For decades, legalized abortion has been slickly marketed or packaged by the radicalized feminist movement and the abortion industry as empowerment for women and freedom from the oppressive patriarchy. Ironically, the very movement that claims to champion equality for women views women as inherently incomplete. Equality and fulfillment, abortion supporters argue, can only be realized by granting mothers the legal right to impose lethal force against their offspring. The International Planned Parenthood Federation states on their website,
“Denying women the ability to choose to end an unwanted pregnancy under safe and legal conditions is a violation of human rights and flies in the face of the empowerment agenda.”[i]
Lila Rose, president of Live Action, confronts the notion that women need a little something extra–namely abortion–to measure up to men:
“The biological reality of our bodies is not a threat to our freedom. The idea that women need the same ‘ability’ as men to not carry a child for nine months is absurd. On the contrary—that women can carry children is an ability, an amazing gift. It is not something to be mocked, controverted, and disabled.”[ii]
Lila couldn’t be more correct. Jeffrey Ventrella, from Alliance Defending Freedom, adds, “When the most dangerous place for a young person today is in his mother’s womb, that is a work of the devil.”[iii]
So true. When it comes to abortion empowering women, the devil is in the details, as evidenced in a heartbreaking story told to me by a woman who approached me after I spoke at a church in Michigan. I share her story with her permission, though I’ve changed her name.
Laura’s childhood innocence was stolen by a string of her mother’s boyfriends who repeatedly molested and raped her. Her own mother turned a blind eye to Laura’s abuse, and in 1977, at only 12 years of age, Laura became pregnant. Realizing the legal consequences and the relational upheaval this could cause, five months into Laura’s pregnancy her mother put her in the car and drove her to Planned Parenthood. Laura had no idea where she was going or what was about to transpire, but she remembers having to sign something at that clinic at the tender age of twelve. Before long, this little girl who should have been home playing with neighborhood friends was instead lying on a surgical table experiencing tremendous physical and emotional pain while her mother sat next to the abortionist and coldly narrated the horrific details of her abortion to her.
Nothing could be added to this story to make it any worse, except for the pitiful fact that this scenario was repeated two more times during Laura’s childhood: two more times she became pregnant by her mother’s perverted boyfriends and underwent forced abortions! As Laura pointed out to me, had abortion been illegal the abuse would likely have ended, her abuser would have been locked up, and her first child would be alive today. Instead, the only “empowerment” realized was by the men who raped her and by the abortionists who killed her children for financial profit.
Thankfully, the night before Laura’s 14th birthday a friend encouraged her to put her trust in Christ. On that night, the One who promises to give rest to those who are weary and burdened began His sanctifying work in Laura. As a result, she has experienced His comfort and healing and is now happily married to a godly man. Laura’s story is living proof that abortion does not empower women or little girls; it makes them victims. For all its bluster, many of Big Abortion’s victims are those it claims to champion.
Laura’s story is living proof that abortion does not empower women or little girls; it makes them victims. For all its bluster, Big Abortion victimizes the very ones it claims to champion.
Note: This story is an excerpt from Mike Spencer’s book, Humanly Speaking: The Evil of Abortion, the Silence of the Church, and the Grace of God. It is available at Amazon.
Mike Spencer is the president of Project LifeVoice, a gospel driven ministry that inspires and equips pro-life ambassadors to speak intelligently and to act sacrificially on behalf of the most vulnerable among us, our preborn neighbors whose lives are targeted by elective abortion.
To find out more about Mike go to www.projectlifevoice.com.
[i]International Planned Parenthood Federation website, “Abortion: The Right to Choose Is A Human Right,” September 27, 2013
[ii]Lila Rose, “The Myth of Empowerment Through Abortion,” The Washington Times, June 3, 2013
[iii]Jeffery Ventrella, Alliance Defending Freedom, Mr. Ventrella shared this statement in various public speaking events.
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