What's The Difference?

In the August 26th edition of World Magazine is an article by Lynn Vincent titled "A Child Without A Choice". Police and Prosecutors in Hialeah, Florida are investigating an abortion clinic incident as a murder case. On the morning of July 20, an 18-year old girl walked into the A Gyn Diagnostics Center to abort her baby at 23 weeks. While waiting most of the day for the clinic abortionist, Frantz Bazile, to show up, the girl delivered her baby, alive, moving and trying to breathe (she had received medication to dilate her cervix the night before). Clinic worker Belkis Gonzalez then allegedly cut the umbilical cord, stuffed the baby into a bio-hazard bag, and sealed the bag shut. After a tip led police to investigate, they found the baby nine days later, still in the bio-hazard bag, badly decomposed.

Just reading this should make you angry, heartbroken, and furious that we live in a country that tolerates this kind of blatant disregard for human life. About 2/3 of babies born at 23 weeks survive. According to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, all babies, regardless of gestational age, are legal persons entitled to medical care, and failure to provide is a crime. Police are treating this case as a homicide.

As disturbing as the alleged facts of this article are, I found Deputy Chief Overton's comments at the close of the article an even more sinister indictment of the state of affairs regarding human life in this country. He said, "My investigators are adamant about this case. I'm adamant about it and I think it's a tragedy...that they have this veil of late term abortion...Once the baby was born alive, that changed the whole complexion. They can slaughter anyone they want according to the statues before birth, but not after."

What is the difference between the status of that child's life simply because the baby emerged from it's mothers birth canal prematurely? Had the clinic abortionist showed up to work that morning when the 18 year-old girl arrived at the clinic, this child would have had its life snuffed out inside the womb and this story never would have made the headlines. But since the baby made the six to eight inch plunge down her mother's birth canal, came into the world kicking and gasping for air, now it's considered murder that the clinic worker denied this baby life. What a tragic, gross, irresponsible, horrific justification for what humanity often views as the inconvenience of human life. Scripture tells us that children are a gift from the Lord. They are a reward (Ps 127:3), and yet we live in a culture that squanders the rich blessings of God in the name of choice.