A scarf, a sweater, a cd, and an abortion?

In this Washington Times article from Saturday, we find that "Indiana residents in need of a quick stocking stuffer this holiday season have an unusual option: Planned Parenthood gift certificates."

Under the guise of helping low income women afford health care, the Indiana Planned Parenthood chapter is offering gift certificates for their health services. Although the certificates may be used for an abortion, Betty Cockrum, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, says "I can't imagine that could happen." She goes on to say, "An abortion is a tragic and urgent situation in a women's life, and gift certificates don't lend themselves to that."

The mixed messages and confusion abounds.

Is that what they tell women who come to them, upset and concerned about an unplanned pregnancy, that to have an abortion is "tragic"? Not having consulted them myself, I have no way of knowing. Somehow, though, I suspect that if it were deemed to be "tragic", it may send women right back out the door.

What about the fact that this is, hello?, CHRISTmas? "It's very typical of Planned Parenthood to pervert the meaning of Christmas, which is a time of life and selflessness and love and giving," said Katie Walker, a spokeswomen with the American Life League, a Catholic pro-life activist group.

I recently saw a sobering email where a woman came to her physician, pregnant, wanting to have the doctor "take care of it". She had a child, just a few months old, and didn't feel she had adequately recuperated from the first birth. The doctor, in his doctorly wisdom, suggested they do away with the child in her arms to allow her a few more months of recuperation before having to care for a child. Of course, that was offensive to the mother who would "never kill her child!" It, of course, is just a story. The irony is real.

Please get behind and support women's crisis pregnancy centers such as Open Arms. These people lovingly help ladies sort through their options, looking at things from a long term, even eternal perspective. They provide ultrasounds to help them see that this isn't a blob, but a real baby that they are growing and protecting in their own body. They help them find alternatives, such as providing a family who would love to have a baby of their own the chance to do so.

If only there was a way to force women to have to explain to their child that, hey, Uncle Elmer gave me this birth certificate, so I used it to kill you. If they had to face the reality of what they were doing, I can't imagine that nearly as many could go through with it. Seeing their baby on an ultrasound helps them to do that.

It terrifies me to think of all the babies doomed by gift certificate.