Each January many evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations place white crosses in their churchyards, to memorialize the lives of unborn children snuffed out since Roe v. Wade. The latest issue of National Review alerts us to a macabre new memorial for the unborn—on the walls of a Pennsylvania abortion clinic.
The bulletin is worth repeating here:
“Pink construction-paper hearts adorn the walls of the waiting room at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, an abortion clinic. One heart reads: ‘To my little angel…You will always be my baby. I will see you in heaven, sweetheart. I love you.’ Another: ‘I have a lot of goals to fulfill…and with a child right now, those goals would be impossible. We all have freedom of choice, and my choice is to wait until I want a child and am married—not now.’ This particular memorial wall is not on a pro-life website; American women can read about it where we did: the September issue of Glamour magazine. The irony of the words ‘we all have freedom of choice,’ written from mother to aborted child, will not escape them.” [“The Week,” National Review, 1 September 2003, 11.]
This sad display should elicit not only our outrage but also our compassion. Scripture reminds us that the revelation of the moral law in the conscience cannot be escaped—though, left to ourselves, we will try everything to quiet it (Rom 2). And, as in the case of this abortion clinic, there are always those willing to exploit for a fee the vulnerability of the desperate and the torments of the conscience.
