Sarah Lockner was allegedly caught stuffing her newborn baby boy down the toilet during her McDonald’s shift on September 4. She’s been arrested, but the stark truth is, had she had an abortion on September 3, her actions would have been legal. The tragic and horrifying story of the 25-year old who gave birth during her shift was reported in the Los Angeles Times:
[The] Redwood City woman visited the restaurant’s bathroom multiple times, to the concern of a co-worker.
When the co-worker entered the bathroom to check on Lockner, prosecutors said, there was blood on the floor.
Lockner tried to dismiss the bloody mess and blamed it on a heavy period, prosecutors said.
But Lockner’s behavior had drawn the attention of a second co-worker, who also decided to check on her.
The second employee walked into the bathroom, peered over Lockner’s stall and “saw a newborn baby face down in toilet bowl,” prosecutors said.
Lockner had her hand on the baby’s back, according to the district attorney’s office. The employee then heard the toilet flush.
According to the Times, Lockner begged the employee not to call the police, but she did. And when the police showed up, Lockner was holding the baby. She claimed she didn’t even know she was pregnant. The story reports:
The baby had no pulse and was not breathing, so officers performed CPR and rushed the infant to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, he said.
The infant is alive and in stable condition, but the extent of the baby’s brain injuries was not known.
While this story is one that might cause the most ardent abortion supporter to wince, the reality is that Lockner’s story is a reminder that very little separates what is legal and illegal when it comes to abortion. While abortion at full term isn’t widespread, it’s actually legal in several states. Lockner is in jail, where the charges against her include felony child abuse, inflicting great bodily injury, in addition to an attempted murder charge–and, of course, if she’s proven to have committed such a heinous act, then the charges are well-merited.
Consider the reactions of people in the news report: One man says his reaction was “Incomprehensible sadness. I mean, you don’t know what someone is thinking. You just reach out to the baby, and to the mother.” Another said, “I can’t imagine, just the thought of it… I just can’t believe somebody would do that.”
These men probably echo what many Americans would think upon hearing of this story, yet many who would feel the tragedy of this event also defend a woman’s “right to choose.” The dissonance between many who condemn killing a newborn while simultaneously justifying late-term abortion is stark, and this story illuminates it more.
But this is what late-term abortion is, except it happens in a medical facility. While the act may be more sanitized, the real difference is that the baby is killed by a digoxin injection inside the womb and then delivered dead, instead of being killed outside the womb. In both cases, a real human being, with a beating heart and an ability to feel pain, is destroyed at will.
Clearly Lockner’s son suffered pain, and that same baby would have suffered the same level of pain had he been legally aborted the day before. Many choose to believe that abortion in the ninth month doesn’t happen, but as Live Action has reported, abortions this late in pregnancy certainly do happen, and several states allow abortionists to kill preborn babies at this stage:
Finding them requires little more than a Google search. Colorado abortionist Warren Hern, who will abort a baby in the ninth month, isn’t shy about what he offers. His website discusses third trimester abortions, claiming women who obtain them “are almost always seeking services for termination of a desired pregnancy that has developed serious complications.”
According to other late-term abortionists, like Susan Robinson, this is not true. Even infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller, now deceased, admitted that less than 10 percent of the abortions he performed late in pregnancy were for fetal anomaly.
Indeed, report after report shows that most late-term abortions are not committed for medical reasons. That’s what makes Lockner’s story such a vivid picture of the reality of what late-term abortion is doing to a living, breathing baby. Police are right to arrest and charge anyone who commits such a crime; few would argue that fact.
Why, then, would we allow that same baby to be aborted the day before delivery and call it a “choice”?
