Abortion is Only the Tip of the Iceberg

My second job was a formative experience. I cashiered at a grocery store. I went in expecting daily toddler meltdowns in every aisle. But I saw very few meltdowns. The parents surprised me.

Some little kid grabs a box of crackers or cereal off the shelf and walks up to the parent with questioning eyes. The parent snaps at the child and then either gives it back to him or puts it in the cart. What!? The little one did nothing manipulative. 

Have you ever been in the store when Mom's harsh, angry shhhhh was more disruptive than the tired baby she tries to quiet? 

Christ had said, "which one of you, if your son asks for a bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:9-11.) But watching the little dramas in my lane it seemed that many people don't give good gifts to their children. They shove the cookies and cereal as a replacement for affection and attention. It was evident that many parents do not like their kids.

If this is how we treat our children outside of the womb (thought my 19-year-old self) is it any surprise that we kill our babies inside the womb? "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." (I John 4:20)

Do you mourn or embrace the polarization of our culture? Do you rejoice when Ben Shapiro (or someone else) destroys or obliterates the opposing ideology? (Shapiro does have good arguments and he articulates them well; I would argue that you wield them more gently in real life. His livelihood depends on ratings: your personal life doesn't.) Do you treat waitresses, waiters, customer service reps, salesmen, clerks, cashiers, etc, with respect? Or do you blame your bad day on them? Do you bicker with your family in public? (I confess I have a really hard time not being so judgmental on public bickerers!) Do you complain about your coworkers and neighbors and in-laws as a regular topic of conversation? (Let's not get started on Hollywood, mainstream media, immigrants, druggies, cops, flat earthers, this pestilent Pope, people of X-ethnicity, or people whose chosen form of immorality you find particularly repugnant!) Unfortunately, if you're a complainer, you probably pride yourself of your "realism." Do you rejoice in slander? Do you gossip? Reality television -- for pete's sake -- what a dehumanizing form of "entertainment"! I'm not sure if it's more humane than bear-baiting and public executions. (Oh wait, public executions are back in vogue. Just check the trending topics on Twitter.) Do you excuse brutality when it is committed by and on behalf of "your team"? I've gone on long enough. 

But you get the point: we carry about constant enmity against the people around us. Sometimes the people closest to us. We murder them in our hearts over and over again. Yes, abortion is a sacrificing humans for convenience. Yes, we have distilled human life to its economic benefits and so we abort those whom we don't deem socially useful, such as those with down syndrome. But ultimately, abortion isn't the fault of those people over there. It is expressed every day to the living in my murderous heart and yours.

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