Lamaze For the Pro-Death Set

If you take the time to read pro-abortionists (assuming you can steel your nerves sufficiently to get through it), you quickly come to see the aspects of the abortion debate that worry them the most.

Near the top is the Supreme Court which bears the imprint of the two distinguished justices appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate. Pro-abortionists dread that common sense (and the Constitution) might someday prevail.

Ultrasounds also give pro-abortionists the willies. Why? Because they keenly understand the enormous toil it takes on nurses and support staff when ultrasounds are used to draw a bead on unborn children. With unmistakable clarity, the distinctly human characteristics of a human child is there to see just before the child is viciously, brutally obliterated.

But there is a new "danger" on the horizon: men. Yes, you read me right, men. Specifically, the millions and millions of men who are the fathers of the more than 48 million aborted children, who are now gradually beginning to deal publicly with the trauma of their own involvement in the deaths of their children.

The classic (at least in my book) was written by Phil McCombs--"Remembering Thomas," which ran in the Washington Post February 3, 1985. At the time McCombs was a Post reporter, and a terrific one at that.

I get choked up every time I read the anguished, self-accusatory account of his behavior (which "was in all respects craven, immoral") and which ended in the death of the baby McCombs had come to call "Thomas."

"I feel like a murderer -- which isn't to say that I blame anyone else, or think anyone else is a murderer," McCombs wrote. "It's just the way I feel, and all the rationalizations in the world haven't changed this. I still grieve for little Thomas. It is an ocean of grief. From somewhere in the distant past I remember the phrase from Shakespeare, 'the multitudinous seas incarnadine.'"

What if America begins to listen to voices silenced for too long? Faced with that unnerving prospect, what is a pro-abortionist to do, if pretending that men don't/can't/shouldn't have any voice in the decision whether a child lives or dies no longer carries the day?

You can try to co-opt men. How? By treating the decision to wipe out a life as if were just another opportunity to bond.

There are lots of examples. I ran across one blog today (the title of the piece is "Integrating Men into Abortion Care") that was a commentary on a prior blog. "How do we acknowledge men's emotions while balancing the fundamental fact that the ultimate choice is not theirs?" asks Mary Bloom.

(Who is Ms. Bloom? According to her bio, "Bloom served for 18 years as the executive director and guiding force of the Aradia Women's Health Center" in Seattle.) 

The self-congratulatory core of the piece is how her abortion clinic, thankfully now closed, "developed a thoughtful and comprehensive method of integrating men into the experience"--assuming this was in "harmony with the woman's decision, feelings, and needs".

The guy is included "in the entire spectrum of abortion care, including the ultrasound, the counseling session, and the procedure itself," Bloom tells us. I can only say, I wonder what kind of man would look at the vibrant, active unborn child revealed by the ultrasound and then stand by to watch as the arms and legs and torso of his own child are sucked into a collection bottle. And what kind of woman would want him to?

The same thought no doubt has crossed Bloom's mind. Later in the blog, we learn that the guy is to "focus on her (not the procedure)."

Bloom tells us her clinic "explored with the couple how they thought they would act together during the procedure and what they needed from each other." This is the most revealing part of a piece intended to model how to maintain the woman's absolute final autonomy but also "acknowledge" and "honor" men's "abortion stories and feelings too."

For example, the Aradia Women's Health Center sought to probe whether the guy was just doing what he thought he was supposed to--fulfilling some warped need to a "good" partner--and whether the woman is "'punishing' him by wanting him to be in the room during the abortion."

Of course, most men won't have the slightest interest in being anywhere near the room where his child's life is about to be snuffed out.  Bloom hides what's going on by saying for "some men" it may be "too emotional to see their partner in pain."

Pain? That'd be worth exploring with Ms. Bloom, including the pain experienced by the unborn child.

All this blarney serves a myriad of cynical purposes. To cite one example, Bloom quotes an abortion clinic executive director from the Pittsburgh area who offers an added benefit: "[W]e can inform them why it is important for them, and not just women, that pro-choice candidates be elected."

What a sensitive bunch. In this field of tears and blood, they are determined to harvest a few more votes for pro-abortion candidates.

But this pretend outreach to men also represents a kind of demented inversion of how couples act during a normal delivery. Notice the language: "We gave explicit instructions to the partner: speak gently, hold her hand, focus on her (not the procedure), breathe slow and deep, and always stay seated."

Lamaze for the pro-death set.

If you have time, drop your comments to Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.