I was bringing my child to her soccer game this morning when I saw a bumper sticker that read: “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart.”
Being pro-choice, my first response was “oh, geez, another radical anti-choicer.” But then I started to think a little more about that message and soon came to the conclusion that yes, at some point, abortion does stop a beating heart.
It’s no secret how the fetus develops in the womb. We’ve all seen the pictures. If you’ve had a child, you know exactly what I am talking about, especially when you recall your first ultrasound when the technician was showing you the head, the arms, etc.
At some point, I’m not exactly sure when, the heart starts beating. And when a woman elects to have an abortion, depending on the stage of the pregnancy, that heart will stop beating.
So, after thinking this one through my head started spinning. At first I thought it was because the soccer game went on for nine hours, but more likely it was the realization that a pro-life bumper sticker might be factually correct.
Soon, however, I started to sort it out.
My thoughts went back to the women, the women that I trust. They know what they are doing. They know that they are preventing a life from emerging. And, yes, they know that at some point that means that a heart has stopped beating.
It’s all very sad. In the ideal world every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy. In the ideal world, there would be no need for abortions or the almost equally complicated and sad option – adoption. Indeed, even giving birth, especially to an unwanted child, is not a perfect option.
The bumper sticker may be accurate.
But, like most bumper stickers, it insults our intelligence and does not tell the whole story.

March 18, 2010 at 5:21 pm
rapists, murders, people like that yes they dont deserve to live.you see because they are not innocent. a baby is born innocent and whether they stay that way is up to their parents. babys are precious joys of life. you cannot blame them for other people mistakes.they are completely innocent.blaming a baby is simply inexcusable.
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March 18, 2010 at 8:10 pm
So, Heather, what do you do for babies who are born? Cut and paste my name into your browser to see what happens to a lot of them. Not too many people are aware that in the one minute a clinic “blockader” spends trying to dissuade a woman from entering a family planning clinic, three children are born who will not do well in life if somebody like you doesn’t go out of her way to help them. So, I’m curious…
cg
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March 18, 2010 at 8:30 pm
somebody like me? you act like its a bad thing that i think abortion is horrible.and you ask what i do for them?i love them.thats what i do. but i guess since im a “prolife” is expected.you are so brainwashed into thinking that it is ok to do this.people need to take responisibility for their actions.if you dont want to risk a child then dont have sex. its as simple as that.and just because they have the chance of not doing well in life doesnt mean they dont deserve a life.
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March 19, 2010 at 4:20 am
Heather, I can understand you might feel angry toward me, but I’m not clear on where you’re coming from. You’re saying that it’s more important for you to prevent an abortion than to take care of that child after it’s born, or do I not understand you properly?
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March 19, 2010 at 7:26 am
I hear where you’re coming from Heather and I totally agree that people should not have unprotected sex. In the ideal world, every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy. But that is not the real world, unfortunately. People take risks all the time, whether it is smoking, drinking, driving without a seat belt and, yes, having unprotected sex. And while I appreciate your compassion for the “unborn”, I am hearing no compassion for that woman. All I am hearing is “too bad, you made a mistake, you have to live with it.” Forcing a woman to have that baby can lead to so many other things, like child abuse.
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March 19, 2010 at 2:25 pm
im done talking to you.there is no getting through to you.
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March 19, 2010 at 2:35 pm
That is kind of a cop-out, Heather. I guess if you did have compassion for the woman, you would have just said so. Your dropping out just tells me you’re stuck on that one…..
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March 19, 2010 at 3:35 pm
i have no compassion for a baby killer.end of story.take it or leave it. i have nothing left to say to you.you will never understand this.i may be a pro lifer but you are a life killer.
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March 19, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Pat, what do you suppose is driving her?
cg
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March 20, 2010 at 8:26 am
I have no idea, cg, and I refuse to spend any more of my energy even thinking about her….An angry young woman…
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March 20, 2010 at 10:15 am
Pat, the singular of “statistics” is “anecdote.” You’re facing a movement that has tens of thousands just like her, and thrives on its manufactured meme of “pro-life.” The movement works hard to find people like her to manipulate, and where it can’t find them, it strives to create them. I dealt for a couple of years with a mom on welfare who had two kids and got impregnated again for the usual reasons. She met me on the street once and angrily waved a ticket in my face. “Look at this!” she fumed. It was a Planned Parenthood mini-flyer. “We talked about Planned Parenthood in my bible study group today. And look at that!” She pointed. “It performs abortions!” Under the alphabetical list of services it dealt with, “abortion” was listed. I didn’t feel that in her state of mind I should point out to her that the very next word on the list was “adoption.” It is this manipulable anger that the so-called “pro-life” movement encourages.
cg
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March 24, 2010 at 5:16 pm
“Saline abortions have to be done in the hospital because of the complications that can arise. Not that they can’t arise during other times, but more so now. The saline, a salt solution, is injected into the woman’s sac, and the baby starts dying a slow, violent death. The mother feels everything, and many times it is at this point when she realizes that she really has a live baby inside her, because the baby starts fighting violently, for his or her life. He’s just fighting inside because he’s burning.”
