30 seconds to save a life

There's a devastating sickness abroad in our land.

HIV? No, that's very serious and alarmingly widespread, but it pales in contrast to the sickness I'm talking about here. Polio? No, the Salk vaccine seems to have brought that scourge under control. Cancer? No, although hundreds of thousands of Americans are afflicted with this dread malady – and too many die – it's not the sickness I'm not talking about.

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I'm referring to a sickness that is taking the lives of some million and a half young Americans every year, and has claimed an estimated 40 million lives since 1973. I'm talking about abortion.

I'm talking about willful, intentional termination of life; decisions and actions that invade the sanctity of a woman's womb and literally kill another human being – a helpless, unknowing infant. And, as horrific as that is on its face, an equally abhorrent part of the sickness I'm referring to is the apathetic, even approving attitude toward this terrible practice that is so widespread 30 or 40 percent of our fellow citizens say that it's appropriate!

How, in this humane society, this historically Judeo-Christian society with its tens of thousands of houses of worship and its robust humanitarian organizations, is such a warped, soulless, callous and uncaring attitude possible? Was George Orwell actually prophetic in his futuristic novel "1984" when he described passengers on an ocean liner, leaning over the rails and laughing hysterically as other passengers who had fallen overboard tried frantically to escape the sharks that were already starting to devour them?

Has America, at last, come to a collective mentality like the one that allowed the German public to look the other way when they knew that millions of their fellow citizens were being systematically slaughtered in concentration camps and laboratories? The sickness is evident, it's real, it's statistically substantiated. And it hasn't just "happened." It has been promoted, marketed, sold in TV spots, and approved and lauded by political candidates who actually trumpet their support for it and say they will never stop defending "a woman's right to choose."

What is that "choice" that's being defended so proudly? The choice whether to destroy a life – or to let it continue.

I'm a father of girls, four of them. My wife and I had to consider what we'd do, and what we'd advise a daughter, if she found herself to be pregnant. (Remember when it was called being "with child"?) In consultation with our girls, we decided together that if a child was ever created, no matter the circumstances, we would accept and nurture that little creature who hadn't asked to be created, but had been – and was alive and had a right to live.

Just making that collective decision ahead of time, before the crisis arose, helped assure that the crisis never occurred, thank God. And it led to my active, longtime involvement with the Vitae Caring Foundation.

Vitae ("life" in Latin) is a savvy, empathetic and tireless organization that's doing a very effective job across this country. It produces 30-second TV spots, just like the ad agencies do for cars, toothpaste and breakfast cereal; and these short messages are reaching millions of young people with hope, help and alternatives to killing unborn babies. They've found that most women, even those facing unwanted pregnancies, will opt for letting the little innocent child live – if they're presented facts and not glossy, appealing propaganda. Let me give you one example, from Vitae in their latest newsletter. The following account is told by Melissa Horn, sonographer (sonogram specialist), in Jacksonville, Fla:

Bree, 17 years old, happened to see one of our commercials on Sunday. She called our hotline number on Monday after she got home from school. Bree assumed we were an abortion clinic and wanted to find out how much it would cost to terminate her pregnancy. She'd called other clinics who couldn't give her an estimate because she was unsure when her last menstrual cycle had begun. I explained to her that we would be able to confirm the pregnancy and more importantly perform an ultrasound to determine how far along she was, but that we did not perform abortions. She knew that the prices elevate weekly as the pregnancy progresses, and she desperately needed that information to calculate the cost.

Within an hour, Bree and her boyfriend were in our office. We then discovered she'd already had a "termination" less than 8 months before. She wasn't interested in learning about adoption, nor parenting; she just wanted to "take care of the problem." Her boyfriend was silent, so I suggested we go ahead with the ultrasound.

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Instantly, the three of us viewed a very large and developed baby on the screen. The images were clear and the baby quite active. We saw beautiful shots of their child, with perfect feet, hands opening and closing in a tiny fist, sweet facial shots with the baby's eyes open. Bree was nearly 18 weeks pregnant.

There was total silence in the room while the two of them digested what they'd just seen – so I printed out over a dozen prints of their baby and waited for their decision. Suddenly the boy, seeming agitated, said he'd take care of the baby by himself if he had to, but they were not going to abort it.

Very soberly, Bree asked some hopeful prenatal care questions, and she and the boy talked it over. They decided right then against the abortion.

Just a few days later, Bree called back to tell us she was feeling better about the decision, and that she and her boyfriend were even getting excited about the baby and finding out if it was a boy or girl … no longer just a "problem."

That child is alive today, thanks to Vitae. But it was also alive then, when it was marked for destruction.

This true story, and thousands like it, gives me hope for our country. I've been praying for years that our people would experience that visual phenomenon that occurs when you're looking at an inkblot – seeing one image, but then, in the twinkling of an eye, seeing a different image, though the lines and shadows are the same. Only the perception has changed. And changed perception is what Vitae is about. Changed perception saves lives.

Yes, unwanted, unintended pregnancy, no matter the circumstances, is a serious matter for any woman. As a father of four girls and grandfather of 10 more, I get it. But there are at least two lives at issue here – the mother and the child. When that is truly perceived, the decisions become much clearer.

If you visit its website, you'll be moved viewing some of the Vitae Caring Foundation's life-saving 30-second spots. Please remember to send any friends who may face similar decisions there to get the real facts.

We're not just talking about saving millions of babies' lives; we're addressing the macabre, loathsome sickness of the soul that has made killing babies seem acceptable, even admirable. This is literally a deadly disease, and we must find the cure ... for the sake of our nation.

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