“Every child a wanted child” is a common rallying cry for abortion. Planned Parenthood is a fan of this mantra, as are countless abortion activists. If a baby is not going to be raised in a loving household, with parents that wanted him or her, it’s better for the baby to just not be born at all, they say. It’s a horrible line of thinking, yet it persists. The latest to hawk it is Katharine Whitehorn for The Guardian, yet her piece somehow manages to be even more offensive than the usual.
Titled “Every child should be a wanted child,” Whitehorn starts by linking to a post written by Cathy Warwick, in which she claims that the Royal College of Midwives in the United Kingdom supports the decriminalization of abortion. Neither Whitehorn nor Warwick points out that Warwick signed midwives up without their permission to her pro-abortion campaign, something that caused an international controversy. But dabbling in dishonest reporting wasn’t enough for Whitehorn — she then jumped right into the downright offensive.
But there’s a lot to be said for preventing babies from being born who are going to be unwelcome and therefore have a rotten childhood. A few years ago the crime figures of New York were suddenly much lower than they had been, and researchers linked the fact to high numbers of abortions in the year when the potential criminals would otherwise have been born.
The hope for “every child to be a wanted child” is of course best achieved by some women not getting pregnant in the first place, but whatever role a baby is going to play it should surely not be that of a punishment for its mother’s “unsuitable behaviour”.
Ah, yes. We need to make sure we abort those poor babies because hey, they’ll probably grow up to be criminals, right? It would be interesting to know if Whitehorn truly understood the utter racism of that statement. She references New York City — where 78% of abortions are of black and Hispanic babies — and praises the high number of abortions because it curbs potential criminals from being born.
Really, let that sink in.
This is the same argument used by now-infamous abortionist Ron Virmani, who claimed that he needed to perform abortions so that taxpayers didn’t have to pay for “ugly black babies” who would just grow up to be murderers. But the abortion lobby was silent then, and didn’t condemn his remarks, just as they likely won’t condemn Whitehorn’s. What do they care? Racism is inherent to the abortion movement. They go out of their way to defending aborting minority babies, or poor babies, or disabled babies… any baby that could be considered inconvenient or undesirable. But then, they’re just following Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s lead.
And once again, we have an abortion activist claiming that if a baby isn’t wanted, then he or she is worthless. This is so incredibly offensive, that there are almost no words. (Almost.) It’s the “better dead than” argument, over and over and over again. Better dead than disabled. Better dead than unloved. Better dead than poor. Better dead than a minority, apparently — and better dead than a potential criminal. Pregnancy is only permitted if it happens under perfect circumstances; anything less, and the baby is a burden who needs to be gotten rid of. It’s a horrific line of thinking that robs people of all walks of life of their intrinsic worth.
Babies who weren’t initially wanted can still grow up to be loved. Children from a rough childhood can still be successful and happy. And even if someone’s life isn’t perfect or happy or filled with financial success — even if someone is a criminal — that person’s life still has value. Every person has inherent dignity and value, and that can’t be taken away simply because some pro-abortion advocate has decided to make a subjective judgment on whether or not someone’s life is worth living.
