I found myself smiling in a sad sort of way as I read a guest editorial in the Des Moines Register by a physician and self-proclaimed “expert on abortion care.” (“Abortion care” I believe is your quintessential oxymoron.) She was commenting negatively on our Iowa Medical Board’s recent decision to ban Telemed Abortions in Planned Parenthood facilities in Iowa. This procedure allowed an abortionist in Des Moines to deliver the RU-486 abortion drug to patients in remote locations by entering a code in his computer that opened a drawer underneath the patient’s computer.
This “expert” doctor had an interesting vocabulary. In her attempt to justify the Telemed Abortion protocol, she wrote about determining the “gestational age of the pregnancy,” and measuring the “size of the pregnancy,” and of “passing the pregnancy.”
Let’s superimpose this expert’s language on non-experts in ordinary life. “Honey, the test was positive. We’re going to have a pregnancy!” “Mom, we had our first ultrasound today and we saw our little pregnancy.” “Feel this. Our pregnancy is kicking!” “Oh, look, our pregnancy is a boy.” “Great news, Dad! Sally just delivered our pregnancy!” “We can’t wait to parent this darling pregnancy.”
Paul tells Pastor Timothy, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths” (1 Timothy 4:7a). Our “expert’s” language is “irreverent.” It not only dehumanizes a truly new and unique human life, it dehumanizes the very handiwork of God. It dehumanizes a child for whom Jesus shed His blood. It dehumanizes a real little someone who God wants to call in baptism and for whom He has a plan and purpose.
Our “expert’s” language is “silly.” It makes no embryological sense. Even we non-physician types can see the total lack of logic and reason and proper terminology. It’s silly! I doubt our good doctor would write this way in a paper on Telemed Abortions submitted to a peer reviewed journal. I can imagine it coming back with “SILLY” scrawled across the top in big red letters! Or would it?
Such silly myths to dehumanize humans in order to justify destroying humans in such inhumane ways are so deeply imbued even in medical professionals that the silly becomes sacrosanct. “[S]eeing they do not see” (Jesus – Matthew 13:13). They turn light into darkness (Job 17:12). They become “blind guides” who “lead the blind” (Matthew 15:14). Many follow. Some are Christians.
We need truth and light. We have Him! Jesus came to “give light to those who sit in darkness” (Luke 1:79). He came and said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We have truth and light in the person of Jesus who saves us. From the vantage point of saved ones, we strive to share His light and truth in our churches and in our world.