A House of Horrors

I read an article today that horrified me. It horrified me because it is a true story. It horrified me because of the absolute depravity that it depicted. It horrified me because there were so many willing accomplices to the crime.

I am speaking of the recent arrest of Dr. Kermit Gosnell of Philadelphia. Dr. Gosnell ran an abortion clinic that was really more of a baby "chop shop" than it was a clinic in any form. You may read the story here. I want to add my thoughts and reactions to having read this article.

For one, I wonder about the people who worked at this clinic. How could they participate in such work? Could you watch as a doctor severed a living child's spinal cord with a pair of scissors? Not once, but at least seven times?

Secondly, I was aghast that, even though this place was known as a House of Horrors, people still came from overseas to have their children killed there. I have an image in my mind of a mother, drugged into a stupor, lying helplessly unaware as her crying baby's life is mercilessly extinguished by a man wielding a pair of scissors. I have to temper this image with the understanding that the mother was complicit in this death. It is sickening.

Finally, I imagine that some pro-abortion people will say that this is exactly what will happen if abortion is outlawed. I must force myself to acknowledge that this may be true. It could be that these "Houses of Horror" would indeed spring up in the back alleys of major cities. I have some reactions to that.

First, it makes it clear that this is not an issue of mere legality. This is, in the end, an issue of convincing people that human life is sacred. If everyone believed that human life was sacred, it would be unnecessary to make abortion illegal, they would simply cease.

Secondly, just because these macabre clinics might indeed spring up, that is no reason to keep abortion "sanitary." That is, if a baby is indeed being murdered, having a clean scalpel does not make the act any more dignifying. We shouldn't legalize wickedness in an attempt to make it safe and sanitary.

This story grieves me. God have mercy.

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