Life is an issue that divides our nation. It has been dividing it since January 1972. The division arose with the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade. That decision made abortion legal in the United States for the first time. It was seen as a victory for women, a victory so that they would no longer have to publically carry the burden of an “indiscretion”, a public burden their male counterparts did not have to carry. Women now had the right to chose; to chose what they would do with their own bodies.
With that decision, the nation was firmly divided. The United States was and is divided between two passionate world views; those who believe life is sacred and no one has a “right” to take the life of another, no matter how small that life might be, and those who see women’s bodies as their own and the Roe v. Wade decision as liberation for women across the nation.
This decision acted as the final catalyst for many Christians around the country. Prayer and the Bible had been removed from the public schools by this same court, and now that same court said that life, a unborn child’s life, was not sacred. By 1979, only seven years after the Roe decision, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority was up and running, moving a pro-life president into the White House, by calling on Christians to vote according to their moral beliefs. A movement against judicial activism began with Roe v. Wade, a movement wrought from the pens of the Burger justices; a movement that is known today as the “Religious Right.”
Christians, as a voting bloc, became a significant power in the political landscape. Politicians on both sides of the isle started to court them. The rise of the “Religious Right” was lead by organizations like the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and The Family Research Council. Family values became the dominate theme of presidential convention after convention, especially for the Republican Party, whose party platform lined up with the pro-life passion of the majority of its constituent base. “Christian” became synonymous with Republican for many American’s, but that correlation was not always seen as a positive. A backlash to the political drive of the “Religious Right”, especially their political activities, has arisen among a new generation of political activists.
The youth of the 90’s saw the founders of the “religious right” as mean spirited, vindictive men who did not want to share Christ with the world, but instead wanted to gain power for themselves. The dominate worldview of the founders of the religious right movement is being rejected by the generation that followed them. Self-proclaimed, post-modern Christians see men like Jerry Falwell, Gary Baure, James Dobson, and D. James Kennedy as unloving and unchristian in their approach to political activity. This new generation of politically active Christians is just as passionate as the prior leaders, but their focus is far different. They protest against those standing up for “traditional” family values, arguing against such things as the Marriage Amendment. They believe it is harsh and uncaring to ask for a Constitutional Amendment for marriage, believing this amendment pushes people, specifically homosexuals, away from God.
The life of the unborn or as Rick Warren stated, the human rights of the unborn, is not even enough to rally this new generation into one political entity with their predecessors. The life issue has become passé. To many, it is divisive and unwinnable, so why make it the one issue to live and die over. The new generation of Christians and non-Christians argue that people are being killed around the world. All killing should be stopped including the killing our own nation perpetrates against innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the post-modern generation, global warming is the equivalent of marching for civil rights in the ‘60’s. The planet, not humanity, needs to be saved. Saved from what; saved from humanity itself. The Republican Party is no longer seen as the party of moral values. Moral values have shifted for many post-modern Christians, with abortion taking a backseat to more faddish and popular causes.
These new political Christians are no less engaged in changing culture than their older counterparts. They differ in how that should be achieved and what social change actually should take place. The post-moderns don’t stand against anything. They embrace everything and everyone that is different from themselves, except their forefathers in the political world they all inhabit.
The political divide that separates these two generations is based on a multitude of factors, but one of the main features of their differences of thought has arisen within the past decade. The disparity between them is based on their interpretations or application of the Bible; more specifically the inspiration or importance of all Scripture.
To the post-modern Christian, the Gospels are the most significant section the Bible. The life of Jesus is the gold standard and the rest of the Bible is not as vital to the life of a believer. Now the leaders of the “right” or more clearly described, the moderns, believe all Scripture is God breathed and is profitable for correction, teaching and training in righteousness. They too would claim Christ as the gold standard, but they would look at His life as part of the overall plan of God for humankind. A plan encompassed by both Old and New Testaments; the writings of Moses as much as the writings of Paul. The importance of all Scripture to modern Christians is one of the reasons they are so passionate in their stance against abortion, gay rights and moral relationships in marriage. Those in the “right” believe that the Ten Commandments matter, and there is a moral law humanity should live by. The post-moderns do not hold to this belief as strongly. They never want to appear judgmental or unloving. Relationship for the post-modern trumps a biblical standard of morality.
This is one reason that Barack Obama was unable to answer Rick Warren, when Warren asked him at what stage human rights should be extended to a child. Obama said the answer to that question was “above his pay grade.” He could not say because if he answered in either direction he would be making a judgmental statement. Yet he was able to say that evil does exist, such as in killing of innocents in Darfur, but he was unable to say that that evil should be crushed or defeated as John McCain said. To say that the United States had a right to defeat an evil presupposes a moral superiority and that is judgmental or uncaring for those on the other side, who might not be evil but simply misguided.
Many young Christians are drawn to Barack Obama because they too believe that it is not possible to make moral judgments of other nations because we ourselves have moral failings. They are also being drawn by the new focus the Democratic Party is placing on faith and prayer. An announcer on the Christian radio station, KLOVE, overflowed with excitement and praise for the Democratic convention. She said that God was not absent, His name was being used and prayer was a prevelant part of the huge event being held in Denver.
