Truth Is

In pondering life, as I was led to do this weekend, I reflected upon this: Truth is truth. Truth remains immovable, unaltered, and unaffected by the elaborate individual and cultural dances we perform around it.

Track with me on this one a bit:

Regardless of our varied, individual perceptions on any given matter, truth remains unaltered.

Truth simply is. While we grapple around, trying to wrap our minds around it and ground ourselves into a position surrounding it, it simply IS. Truth is steady, unchangeable, and radically unaffected by our flawed, finite lack of complete comprehensionor just plain denial of it.

I especially ponder this considering the state of the world and our nation of late. My heart is led toward two especially tender topics for me upon which this musing is particularly evident.

God IS.

Our responses to that reality as human beings span the gamut, from denial to indifference, from cynical reluctant acknowledgement to open welcoming hearts. We, as people, however varied our responds to God are, DO NOT CHANGE the fact that God IS. Yes, I realize there are such positions as atheism and agnosticism which would, on their surface, appear to either deny the existence of or simply not take into account the existence of God. However, to achieve intellectual honesty, one must first acknowledge a concept in order to develop a position surrounding it. This is among the reasons I am convinced that atheism and agnosticism are less than tenable stances, as they lack integrity in their very structural genesis.

None of our rantings, opinions, beliefs, religions, rebellions, and worship styles alter the person, perfection, or presence of God. Christians, Jews, Muslims invested in generational bickering over ecclesiastical or ecumenical differences does not alter God. We shine a rather pale reflection of Him by our behavior, but we do hot change the TRUTH that God is by our flawed pursuit of Him amidst warring egos.

The other tender topic that stirred my mind and heart in this deeper exploration of truth is that of abortion. Those who know me personally know that abortion is perhaps the single greatest human cause that defines my heart as a person. In 1973, I was born unto the first American generation of babies to have thousands upon thousands of us lost to abortion legally. I hurt because of the souls lost to abortion - both mothers and children. I feel as though my insides are being raked with sandpaper each time I hear the word "choice" used to describe the ending of another tiny human being's life at the will and hand of his or her mother. Abortion is not about statistics, reasons, social trends, the so-called women's movement, empowerment, or the ghastly vague concept of "choice". It is about truth.

And the truth is that abortion kills another human being.

As an elective procedure, it is the deliberate undertaking to kill an innocent person before he or she has the opportunity to complete the development process and achieve birth. Assuming healthy mental capacity, none of us champions the killing of innocent human beings at will, do we? Though I have heard it argued, I believe most of us reject the proposal that abortion is a fantastic, terrific, peachy phenomenon ~ a necessary and laudable tool for societal reformation and insurance against overpopulation. Nowhere do we see cheerleaders chanting rah-rah-rah outside the clinics as tiny body parts of developing babies are scraped from pregnant wombs and disposed of, do we? I am not aware of a single human being other than Hitler who believes/ed that abortion is a wonderful tool for achieving a noble purpose. And Hitler is not included in my analysis ~ as he is certainly not the poster child for mental health.

Abortion is NOT wonderful. It is not necessary in the vast majority (read: almost every single one) of cases in which is is 'opted for'. Even those of us who support our guaranteed "right" to abortion on demand most ardently are quick to claim personal denunciation of it. But without admitting the truth of what it does (kill someone) we are free to let ourselves off the hook for any degree of accountability for our actions.

Why is it acceptable for anyone to kill an innocent developing child?

The prevailing arguments in support of abortion in this nation seem to rely on a vague concept of reproductive choice as being a guaranteed right even AFTER it has already been exercised via the sexual act which resulted in a conception (assuming cosent). We repoduce sexually. Sex can result in a pregnancy. That is a risk we assume when we engage in sex and it is OUR responsibility, not our unborn child's. However, the argument persists that if a woman does not want to give birth to the baby she is carrying, she should have the RIGHT to choose not to at any time prior to the baby's birth.

I gotta tell you, there is such rampant, indulgent, ego-centrism in that notion it is almost unbelievable that it is subscribed to by so many.

We do not have the RIGHT to kill innocent lives, born or preborn, based on our perception of those innocent lives as they relate to ourselves. Simply because we do not want our baby does not alter the fact that the baby IS already alive, a wholly separate individual from us, already his or her own person, with his or her own fingerprints, DNA, body, mind, spirit, and soul. Just because it is not convenient for us to be pregnant does not change in any way that we ARE PREGNANT - life has already begun. The circumstances surrounding a pregnancy do not change or alter the truth that there is now another living human being to consider alongside our own selves. As much as we dance around it, make excuses, offer cryptic analyzations, empathize with the mother's situation, or downplay the loss of life at the end of every abortion procedure, the TRUTH remains intact. Elective abortion kills innocent human beings because they are an inconvenient byproduct of sexual choices. In other words, when we do not like the results of our choices, we can erase them. Even when the result is the creation of a human being - we can just erase them because they are less important than we are - less valuable because we cannot hear their voices or caress their faces. Because we cannot tangibly experience the reality that is our babies, it becomes easier to dispose of them at will.

To make the meekest of all beings, a developing baby, pay with its own life for our choice, is an unimaginable act of selfishness and evil. It causes me such deep anguish that we so easily outsource our reproductive responsibility to the most innocent of all scapegoats, who then bear the burden for OUR CHOICE.

With her life.

Our rights become our babies' responsibility.

How sick we've become when innocent life is valued on the sliding scale of worthiness based on OUR lives, not the life of the innocent. That the truth of life ALREADY EXISTING is so easily trumped by our convenience and whiny "well, I don't waaaaaant it." Sounds like the familiar whine of an insolent child.. And yet, that is all that is required to kill a baby these days - that we do not waaaaaaant the baby already alive within us and will therefore exercise our right to kill it. While it is honorable and so necessary that we assist and support and love ALL women who become unexpectedly pregnant through their journey to birth, it is unthinkable to me that we legally codify and have made more socially acceptable the self-indulgent choice to end a child's life because it is inconvenient or "unwanted". Truly disheartening.

Thousands of the most innocent and helpless among us, our babies, perish every day by the reasoned CHOICE of the very vessels designed to harbor and protect them: their mothers. At least one tiny developing baby/fetus/human being is dead at the end of every abortion. The truth is that abortion is the legalized killing of an innocent person at the option of another. Unlike the justification required in order to end the life of anyone who has already completed their development process and has been born, abortion requires no reason, no defense, no justification. There is no requirement to prove the necessity to end the life of an innocent baby, beyond simply, "it is my right" or even worse, "it's my body, it's my choice."

What a boldface denial of truth.

Abortion is not a benign choice. It is the killing of a developing baby. Not some random amorphic appendage of a mother's body - but a separate individual being. Temporarily dependent, but wholly unique. What was alive is now dead because we did not WAAAAAAAANT it.

TRUTH hurts, stings, and angers at times. But but it remains intact and steadfast despite any analytical or intellectual reasonings or foot stamping we throw at it. And sooner or later, it must be reconciled to our hearts lest our hearts become hard to it.