All the Awful, Bloody Videos in the World Aren't Going to End Abortion

“We have $19 trillion in debt, we have people out of work, we have ISIS and Al Qaeda attacking us, and we’re talking about fantasy football?”

That was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s personal line of the night in the third GOP primary debate.

And he was absolutely right.

But I’m not here to talk about the debate.

Hang with me for a moment.

Image source: YouTube

The Center for Medical Progress released yet another undercover video, adding to the growing collection of evidence not only of Planned Parenthood’s soulless disregard for human life but also their allegedly blatant and gleeful disregard for the law.

The video — No. 11 in the project — shows a Planned Parenthood medical practitioner describing partial birth abortions. (Which, regardless of your persuasion, is illegal. Period.)

She giggles and sips her coffee while talking about how she’s got “something to strive for” — harvesting the intact head of a baby to obtain the brain. (Apparently, to be sold, by the way.)

She and her colleague coo over how “cute” the heart of the baby is (the heart ripped from the body of the child), and refer to another colleague who practically makes a game out of finding the teeny tiny organs of aborted babies.

By the way, the ultrasound guidance procedure she’s describing in detail “is a hallmark of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure.” For the record, federal law prohibits explicitly what the doctor was describing.

Let’s go back to Christie’s line for a moment, and allow me borrow the same logic:

“We have doctors appearing to admit to committing felonies and giggling over the mutilation and murder of defenseless babies whose mothers have brought them to be sacrificed on the altar of choice — and America can’t muster much more than a shrug?”

Meanwhile, we scream for justice for the young student who was flung to the ground by a cop after she wouldn’t comply.

We’re outraged over the fact that Jennifer Lawrence (who made a cool $52 million last year) made less than her male counterparts and — along with Hillary Clinton (who paid her employees unequally) — demand that justice be served.

We’re indignant over the fact that Wall Street executives haven’t seen the inside of a jail cell over the 2008 financial crisis.

We’re furious over Cecil the Lion’s untimely death.

But 11 videos appearing to show blatant lawbreaking by and moral depravity of people whose lifeblood is the taxpayer dime? Those merit little more than a “meh” from the American public.

Many of us are too busy chuckling over Lena Dunham’s “newsy, sexy, cool Halloween costume.” (She’s dressing up as a Planned Parenthood doctor, in case you were wondering.)

Here's deal. People like me have written piece after piece describing and decrying the utter horrors of abortion. We show pictures of mutilated babies, and now — with the immense work done by the Center for Medical Progress — we can see it on video. We think that at some point the right graphic image will flip the lightbulb on for the American populous.

But it never seems to really happen, and all the images in the world don’t seem to matter.

I’ve had an epiphany. The images don’t matter, because this is no longer about pretending that it’s not a baby — which is the factor that makes these videos so sickening.

I really thought that most abortion providers and the pro-choice crowd had actually convinced themselves that it really isn’t a baby in there — that it’s just a clump of cells. After all, isn’t that the standard response?

It’s why it’s always been called a “fetus” and not a “baby,” right? (And don’t get me wrong, that’s been how the practice’s appearance has been softened.)

I really thought it was about convincing people it was a life in there.

I came across a Salon.com article written nearly two years ago that — when coupled with the revelations in the recent Planned Parenthood videos — set me straight.

“So what if abortion ends a life?” the article read. “I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice.”

There. Someone said it out loud.

At least she was honest.

And so were doctors at Planned Parenthood when they openly admitted the same — amidst footage that depicts dying or dead children in a cold gray room in a cold glass dish.

My heart breaks when I think of my precious little girl who is held and loved and hugged and kissed every day — something those dismembered children will never, ever feel. (I literally had to stop writing this article to go and hug her. Hard.)

But I’ve digressed.

So it's not about convincing the people that it's really a baby in there.

Getty Images

We all know it. Planned Parenthood knows it. Planned Parenthood’s eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger knew it. Every woman who goes into a clinic to rid herself of the result of her and her significant other’s actions — deep down — knows it.

My epiphany? It’s not a matter of having been deeply and wrongly convinced that it’s just a clump of cells: They know it, and they’ve convinced themselves that it’s OK.

Oh, it’s a life, alright. It’s just that “all life is not equal.”

Thus, we can kill the child.

We have to understand the premise we’re dealing with here. Yes — abortion kills a baby, but killing a baby isn’t always murder.

And that’s how a woman can stand there and sip coffee while talking about how “cute” the tiny, lifeless, extracted heart of a baby is.

As much as I believe that everyone needs to see exactly what an abortion looks like, until we somehow reverse course on how our society views life, we get nowhere when we simply talk about how sickening the process of ending an unborn child’s life really is.

To be certain, these videos are a start. They at least help to illustrate what “unequal value of life” looks like. But the shock factor alone isn’t going to change the mind of someone who is convinced that abortion is OK, because “unequal life” is OK.

The conversation must, must start not with convincing people that it's a baby, but with recognizing the every single life has value.

So what do we do?

Maybe we can't convince the die-hard pro-choice crowd, but we can affect their argument.

Simply put, start at square one: It’s a life. We know it; abortion providers know it; abortion advocates know it. It’s just that it’s been deemed less valuable.

So take that premise to its logical end. If we can end life because it’s a burden to another, then how is abortion legal but killing everyone over the age of 65 because they cost society more would be illegal?

How is abortion legal, but killing children whose disabilities are an immense financial and emotional burden on their families would be illegal?

How is abortion legal, but killing all of the unemployed who must live off the earnings of others would be illegal?

If we’re being intellectually honest, there is no difference.

Mary Ramirez is a full-time writer, creator of www.afuturefree.com (a political commentary blog), and contributor to The Chris Salcedo Show (TheBlaze Radio Network, Saturday, from noon to 3 p.m. ET). She can be reached at: afuturefree@aol.com; or on Twitter: @AFutureFree

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