Poverty: The Great Death Sentence

I want to remain optimistic that, even though abortion advocates in our nation are so fierce, a majority of Americans can rally around and denounce a particular justification that is unequivocally immoral.

Yesterday, NARAL, a pro-abortion advocate group, proudly tweeted an article from LA Times about the Turnaway Study. This is a five-year study compared 293 children with mothers that had abortions against 55 children with mothers that could not have an abortion due to their gestational period. These mothers already had children at the time they either had or considered an abortion. “The research here is clear. Restricting abortion access doesn’t just harm women. It harms their children as well.”

I’ll only point out the obvious once. Abortion absolutely hurts your children. Not only does it terminate their lives, but a baby can undoubtedly feel pain after twenty weeks. The premise of the entire article is pure insanity to begin with.

The study found mothers spent equal time caring for their children and they were healthy. That’s great, right? Mothers want to be able to take care of their kids. But the article goes on to talk about how children of mothers denied an abortion are more likely to miss developmental milestones (what those are, it doesn’t say). Mind you, the difference is a whopping 4%.

It appears the main takeaway is that women denied abortions are less likely to achieve aspirational life goals within the next year. Why anyone would need a study to prove that a mother having to care for her child usually means rearranging your priorities is beyond me, but there you have it.

But the study continues and states that children of mothers that have an abortion are less likely to experience poverty, and that is where we reach the domain of where the abortion debate genuinely creeps me out.

I come from a large family. My two older siblings often talk about how good Christmas used to be. I remember good years too, but when we get down to baby number seven, the case is not the same. It wasn’t always easy for my family. A few of us—including myself—have struggled with depression. Food was scarce sometimes, and I’ve been without a home twice. I’ll never forget walking home from school in tears, because the lady working in the school office wouldn’t allow me to use the phone without telling her why, and I was too embarrassed to admit I wanted to make sure my family hadn’t been evicted yet.

Life financially got better when we all grew up and began to get jobs. They were little jobs at first that didn’t pay well. Some of us worked two or even three. Now, many of us have good jobs or even great careers. It wasn’t always easy though, but we had to weather the storm. Sometimes, there are still struggles, but I can say that God has brought us from a mighty long way.

When I hear abortion advocates use the threat of poverty as an excuse to end the life of a child, I think of my youngest sister, Tina. My mother—famous for not crying—shed tears after finding out she was pregnant with Tina because she “almost had us all in school”. When I published my second book, I was surprised to go to the mailbox and find a copy. She was with me and a little embarrassed the surprise was ruined. “I wanted to be your first customer.” Even as a child, she was a rock. She’s loving, helpful, and extremely talented. I love her dearly, and I can’t think of any pain in my life worth erasing her for.

There’s no way to put it mildly. Poverty sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. For many, it is only the beginning. Life will be hard, but I have the benefit of being born in the USA. We live in a world where you can literally be famous for having the perfect manbun or being remixed by a channel on Youtube. No one is trapped in hopelessness.

I know women make their own choices when they have an abortion, but when I think about the mentality of Eugenics—targeting minorities, the poor, the intellectually inferior, and handicapped—and the early ties it had to the birth control movement, it feels systemic. Surely, we’ve got to have better reasons for terminating the life of a child than the possibility of growing up poor in the greatest country in the world. Are children born in poverty less deserving of life? If not, then why would we trade them for the chance at a few more toys under a Christmas tree?

Poverty is a reality, but it doesn’t have to be a life sentence. And even if it lasts a generation or two, it’s not worth a death sentence, especially in America.