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:
- The "Woman's Right-To-Know" law would have required full disclosure of the name of the doctor performing the abortion, they type of procedure to be used, the age of the unborn baby, printed literature on fetal development, the risk of abortion compared to child birth, community resources available should she decide to carry the child to term, information on adoption and the father's liability for child support?
- Jarman opposes a Parental Notification Law that would require one-parent be notified before a minor could undergo an abortion. Jarman claimed this bill "potentially protects abusive parents, allows parents to dictate the school curriculum on an individual basis and challenges the judicial bypass that allows teens to seek waivers to parental notification." (Wichita Eagle, Feb. 5, 1995).
- A "Post-Viability Law" that would ban all abortions after the 23rd week of pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother.
- Jarman flippantly responded to a bill requiring the humane treatment of the fetus with , "I wonder why we don't also have a bill that demands anesthesia before we do circumcision? We don't seem to be terribly concerned about the pain inflicted then." (Wichita Eagle, Feb. 5, 1995).
- A law that would prohibit an abortion by burning the baby with a saline solution?
- A ban on the late term Partial Birth Abortion of a viable baby moments before its live birth.
- A law requiring that abortions be done in a licensed ambulatory surgical center? Jarman said of this bill, "This is just another poorly disguised attempt by anti-choice legislators to close clinics, force their particular beliefs on others and control the lives of women." (Wichita Eagle, Feb. 23, 1995).
- A law that would require the Attorney General to bring before the Kansas Supreme Court the medical and scientific facts of when human life begins?
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.
- The counselors providing counseling to the girls include professionals that do not necessarily have the minor's best interests at heart.
- Few fetuses qualify for "viability" under the definitions of this law.
- Local communities are not allowed to regulate or restrict abortions.
- The loose definition of "the life of the mother" allows for the "pregnancy " itself to be a threat to a woman's life.
- The law further criminalizes "interfering with access" by instituting statewide penalities for those who block access to an abortion clinic.
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.