This intellectually stimulating, delightfully charming, and immensely
engaging update of Jean Garton's 1979 classic genuinely merits the lofty
status of "must read." [Indeed, before you read any further, may
I suggest you go to the end of this review and order your copy?!]
Only 112 pages long, Who Broke the Baby? can be devoured in one setting or consumed at a more leisurely pace. Either way the reader will be sustained by the soul food provided by one of the authentic literary classics of the pro-life movement. There is in this slim volume enough food for thought to last a lifetime.
Anyone who has heard Jean Garton from the podium knows that this co-founder of Lutherans for Life ranks as one of the Movement's most persuasive communicators. I do not exaggerate when I say that there have been times when I have been spellbound by her eloquence. Therefore, it is high praise to observe that she writes even more effectively, more economically, and more compellingly than she speaks.
Amongst themselves, pro-lifers often speak of how to "tell the pro-life story." When done well, we mean by this the gift for conveying the unvarnished truth about abortion in such a manner that it breaks through or goes around the defense mechanisms people employ to live with the grim truth that abortion maims, mutilates, and mangles defenseless little babies.
The invaluable service performed by the first edition of Who Broke the Baby? was to demolish what were the reigning pro-abortion slogans. These included everything from "Every woman has the right to control her own body" through the denial of fetal personhood up to and including such flatliners as "Every child a wanted child" and "No one know when life begins."
With her up-to-the-moment revision, Garton updates her devastating critiques of these pro-abortion "arguments," and takes the occasion to dismantle some of the catchier reformulations such as the thrice-sacrilegious profanation that "Abortion is between a woman and her god."
Books such as Who Broke the Baby? rekindle our faith in our ability to articulate an assailable case for life. A model for pro-life educators and debaters, Garton gently grips the lapels of her audience in ingenious ways. Let's look at four.
First, she dispels various myths with verve and relevant data. One of a dozen mythunderstandings she takes apart with surgical precision is that somehow "Catholics" were largely, if not wholly, responsible for the surge of protective abortion legislation passed in the second half of the 19th century, or, alternatively, that the laws were passed only because abortions were highly dangerous - - to the mother.
In truth, the prime mover was the American Medical Society, animated by the scientific discovery of the nature of human conception. Catholics were relatively few in number and, as Garton writes, "their place in the political process marginalized."
However, in one sense opposition to abortion can be said to be "catholic" - - small c - - because that means universal. And "What could be more universal, more catholic than the matter of human life?"
Second, Garton is brilliant at unmasking the shoddy logic behind pro-abortion arguments and teasing out the perilous implications for other vulnerable populations. Take the old rhetorical warhorse - - that the unborn child is a "potential life."
"While in the womb, we may well be a potential infant, a potential teenager, and a potential adult, but at all stages we are an actual human being," she writes. "The change as to the humanity of the unborn takes place in our minds, not in the womb."
While pro-abortionists are experts at turning truth upside down, Garton has no peer when it comes to putting truth back right side up.
"We who are `normal' are not greater than those with mental or motor disabilities," she says. "What is greater is our responsibility to respect and protect those who are differently gifted."
Moreover, Garton is a master at forcing us to deal squarely with something often overlooked altogether: what abortion does to the victimizers. "We cannot dehumanize others without becoming less human ourselves," she writes. By contrast when we "affirm the humanity of the unborn who are judged to be potentially handicapped or retarded," she explains, it "affirm[s] our own humanity."
Finally, no writer more thoughtfully mines the raw material of our lives to produce riveting portraits of the sheer magnitude of abortion's devastation. For instance, at one point Garton recalls the funeral service for the victims of the tragic 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The preacher asked for one second of silence for each of the 168 victims.
But "How long would everyday living have to stand still if we were to observe a second of silence for each of the millions of children who have been destroyed by the legal bomb that was Roe v. Wade?" she asks. "It would take almost 10,000 hours. That's four hundred days. Fifty-seven weeks. Imagine! Over a year - - day and night - - to remember each aborted child with just one second of silence."
If you are looking for a pro-life primer, look no further. Garton's book offers the ultimate crash course in debating the abortion issue.
In this the 25th year of the reign of Roe,
NRL News will revisit a number of the classics of pro-life literature.
I begin with Who Broke the Baby? because it is, in my judgment, at
the top of the list. Order your copy today!
Who Broke the Baby? is available at Christian bookstores or by mail. The price is only $7.99. The book can also be ordered from Life Cycle Books.
Life Cycle's phone number is (416) 690-5860. Its toll free fax order line is (888) 690-8532. Life Cycle can also be reached by e-mail: orders@lifecyclebooks.com.
If ordering directly from Bethany House Publishers, its toll free number to place Visa and Master-card orders is (800) 328-6109.