By Dave Andrusko

As I have explained many times, often the most revealing stories come courtesy of our faithful readers. This post comes from the Herald Sun (Austrialia). It's headlined, "No shame in aborting unborn life" and is written by Susie O'Brien.

Let's be clear. The first objective of pro-lifers is not "shaming" anyone, but rather saving the lives of unborn babies and the future psychological, emotional, and spiritual health of women facing crisis pregnancies.

Where we part company (actually we part company even earlier, but…)with people like Ms. O'Brien is over the self-serving and lethal mistake-erasing notion that it is better to be the "good" mother of a dead baby than a "bad" mother of a living baby.

That is, not only shouldn't women be ashamed of their abortions, they ought to take a certain kind of pride, according to O'Brien. They weighed their situation, check-listed their parental skills, evaluated the totality of their environment and chose…what they chose.

Thus she can conclude, "Yes, it is a big, important, life-changing event that should be taken seriously" (referring to abortion), "but let's get off the guilt-trip," she advises.

Obviously, she already held that opinion. But now O'Brien feels she has "science" behind her in the form of a study out of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Women's Health and Society.

In case anyone thinks the guilt-trip kicks in in the second-trimester, think again. As is always the case, this rationale applies equally well to later abortions as it does to earlier abortions.

"One woman interviewed, Abigail, didn't realise she was pregnant until this time, and decided to have an abortion because she had been drinking heavily and feared for the foetus's health. 'You know, you don't just have a child because you can,' she told researchers."

Think about that for a second. It's almost as if she is trying to tell herself she wasn't really pregnant in the first place--that becoming a mother was some future event, the path down which she had not already taken the first (or multiple) steps.

I understand fully that when we violate values written on our souls we must find rationalizations. Just, please, don't tell me that a baby torn limb from limb is "better off."