It doesn’t take a doctor of semantics to decipher the fact that Planned Parenthood’s tag-line, “Every child a wanted child,” carry’s absolutely no substance at all. The phrase is used to justify abortion, which is by definition, the killing of an unborn baby. Planned Parenthood touts the phrase around and around the country, and we, the really educated citizens of the states have not united in coming up with cogent rhetoric as to why there is no such thing as “unwanted children.”
Before we deconstruct the idea of “unwantedness,” let’s recognize the appeal of the tag-line. It is appealing to consider that every child will be absolutely cherished by his or her birth parents upon birth. The appeal comes from the imbedded notion that “wanted babies” will live a life of giggling while the so-called “unwanted babies” will live a life of crying.
Giggling vs Crying.
“I want you, therefore thou shall giggle.”
“I just wanted sex and now I have a new, little, pooping human, therefore thou shall cry.”
Planned Parenthood likes the giggles, right? There’s where it gets the tag line, right? If only that were remotely true, I could be writing blogs about fashion or celebrity divorces, or something else Really Important. Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood isn’t thinking giggling vs crying. Planned Parenthood is a business and it wants your money. The way it gets your money is by scraping the lining of your uterus with a curette and emptying the “contents of the uterus” (read: YOUR BABY) out into a collection bottle. (I am not trying to be crass. I am seriously just telling the truth.)
Let’s go deep. The entire idea of “unwanted children” is a FICTIONAL IDEA. As in, it’s fake. There’s actually no such thing as unwanted children. A human being in and of his or herself cannot be ‘unwanted.’ The basic reason for this is the fact that every human being has human dignity! (Dignity means “worth.”) You’ve got it. I’ve got it. The babies of Papa New Guinea have got it. It is The Reason why we can’t abort babies.
Human dignity is understood to be inherent; something that is “inherent” is integral to our very being. The U.S. government does not grant this unto us, the National Education Association doesn’t vote on our dignity, and Kofi Annan has no part in the delineation of dignity. Human beings should have the right to live solely on the basis of being human. Furthermore, since unborn humans are human, they should have the same inherent right to live as humans that are born.
The unwanted state of being pregnant and the human inside of a pregnant woman is often confused. We transfer the idea that when being pregnant is not the desired outcome of sex, that a child is unwanted as well. This false correlation of ours does not strip the baby of his or her inherent human dignity. Just because we don’t “get” that sex makes babies, does not give us license to kill babies.
Remember that in-utero and out-of-utero, we are talking about the same child. Just as we cannot kill a child that is, for example, orphaned, out-of-utero, we cannot kill a child who is theoretically orphaned while he or she is still in-utero. Killing is still killing even if the location has changed.
The following may illustrate more clearly why ‘wanted-ness’ is not a measure by which we can justify the legality of abortion. You are walking down the street and come upon an infant lying on the sidewalk with a sign above him or her that states, “Unwanted, do not disturb.” How many people would keep walking past the baby because the sign says “unwanted?” I truly think that whether you are a business man speed walking to a meeting, a fourth grader on the way to the park, or a grad student on the way to defend your doctoral thesis, you will stop in your tracks, pick up the baby, call the police, and hold the baby until the police arrive.
Consider another angle. “Wanting” someone is a changeable feeling from one human to another human. The key here, is that human feelings change. Monday: I “want” you. Tuesday: I don’t “want” you. We cannot have legal abortion based upon a sentiment that changes.
It is often argued that it is “not fair” to bring a child into the world under particular circumstances. So is dismemberment the answer? Being killed is “more fair?” Besides, the unborn are already in the world. They are “brought in” by sex, not by birth. Birth is an event that happens in life, it does not give life.
Randy Alcorn, in the book, “Pro-Life Answers To Pro-Choice Arguments,”
comments on why it is invalid to assert that abortion is in the best interest of the child.
“One of the most misleading aspects of prochoice argumentation is that it makes it appear that abortion is in the best interests of the baby. This is so absurd that it would be laughable if it were not so tragic. A little person is torn limb from limb, never to see the light of day, for her benefit? Slave owners argued that slavery was in the best interest of the blacks, since they couldn’t make it on their own. Today people say, “I can’t have this child because I can’t give it a good life.” And what is the solution to not being able to give him a good life? To take from him the only life he has. Exploiting people and stripping them of their rights is always easier when we tell ourselves we’re doing it for their good rather than our own.” (page 142)
It is our adult assumption that babies born into particular circumstances are destined to be unhappy. It is then our assumption that we should kill people who are destined to unhappiness. We forget that the babies are already in the world and are alive. We forget that it is our adult problem of not loving enough, our adult problem of not wanting, and our adult problem of not seeing that unhappiness is not a true destiny, it is a projected assumption. How dare we assume another person’s life is doomed based upon circumstances of his or her parents.
We are being lied to by Planned Parenthood. The lie is, “You don’t have the capacity to love children that did not spring from your very own loins.” However, as the example of coming across a baby with an “unwanted” sign illustrates, we do truly have the capacity to put aside our very important lives and care for the smallest, most defenseless among us. We must recognize the lies of Planned Parenthood, we must ignore the signs above unborn babies heads that figuratively read, “Unwanted,” and we must publicly and confidently acknowledge that the standard of being “wanted” is an invalid measure when it comes to the legality of killing a little baby.
