemical Abortions
The time is coming when a woman who desires to have an abortion will be able to have one in the privacy of her home.


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