Thankful Thursday

Yesterday I was able to attend a breakfast sponsored by Kansans for Life. My dad just recently got involved in politics and he has been endorsed by this group. He was given a table of eight to fill and invited me to come along. To be honest I wasn't too thrilled about it. The idea of getting up at 6:00 am so that I could get there by 7:00 am did NOT appeal to me. It looked even less exciting when my baby decided to not go to sleep until 4:00 am. I didn't want to let my dad down though, so I got Sarah up and dressed myself and made it there by 7:15. As I was driving there, I kept thinking this better be worth it. It so was!

 The guest speaker was Abby Johnson who is the former director of Texas Planned Parenthood. She was tapped to run the new Houston Planned Parenthood which is the second largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. It opened in May and is the specialty clinic for abortions up to 28 weeks! She got up and explained how she had gotten involved and started working for Planned Parenthood. Basically she was told that the goal of this group was to make abortion a rarity and that in all actuality Planned Parenthood was saving lives because it provided a safe place to have this procedure done. After 8 years of working for them, she left. She had been having doubts about the organization for awhile (like when she noticed her education budget was staying stagnant but her abortion budget was increasing each year), but the last straw was witnessing an ultrasound guided abortion. I will spare the details here, but it was heart wrenching to hear it described. My mother heart broke in two. An ultrasound is supposed to be a special moment to see your child, not a tragedy that helps facilitate its death. 

I learned some absolutely heart breaking things at this breakfast. Abortion is the number one surgery performed in the USA. Most counselors at Planned Parenthood are given scripted answers to give to young women wanting an abortion. They tell people that a fetus can't feel pain until 28 weeks when in fact it is much sooner. Miss Johnson said the scales fell away from her eyes and she knew God was calling her to leave and try and stop this. A direct quote from her "The most dangerous place for a baby to be in America is inside the womb."

As a mother I just disagree with abortion on so many levels, especially late term. I felt Sarah kicking around 17 1/2 weeks. A fetus can live outside the womb around 24 weeks. My sister's husband was born at 28 weeks gestation. So using those facts the mother most likely would have felt the baby by 28 weeks and it could have lived. Not only does my mother heart disagree with it, my Christian heart does too. Abortion is murder. PERIOD. I am so thankful I was there and got yet another opportunity to be truly grateful for the gift of my daughter.