An Inconvenient Truth

In 2006 Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States, released a documentary titled "An Inconvenient Truth". In this documentary Gore tries to make the claim that humans have destroyed the planet through our very presence. My views on that are simple. God created this whole place and we are arrogant indeed if we think we can destroy it. Now all Christians ought to take care of what we have been blessed with, but I'm pretty sure that God factored us in when he set the universe in motion. One of Gore's main points was that we can't just ignore it and make it go away. In fact we are responsible for our indifference. Just because it is inconvenient is no reason to ignore it.

This brings me to the real Inconvenient Truth. Not something made up, but something that is real and tragic. In fact I can barely write this it hurts so much. Since 1973 a conservative estimate projects us to pass 50 million abortions early next year in the U.S. Let me write that again: 50 million. Just sit there and think about that number. What a tragedy! Nay, what an abomination! Each one of those is a human being, a thinking feeling person! Those babies each possessed a soul, a brain, a heart, and all the essentials to live. They only needed some help, instead they got a needle.

I once asked a Wednesday evening assembly to raise their hand if they were born in 1973 or later. I then told them to thank their parents for not killing them. We are survivors of an atrocity. When historians look back and see how many deaths a certain ruler, or a specific generation of people are responsible for, they often mention Hitler, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, or Joseph Stalin. Well that list needs to include the U.S. Oh sure abortion is a world-wide plague, but the U.S. should know better. We are the most financially blessed country in the history of the world. With the best educated populace in history. We should know better. We are the ones responsible.

I wonder do we have blood on our hands? Oh, we stand up and say how wrong this is, but surely there has to be a better way. How is it that after 36 years of government sanctioned murder we have not moved the pendulum one inch. We haven't gotten any closer to ending this abomination since it started. Perhaps it is because we ignore it. It's an inconvenience to our lives. We don't like to hear about it, and we don't like to talk about it. We certainly don't want to think about it. So we push it aside, perhaps giving it lip service, but no more than a passing sigh, or a thoughtless "How tragic."

I knew a boy who personally survived an abortion. His mother went to a "clinic" to have him killed. She flipped a coin at the door, heads he lived, tails he died. The coin landed on heads and she dropped her head, got back into the car, and carried the boy to term. He told me this story in the 7th grade. The boy was alive, but scarred by the fact that it was by the flip of a coin. How many coin flips have landed the other way? How many great scientists, artists, mathematicians, athletes, and philosophers have we snuffed out? Perhaps by the chance of a coin. How grand a country, better yet a world, would this be? If you thought 50 million was a large number, consider this. Since the decade began the estimated number of abortions in developed countries is well over 88 million. In ten years!

When will it stop? When it ceases to be an inconvenient truth. It will stop when we decide that we are through allowing it to go on. Or when God decides that he is through with us. We offer our posterity to the altar of convenience. Who will stand up and destroy the altar? Who will stand up for those who have no voice? Who will stand up for life? Who will stand up for God?