The Snoop 4.12.2012

I’ve always considered myself to be pro-life. I have never had a problem with the question about when life begins. But as I began doing research for an article I did this week on Options Pregnancy Clinic, I will have to admit that I was surprised at some of the things I learned.
As I said earlier, I’ve always considered myself pro-life. But I would have to admit that somebody could have persuaded me to soften some when the pregnancy involved a “hard case” such as rape, incest, or if it were necessary to save the mother’s life.
But what I learned as I researched abortion facts was that only 0.3 percent – three out of 1,000 women seeking an abortion – cited rape as the primary reason. Only two in 1,000 wanted an abortion to protect her own life, and three in 10,000, or 0.03 percent, cited incest as a reason.
To go a step farther, the same “facts” page I read said abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life. Never!  According to American Life League, 480 physicians have signed a public declaration stating that there is “never a situation in the law or in the ethical practice of medicine where a preborn child’s life need be intentionally destroyed by procured abortion for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” (I know, too, that this statement can be disputed.)
One of the most shocking statistics I found was in the numbers. For example, history tells us 498,332 people died in the Civil War. World War I claimed 116,708 Americans and 407,316 died in World War II. The Korean War took 54,000 lives, and Vietnam claimed almost 59,000. Since Jan. 22, 1973 when abortion became legal in the United States more than 53 million preborn lives have been ended by abortion.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 1.21 million abortions performed in the United States in 2008, which is most recent year for which data is available. That is 3,315 abortions per day.  One might  be tempted to believe these numbers are trumped by anti-abortion organizations, but that is apparently not so, since Guttmacher is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S.
Another shocking discovery I ran across was that 40 percent of minors having an abortion reported that neither of their parents knew about the abortion.  The same data says 35 states enforce parental consent or notification laws for minors seeking an abortion, but the Supreme Court ruled that minors must have the alternative of seeking a court order authorizing the procedure.
During the past week I have also read detailed descriptions of the various types of abortion and how the various procedures are performed. Depending on the gestational age of the fetus, the type of procedure used to perform the abortion can vary drastically. And depending on the type of procedure, the appliance or tools used can also vary. Some of these procedures are so brutally barbaric, I won’t even write about them. You will have to look them up yourself.
I want to point out, once again, that much of the data and the statistics cited here are not from pro-life organizations but rather from groups like Planned Parenthood that actually perform abortions in the U.S.
Proverbs 17:6 says, “Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” To my grandchildren I suppose I qualify as an old man, and truly there is no greater crown to claim than my children’s children.