Abortion: Safer than penicillin?

Today’s New York Times “Quotation of the Day” was, “Having an abortion is safer than an injection of penicillin.” That gem came from Dr. David Grimes, former chief of “abortion surveillance” at the Centers for Disease Control. For someone whose job is surveillance, Grimes is extraordinarily blind: Safer for whom?

New York Times founder Henry Raymond was a Christian, and his newspaper from its inception in 1851 was anti-slavery and anti-abortion. In 1871 it ran a long investigative piece about abortionists entitled, “The Evil of the Age.” Raymond’s successors had a different theology, and unborn babies became increasingly invisible.

Now, though, they are so visible through ultrasound that it’s strange to hear Grimes speak as if the child victims of abortion do not exist. The good news from the Texas and North Carolina legislatures this week, and from other states as well, is that Philadelphia’s Gosnell trial horrors made an impact. The drive to protect viable babies is growing.

Now, it appears that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to deal with this issue again. Maybe it will relent from the dogmatism of the 1970s, renewed in the 1990s, that gave the United States one of the most extreme abortion regimes in the world. Since folks on the left regularly cry for us to be more like Europe, maybe on abortion will do what most European countries do: early abortions yes, late abortions no.

Then, I pray we’ll move on to protect even those who are so tiny at first that it’s easier to ignore their humanity. Save as many as we can, and pray that God for Christ’s sake will not give us what we deserve for our nation’s 50 million and more trespasses, even as the number grows each year.