Abortion is More Compassionate than Adoption?
I recently discussed the potential impact abortion could have on the 2022 midterm elections and the future of abortion laws in Virginia as a panelist on the Kojo in Our Community radio show. Other panelists included a survey researcher (Dr. Melissa Deckman), a former Planned Parenthood representative (Tarina Keene), and a Maryland state delegate (Ariana Kelly), all either representing the pro-abortion viewpoint or, at a minimum, sympathetic toward it.
Most people would view this as “stacking the odds against you,” but I look at it as though they needed two or three abortion defenders to take on me and the truth. You can listen to a recording of the show HERE.
Much was said during the 30 to 40 minute panel discussion, but I’d like to offer some brief responses to three statements offered by two of the panelists and a citizen who called into the show.
1. Dr. Melissa Deckman – “We found about 62% of Americans say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, but when you dive down a little deeper and look at partisan differences not surprisingly Republicans and Democrats have very different attitudes. About 61 to 62 percent of Americans opposed the Dobbs decision and wish that Roe was not overturned.”
While polling has historically shown support for Roe v. Wade, there has been a dramatic shift the past few years from the narrative offered by Dr. Deckman. According to a Harvard/Harris poll released over the summer, 72% of Americans would like abortion to be banned at no later than 15 weeks, and 49% would like it to be banned at no later than six weeks.
A Wall Street Journal poll found that 48% of voters strongly or somewhat favor abortion restrictions, with exemptions to protect the life of the mother, which is consistent with an AP-NORC poll from June 2021 that found that 65% of respondents believed abortion should usually be illegal in the second trimester, and an overwhelming 80% said it should be illegal in the third trimester.
What about Gen Z and Millennials (ages 18-34)? Students for Life of America released a new poll showing that 44% say they support overturning Roe and returning it to the states, but that increased to 57% once they learn it allowed abortion through all 9 months. Other key findings in their poll include less than two out of 10 want unlimited abortion through all nine months, for any reason; more than seven out of 10 are supportive of restrictions; and nearly half supported banning abortion after a heartbeat is detected.
2. Tarina Keene – “We found that 77 percent of Virginia voters actually did not want politicians interfering in their personal health care decisions. They believe that this is something they should be able to decide. We need to be able to trust a pregnant person to make their own personal health care decisions, and those people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect when making those personal health care decisions.”
First, there is no such thing as a “pregnant person.” The proper and correct statement is a “pregnant woman.” Biological males cannot, and never will be able to, give birth to a human being. God created women with the specific biological requisites to become pregnant and give birth to a baby. That someone would deny this biological fact and be so careless with language is complete lunacy.
Second, abortion is not a form of health care. While health care seeks to improve the lifestyle of patients, abortion by its very purpose does the opposite because it involves the intentional destruction of a living human being (a potential patient) and it jeopardizes the woman’s life and health. In fact, it is well understood that abortion is not a primary function of health care. Most of the medical community, in fact, does not even respect abortion as an accepted form of medicine.
Moreover, physicians are supposed to abide by the Hippocratic Oath, which says: “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.”
3. June (caller) – “We’re talking about having babies and putting them up for adoption like dogs in kennels. As a mother, you don’t put a baby up for adoption and not know what’s going to happen to it, and to live with the pain and anger or whatever [inaudible].”
Many in our society have become so desensitized to the issue of abortion that they believe it is more compassionate to the mother to destroy the baby in her womb than to allow the child to be born and adopted by loving parents. The truth is, as demonstrated through new studies, that women having an abortion experience some level of emotional distress or anxiety, which can often be extremely severe.
As an adoptive parent, I find it infuriating the way the abortion industry attempts to dismiss adoption as an alternative to the life-ending practice of abortion. While our son came to us as a twelve-year-old, we are thankful that his birth mother chose life and did not submit to societal pressure.
According to the US Adoption Network: “There are no national statistics on how many people are waiting to adopt, but experts estimate it is somewhere between one and two million couples…. Only 4% of women with unwanted pregnancies place their children through adoption.” Now consider that over a million abortions are performed in the United States every year.
Not only is it heroic of a mother with an unplanned pregnancy to allow her baby to be adopted, but it will help her avoid the emotional stress and anxiety often associated with abortion and give her the assurance that her baby is with a loving family.
I will conclude by saying that no matter what the polling data suggest, my moral, ethical and biblical convictions motivate me to defend the innocent and vulnerable life in a mother’s’ womb – that will never change. At the same time, we need to make sure our public policies help women with unexpected pregnancies obtain the necessary resources to choose life and either embrace motherhood or heroically allow that child to be adopted. We can love them both and save them both without taking the life of the unborn.
