No one wants to talk about it.  No one.  Well maybe a few people.

The people that are often considered the fringe.  Those who are willing to stand on the street corners or outside Planned Parenthood clinics with posters depicting bloody aborted fetuses.  The ones who believe that since deadly force can be a response to deadly force that it’s okay to bomb abortion clinics or kill doctors who perform them because in God’s eyes, abortion is murder.  These people believe they are licensed, usually through their relationship with Jesus Christ and knowledge of the holy scriptures, empowered to deliver this judgment and condemnation to those participating in the murder of unborn fetuses.  

Of course there’s another side.

There are the ones who wear tampons as earrings, proclaim their God given right to have an employer or educational institution pay for their birth control.  These are the same people who want to rant and rail against the “establishment” that is holding women back.  They opine that a woman’s body is her own and by all means, she should have “Access” (and by access they usually mean, without paying for) an abortion under any circumstances at anytime.  After all, it is “her” body and the fetus is merely a parasitic organism that can not exist without it’s host.  

Most human beings do not identify with either of these perspectives, yet these are the two schools of thought that dominate the debate.  Unless and until the reasonable humans in the midst of these competing ideals, start thinking and speaking, and voting, we will continue to have these viceral and pointless oppositions dominating our political landscape and we, yes all of us are the problem, WE will continue to experience recurring, abhorrent events and places like the Kermit Gosnell house of abortion horrors.  There is no one that thinks that was a good place or process for women or children and BOTH SIDES blame the other side for creating an environment surrounding abortion that such a place evolved into existence.  They are right, BOTH side are to blame for the development of such a place that atrocities could occur, but they miss the real point,  You and I, those of us in the middle, we are ALSO to blame. Our inaction, our silence, our failure to speak our mind, to donate to charitable organizations who help women with unplanned pregnancies and for voting without being informed.  

The business of abortion, contrary to what you might believe, is not just the business of performing abortions.  The big money is in the debate.  Most of the money, and there is a lot of it, raised by the “Pro-Life” movement, goes into political campaigns.  Not to unwed mothers, not to homeless or poor women or children, not to orphanages or adoption agencies, but to politicians.  There are watch groups who track the voting of politicians once they are elected with their Pro-Life platform and Pro-Life Money, to make sure they are holding the line on Pro-Life Issues.  Not to diminish the importance of knowing what politicians are doing after they are elected, and knowing their views before they are elected, but the magnitude of the money invested in this process has become largely disproportional to the actual effect.

It is utterly ineffective and I can assure you, that politicians, the funds and the litmus test have saved exactly zero babies.  The same could be said of the bloody poster boards.

Let’s refresh our memories.  Jesus said of the commandments, the “greatest of these is love” and that they will “know us by our love”.

While we on the right, rant and rave about smaller government and protect our rights to own guns and worship and travel and vote, we jump up and down and ask the government, manipulate and control and attempt to influence the government, to tell women what they can or can’t do with their bodies.  While at the same time we ignore the obvious answer.  If it really is our mandate from God, why are we not going to God with this?  Why do we continue to seek and pursue with great vim and vigor a legislative solution to an issue of morality?  Who is it that has lost it’s moral compass in this debate?  I beg for you to consider that we all have. 

As we strive, from whatever side you find yourself on, passionate that women much be protected and advocated for, or that the immorality of abortion must be stopped, it is essentially a value based judgment, and a value based decision when an individual is faced with it.

Outlawing abortion is not the answer.  Nor will it EVER, yes I said, EVER occur in this country.  Please feel free to learn something about Supreme Court Jurisprudence and let’s start fighting a good fight.

What if we start respecting the law as it exists.  What if we started (both sides) respecting the views of the other, and PRAYING for them, that they would know God’s love, have the respect that we have for Human life, and personal bodily integrity (WHATever side you find yourself on).

The answer, as we keep saying with health care and immigration and so many other issues these days, is NEVER MORE GOVERNMENT.  Yet we take this issue and do an about face and cry out for MORE government intervention, regulation and restriction.

Let go and let God.  What if we tried that.  What if we took seriously the Great Commission and carried the message of God’s Love instead of being messengers of condemnation, because I’ve never found “carry forth my condemnation” spoken by Jesus or any of his Apostles, and in case you haven’t noticed, the Pro-Life movement has not made much headway in “outlawing” abortion.

Children and their mothers need the love and support that the religious right purports to stand on.  There is a better way to deliver and convey that than what we have been doing.  We need to seek and find that better way.  

Or we could debate and fight about it for another few years, while more babies die and more women are traumatized and another Kermit Gosnell rises up.  The time has come to re-think everything.