2001-01-29 - 23:59:45

What God Says

Earlier today I was running an errand: I needed to pick up a new supply of birth control pills for Lily at Planned Parenthood. Actually, I don't mind doing it at all. The women at Planned Parenthood treat me like some sort of saint-in-training because I actually pick up pills for my girlfriend. Hey, it's just a matter of logistics: she's in school all day and I'm the one with the car.

Here in Frown Town, right across the street from Panned Parenthood is a storefront with "Life Education Center" painted on the door. The windows are a mad pattern of posters and pictures, mainly featuring aborted babies and so on. Yes, it's a gathering place for Right-To-Life nutbars. And right across the street from Planned Parenthood, too! Coincidence? I think not.

I could go into a lengthy screed about my position on abortion, but I won't. The short form is that I think that if a baby is growing inside a woman's body, it's her decision what should be done about it, not the government, and certainly not someone else's religion.

Anyway, as I was driving up to Planned Parenthood today, a rather stern-looking middle aged man with a mustache was displaying a sign in from of the Life Education Center. It read, in very large letter: GOD SAYS ABORTION IS MURDER.

At first I though the man was trying to attach the sign to the telephone pole in front of the storefront, but when I drove past the place again a couple of hours later he was still there, waving his signs with that look of militant righteousness on his face. Not the best use of manpower in my opinion, but obviously the people who run this place are not deep strategists. For instance, there is the fact that no abortions are performed at the Planned Parenthood Center, they haven't been done there for well over a decade. Well, they refer women to other places that do perform abortions, so I suppose that's just as bad.

However, I don't really think that it helps the Right-To-Life cause for them to hassle the people going to Planned Parenthood for any of the hundred other reasons they might go there. For instance, they used to have an asthma clinic there, too.

However, I was thinking that it would be nice to solve complicated issues like abortion with simple slogans.

GOD SAYS ABORTION IS MURDER. Where, exactly, does he say that? Did he say it to this man privately?

For instance, did you know that until about 130 years ago, abortion was legal in the Catholic faith? At least in the first trimester, that is. Back then, they had something called "ensoulment" saying that until the fourth months the fetus was a creature without a soul, and therefore killing it wasn't murder. Basically, until the fetus could move on its own, it wasn't considered really human.

Like I said, a complicated issue.

So I wish I had a sign of my own for such occasions: GOD SAYS SHUT THE FUCK UP.