There exist times when we can listen but must also speak; for me, that moment has arrived. Today, abortion, now reduced to a discussion of women’s health, has forgotten the child. Certainly, medical crises may require an abortion; difficult, painful decisions are required of mothers and fathers. We share those losses. However, today’s loud call has become so insensitive to the life of a developing child that it demands the right to end a child’s life at the mother’s convenience, even at the time of a live birth. Abortion is now another means of birth control.

Past abortion discussions were difficult because they acknowledged the loss of a baby. To avoid this discomfort, we altered the language and abortion became a women’s health issue. That desensitization — a new label that avoids moral struggles – reflects our desire to define our own “right” and “wrong” — in essence, to be our own god. It also refuses to consider the child within, a human being with its own DNA, its own organ system — a unique individual wholly dependent on the woman carrying it.

I have listened to conversations regarding devastating Chinese government policies that limit family size. Please focus on the source of that policy — the Chinese government — and compare that to the current U.S. environment where women shout for their right to end the life of a child. Which is worse? I would suggest that we cannot blame our government for the loss of the most vulnerable among us, but must look at our citizens who make these demands. We celebrate state laws that permit full-term abortion and demand that our federal government follow suit.

In speaking at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, Mother Teresa made an eloquent plea for the life of the unborn. They still ring true:

“I [Mother Teresa] feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

Her argument — that we lose all moral standing as we embrace the right of a mother to take the life of her child — is something we must ponder.