We are human first

The United States House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a bill that would outlaw sex-selective abortions. Reportedly, none of them have come out in favor of aborting a child for reasons of gender alone, but there was some debate on the issue. Concerns were raised about the impact on doctors and the criminal penalties they could face, perhaps unfairly because of the difficulty in discerning the true motive in a woman’s request for an abortion.

But this all strikes me as essentially meaningless since women all over the country are getting legal abortions for no other reason than they don’t want a baby. Period. Why does it change the morality of it – and we are talking about morality, which most legislation is based on – if they don’t want it because the child is female?

This does put the abortion rights lobby in a pickle. If they support this bill they are acknowledging the very real moral component of this issue, and admitting that even before viability there are certain limitations that should be codified. But if they oppose it, they risk looking like cold-hearted Communists or borderline misogynists.

Why would the devaluing of a human life based on its gender be deemed immoral but not the devaluing of a human life based on its humanity? This seems totally ludicrous to me. Abortion rights supporters sometimes argue that the fetus is a “potential” human being. But if it’s not actually human at the time of its intentional killing by an abortionist with the consent of its mother, what is he or she? A different mammalian species? A non-essential, intrauterine growth belonging wholly to its mother’s body, though with its own unique DNA? A subhuman, alien-like mass of tissue and bone that though obviously living and with developing human organs, including a nervous system that can feel pain, and if simply allowed to grow would soon look inarguably human…is still disposable?

Aborting a girl because she is a girl is horrid. But so is aborting her because her very young and innocent life is not deemed of equal worth as yours or mine.

I wonder what blessings from the Creator of life we have forfeited because we have so carelessly thrown away so many of what He has already given us.