No, I did not make that quote up. It flowed from the lips of the Reverend Laura Young, explaining to thinkprogress.org why she and others from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice are blessing Preterm, a local abortion clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
And, no, I did not make up “blessing” either.
Who is the Rev. Young? I did a quick check in the Columbus Dispatch. From one story I learned
This year, Young, a United Methodist minister in the West Ohio Conference, was assigned by Bishop Gregory Palmer to serve as executive director of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. The coalition, which had gone about two years without a director, had fallen largely quiet. Young aims to change that.
Calling herself a “progressive theological thinker and a feminist,” Young said goals include encouraging clergy members to testify at legislative hearings on anti-abortion bills and advocating for organizations that provide women’s health care, including abortions and contraception.
The story, by JoAnne Viviano, concludes with Rev. Young pining for the good old days, “Before the Roe v. Wade decision,” when “clergy members were ‘on the front lines.”
“Clergy have not been vigilant,” Young said. “People of faith have not been vigilant. So these rights and this access has eroded.”
So “vigilant” means, for example, lobbying in Ohio against a measure to protect unborn babies capable of feeling excruciating pain as they torn apart limb from limb. And against measures to protect unborn babies from losing their lives because they are diagnosed with Down syndrome, or involving parents in the abortion decisions of their minor daughters or requiring that abortionists (many of whom parachute in a few days a month) have admitting privileges at a local hospital when they botch an abortion.
But “vigilant” also means straightening out the “misguided faith” she sees at Preterm. Of course the “misguided faith” is most decidedly not ending the lives of God’s children, but rather is the province of those who peacefully tell women as they enter Preterm that there is a better way.
Rev Young insists they are hurling hate and judgment which leads women to later question their decision.
“Is that loving God? she tells Alex Zielinski rhetorically. “Is that loving your neighbor as yourself?”
But she is just getting started. “There is a reverence for life that happens in this clinic,” Rev. Young pronounced. “And the decision to get an abortion is often a really, really, spiritual decision. Even if someone personally wouldn’t get an abortion, they should at least understand this.”
Who is the “neighbor” closest to the pregnant woman? Her baby.
Is using steel tools to tear apart a well-developed unborn child by brute force an act of love?
Is God honored, let alone loved, when His children are killed because they are girls rather boys, “imperfect,” “unwanted,” or because their arrival is not penciled in on the day planner?
Would it be a “spiritual decision” if a woman (or a man) decided that birth is an arbitrary line of moral and legal demarcation and thus it is okay to kill the child a day later, or a week later, or a year later?
In what universe is this a satisfactory answer: “I wouldn’t personally murder my newborn, but I can at least understand how someone else would”?
Enough of this nonsense.
Editor’s note. If you want to peruse stories all day long, either go directly to nationalrighttolifenews.org.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