The Democrats have always claimed faith, the difference in their draw to Christians a decade ago and their draw today is that the post-modern generation does not look at one issue as the plumb line in their voting decisions. The Democratic Party has not changed. Its platform has always been the same since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1972. It states:
Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a
woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her
ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that
right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption
incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
Democrats stand behind the right of every woman to
choose. We believe it is a constitutional liberty. This year’s Supreme Court
ruling show us that eliminating a woman’s right to choose is only one justice
away. Our goal is to make abortion more rare, not more dangerous. We support
contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education,
and policies that support healthy childbearing. Source: The Democratic
Platform for America, p.36 Jul 10, 2004
Life still divides us as a nation, but sadly, it has just become another issue among the many. No longer is it an evil to be defeated. It is a political issue to be discussed, and accepted if necessary in order not to appear judgmental. The truth is if evil is not defeated a moral judgment is still made.
July 20, 2000,
Testimony of Jill Stanek to Illinois Legislature on behalf of The
Born-Alive Infant Act
I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Labor & Delivery
Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for the past five years.
Christ Hospital performs abortions on women in their second or even third
trimesters of pregnancy. Sometimes the babies being aborted are healthy, and
sometimes they are not.
The method of abortion that Christ Hospital uses is called "induced
labor abortion," also now known as "live birth abortion." This type of abortion
can be performed different ways, but the goal always is to cause a pregnant
woman's cervix to open so that she will deliver a premature baby who dies during
the birth process or soon afterward. The way that induced abortion is most often
executed at my hospital is by the physician inserting a medication called
Cytotec into the birth canal close to the cervix. Cytotec irritates the cervix
and stimulates it to open. When this occurs, the small, preterm baby drops out
of the uterus, oftentimes alive. It is not uncommon for one of these live
aborted babies to linger for an hour or two or even longer. One of them once
lived for almost eight hours.
In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she receives no
medical assessments or care but is only given what my hospital calls "comfort
care." "Comfort care" is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until he
or she dies, although even this minimal compassion is not always provided. It is
not required that these babies be held during their short lives.
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome
baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not
want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the
thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I
cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks
old, weighed about 1/2 pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to
move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he
was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to
the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he
was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in
a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead
patients are taken.
Other co-workers have told me many upsetting stories about live aborted
babies whom they have cared for. I was told about an aborted baby who was
supposed to have Spina bifida but was delivered with an intact spine. Another
nurse is haunted by the memory of an aborted baby who came out weighing much
more than expected ~ almost two pounds. She is haunted because she doesn't know
if she made a mistake by not getting that baby medical help. A Support Associate
told me about a live aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the
Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally
thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to
find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor.
I was recently told about a situation by a nurse who said, "I can't
stop thinking about it." She had a patient who was 23+ weeks pregnant, and it
did not look as if her baby would be able to continue to live inside of her. The
baby was healthy and had up to a 39% chance of survival, according to national
statistics. But the patient chose to abort. The baby was born alive. If the
mother had wanted everything done for her baby, there would have been a
neonatologist, pediatric resident, neonatal nurse, and respiratory therapist
present for the delivery, and the baby would have been taken to our Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit for specialized care. Instead, the only personnel present
for this delivery were an obstetrical resident and my co-worker. After delivery
the baby, who showed early signs of thriving, was merely wrapped in a blanket
and kept in the Labor & Delivery Department until she died 2-1/2 hours
later.
Something is very wrong with a legal system that says doctors are
mandated to pronounce babies dead but are not mandated to assess babies for life
and chances of survival. In other words, our laws currently say that babies have
no rights to medical oversight until they are dead. We look the other way and
pretend that these babies aren't human while they're alive but human only after
they are dead. We issue these babies both birth and death certificates, but it
is really only the death certificate that matters. No other children in America
are medically abandoned like this.
Abortion is a cancer that is literally killing America. It is killing
our children while it is killing our consciences. It began when we took God out
of our decision making and proclaimed that the little beings growing inside of
women were "products of conception" and not little girls and little boys. Who
should be surprised that we keep pushing the envelope so that now we are
aborting these "products of conception" alive? I even work at a hospital named
"Christ" that does this very thing! It is beyond me to comprehend that we're
doing what we're doing now, and so I can't even imagine what horrible ways we
will think of next to torture our children. Please help put an end to this by
proclaiming infants as American human being homo sapiens with the same legal and
medical rights that you and I big people have. Thank you.
Added to second-to-last paragraph of Jill's oral testimony:
"I am
also very uncomfortable with the fact that the very doctors who may be
miscalculating due dates and fetal birth weights, or misdiagnosing fetal
handicaps, are the same ones deciding that these babies should not be assessed
after delivery. Shouldn't these babies be given the simple opportunity for
second opinion, just like you and I?"
Life continues to divide our nation along party lines. Some of those lines are blurred at times. There is a harsh, judgmental attitude among many in the “Religious Right” movement that needs to be changed. Christ came to seek and save the lost, not gain political power and position, but neither did He ignore the moral ills of His day. He loved the adulterous woman, and said to her, “go and sin no more.” He made a moral judgment on her sin. Relationship is important to sharing the love of Christ, but there is a standard of right and wrong that God set up in His Word, His Law. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.
“Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).
