Are Babies Precious or Not?

                             Are Babies Precious or Not?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 4/7/19

            Georgia’s House Bill 481 has hit a nerve nationwide.  Over 100 Hollywood actors have vowed not to work in Georgia again if Governor Kemp signs the so-called “heart beat” bill.  No doubt the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and others who don’t like “social issues” are getting nervous.  Movie production in any state means big money.  Will the Chamber and the Governor stand with those who deem abortion barbaric or will they put dollars above babies?

            The Governor says he will sign the bill.  Since when has Hollywood been the arbiter of Georgia’s politics or laws?  Let Hollywood boycott and make their R-rated movies elsewhere.

            I believe abortion is evil.  Stacy Abrams believes a law to restrict it is evil.  A “political stunt” she also calls it, suggesting it will probably lead to her challenging Governor Brian Kemp for the governorship in 2022.

             In 2006 Abrams stood in my English classroom at Chattahoochee Technical College and  spoke eloquently of effective communication, respect for “the marvel of language,” and how to put one’s best foot forward in job interviews.  She stuck to her topic and never approached politics.  I was as spellbound as the class was by her knowledge and verbal ability.  I appreciated her giving her time and gas money to drive up to Marietta.  She taught us well.

            When Abrams and I were simultaneously serving in the Georgia House of Representatives, there was no talk of abortion bills.  Already the state and the nation were moving toward the Great Recession of ’07 and ’08.  Budgetary matters were our chief concern.  While we were not close friends, we spoke several times about our Mississippi background and her work as a writer.  Right away I learned that she was smart and most personable.

            Though I’ve never read any of her novels, written under the pen name Selena Montgomery, I have read reviews of them.  Her steamy erotica, had it been brought up during the Abrams-Kemp race, would have been a considerable bump in the road for her campaign.

            According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Abrams said the following at a rally in Dalton, Georgia: “The ‘heartbeat bill’ is dangerous.  It‘s scientifically unsupportable.  It will cause harm to women.  We will lose doctors and jobs.”

            A sweeping and erroneous charge there.  Dangerous?  The law would end almost all abortions in Georgia, saving the lives of countless babies.  Scientifically unsupportable?  Perhaps we need the full context of Abrams’ speech to discern this claim.  How does “unsupportable science” touch the issue?  Harm to women?  Abrams is pushing abortion by scaring people with images of teenage girls and coat hangers.  Let’s let a doctor do the same act “safely.”  But coat hanger or forceps, the baby is still “terminated.”  “Terminated” is the most abominable and euphemistic weasel word in the history of the English language.  It means killed. 

            I will never understand how Democrats and moderate Republicans can hold abortion so close to their hearts and defend it so strongly.  Has it not always been a core issue for Democrats?  Nor can I understand how any woman can abide it either.

            Abrams and her cohorts wouldn’t like my mother.  Ocasio-Cortez would have pulled her before the magistrates.  Planned Parenthood would have “counseled” her to abort long before I was born.  Let us just say I’m glad, actually ecstatic, that I wasn’t aborted.  Is Abrams glad she wasn’t?   I firmly believe my loving mother would have warmed the hearts of every abortion supporter on the planet, melting them away from their horrendous support of murderous abortion and shifting them to a belief in the sanctity of all life.  (“sanctity of life”: the expression most Dems simply dismiss). 

I believe my ten sisters, because of their love for life, their faith in God, and their appreciation of beauty, would convert many an abortion supporter as well.  Not with words, but with the example of their joyous lives and their love of life.  My younger brother and me?  I don’t know.  But we do know that poverty doesn’t always kill one’s spirit and can be overcome, even by unwed mothers who spare their babies from abortionists.  He knows that a newborn with severe problems can be a blessing, and our five brothers know that life is a gift to be cherished, not rejected and killed off under the guise of “freedom of choice.”

Are babies precious or not?  If so, at what point do they become precious?  These are terrible questions.  I can’t believe that anyone must ask them.

Roger Hines

4/3/19