–Debra Harry
i know i said i was done talking to you but i read this quote and i want you to read it pat and everyone else that is for abortions.this is just torture to an innocent life.
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March 24, 2010 at 7:54 pm
The pro-life movement is quoting Debra Harry? Is she a doctor? Just a note of clarification, Heather: abortion doctors no longer do saline abortions. I love a good discussion but please get some facts straight…
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March 24, 2010 at 8:56 pm
It’s nice to see you back, Heather. I would suggest that the best way to get a better look at the field of rescue would be to volunteer 600 hours a year as a Big Sister, a children’s guardian ad litem, a public school classroom volunteer, a staffer in a day care, an instructor in a parenting program, a facilitator in an Al-Anon or Narc-Anon group.
I guarantee a couple of years of that will make you realize how damaging it is to children to be born to parents who can’t care for them because they don’t know how or their personal shortcomings get in the way (heroin addiction is an example), or they don’t have the necessary resources.
You will lose sleep at night wondering what else you can do for some of those kids and many of those ptarents, and you will grow to understand what a woman is saying when she says she does not want to have this baby.
You will forget the focus on yourself as “rescuer” and find you have strengths to help people no one else will, and you will do it even though nobody even knows you’re doing it. As you become a real rescuer, your hatred will become a thing of the past, but your old friends in the movement will resent you for having abandoned them to care for human life.
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March 24, 2010 at 9:39 pm
you are ridiculous. your views on life make no sense. and get my facts straight? killing babys is killing babys. its all the same.whether its sucking the life out of them or anything else.im done now. your a very heartless person.and you will never hear from me again.
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March 25, 2010 at 4:24 am
Aborticentrism is a focus on abortion so great as to preclude care for real human life.
Heather has provided us an example: rather than consider the alternate path of exercising and enlarging her talents to care for others in situations far more demanding and complex, she holds steadfast to her chosen path of hating abortion, the reason being that in her opinion it “kills babies.”
Aborticentrism is exercised by those who have a deep need to be seen as a “rescuer” or “defender” or even “protector” of human life, but who do not have the energy, talent and knowledge to do so, except according to terms they impose for themselves. Why? Paste my name into your browser and look around.
cg
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January 6, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Dear all,
It seems that Heather is a very wounded person. But even wounded people can have part of the truth. And all of us have been wounded at some point in our lives and we journey together seeking the truth. The scientific truth that Heather knows is that child is a human person at conception and deserves life just like all of us. Who can decide when someone dies? Even our Founding Fathers wrote in our Constitution that “everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In addition to loving babies, the common pro-lifer loves everyone which includes, of course, women who are caught up in very difficult situations. In Nebraska we have dozens of organizations to help women in difficult pregnancies. The majority of pro-lifers are volunteers. Someone may ask, “Why do we pray in front of abortion clinics hoping that women will change their minds, and why do we spend countless hours in centers helping women? ” Because we love women, babies, the fathers of these babies, the families of these babies. Everyone is precious and a unique gift that can never be repeated. I believe there is hope for everyone, even for the child that is in a bad situation. I do not wish that child death; I wish that child life and life to the full. And we know that can happen. We hear countless stories of people in desperate situations. These people tell of how someone cared for them and changed their lives. These people, including children, do not want death. They want life, love, and hope just like ourselves. So, in our daily lives, let us love each other, the women, the unborn, the children, the fathers, everyone… because that is what we all really need. Each one of us can do something that changes the world for good.
Donna
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January 6, 2014 at 10:01 pm
Thank you for being so brave as to use your name!
It is not a “scientific truth” that a child is a human person at conception. A fetus can only become human through two ways: legal recognition that it is human, as when a preemie is born, or when the pregnant woman decides she wants to bear a child.
The first one is no guarantee that the fetus will become human, since any governmental agency is highly susceptible to make egregious policy mistakes (e.g., Ceausescue’s Romanian orphanages, whose graduates are dying on city streets from huffing, doping, prostituting themselves, etc.). The second is a considerably stronger guarantee, since the woman– and only the woman– can take steps to nurture her declared baby in utero. (Try to protect someone else’s fetus from maternal cigarette smoke. Good luck, Anonymous.)
Simply “wishing that child life to the full” is a way to make yourself happy; in fact, for you it’s a win-win situation, since if the woman mothers well, you feel good, but if she mothers badly, you feel good about being horrified, thereby proving your judgment is sound.
It’s not a win-win for you if you have to guarantee that she will have enough money and time to do a good nurturing job. For you the sacrifice is too great; if it weren’t, you’d be doing it already. But you’re not. You’re just serving yourself an unhealthy dose of romanticism.
The problem with the so-called “pro-life” movement is that it’s a dysfunctional self-help group. They want to feel good, but in order to do so they insist that whatever happens to children after they’re born is no concern of theirs.
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