Abortion deaths as propaganda

Last week in Germantown, Md., a young woman underwent a late-term abortion. At 33 weeks pregnant, the operation was a complex, multiday procedure. She died the following day from complications.

Obviously, late-term abortions are a controversial procedure, and not without good reason.

Moral questions notwithstanding, such operations are wildly dangerous, as compared to the abortion procedures that can be performed in the earlier stages of a pregnancy.

Therefore, late-term abortions are performed only when there is something severely wrong with the fetus or giving birth would pose a grave medical risk for the mother.

This woman — young, married and with a baby registry picked out online — did not wake up one morning and casually decide to undergo a dangerous procedure simply because she decided she didn’t really want a kid after all.

Her situation was heart-breaking and tragic, but at least she ought to be entitled to privacy and dignity afforded by the HIPPA laws, which protect patient information.

As you can probably guess, this is the point where the story moves from simply depressing to enraging.

Shortly after her death, her name and medical records were leaked to anti-abortion groups, which quickly organized protests in front of the clinic.

Her face and medical profile have since become a part of the Maryland anti-abortion protesters’ demonstration.

After all, who wouldn’t want their personal tragedy to be twisted out of context and used as part of a nationwide propaganda rally against an abortion doctor?

Anyone who didn’t spend the months leading up to the November election blackout drunk or in Canada probably remembers the phrase “war on Christianity” unthinkingly bandied about.

If one were to accept this fundamentally flawed analogy for a moment, that would make these protesters the war criminals who torture and murder innocent, unarmed civilians.

That said, the legality of abortion hardly constitutes a war waged on Christianity.

The Roman Empire knew what a war on Christianity looked like, and it involved mass crucifixions, boiling oil and lions.

It’s hard to label the most prevalent religion in the United States, where believers are free to worship in peace, as persecuted simply because there are non-believers who don’t abide by its tenets.

At the risk of sounding trite, American freedom of religion means everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs.

No laws are forcing Christians to get abortions. They are just asking them to accept there are instances in which abortions serve a vital medical function.

If the knowledge that somewhere there are people engaging in behavior you find immoral bothers you so much you’re willing to do anything you can to hurt them, you need psychological help, not a crusade.

There are right ways and wrong ways to make a statement.

Taking a young woman’s tragic death out of context and violating the privacy of her grieving family to do so is not simply wrong. It’s ghoulish, and it undermines the sane, respectful members of the religion who don’t worship under a siege mentality.

­— stefsoko@indiana.edu