E-book abortion

You can download an electronic version of the book Abortion by RC Sproul from here.

Preface

In the twenty years since this standard book was first published, four different presidents have lived in the White House, seven justices have come and gone on the Supreme Court, and Congress in the Capitol has run through eleven sessions.

These federal magistrates have faced economic ups and downs. They have survived terrorist attacks and wars abroad. They witnessed the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the evil al-Qaeda. They argued over corporate and healthcare reforms. They endured protests in the form of tea parties, campaign scandals, personal disgraces and political failures. They were beset on all sides by increasing demands, failed expectations, dwindling resources and declining prestige.

Through it all, the divisive power of the abortion issue has remained constant. The many and varied political turns of events of the past twenty years have done nothing to soften the divide—much less to resolve the problem. If anything, the abortion divide has become more pronounced, more vehement, more intractable. While the political deadlock on almost every other issue has been broken, no convergence appears on the horizon on the abortion issue.

Naturally, the problems were not helped much by the fact that the politically protected international abortion industry had grown into a multi-billion dollar industrial complex. Using its considerable wealth, human resources, and influence, this industry has proven itself capable of making its way into literally every part of modern life. Today, it plays a strategic role in the field of health and social services.  It exerts the primary influence on education, providing the majority of sexuality education materials and programs in both public and private schools. It exerts significant political influence through lobbying, campaigning, advocacy and litigation. It is involved in publishing, television production and distribution, legislative activism, public relations, foreign aid, psychological research consulting, environmental policy making, sociological planning, demographic research, pharmacological development, distribution and sales of contraceptives. , mass advertising and providing legal services to the public.

Planned Parenthood, the world's oldest, largest and best-organized provider of abortion and birth control services, has become a powerful player in all the major social and political issues of the day. From its pitiful beginnings sometime in the early 20th century, when its meager activity consisted of illegal protests by inexplicably assembled activists and anarchists in the back alley of a clinic in a seedy area of Brooklyn, it has expanded dramatically into a conglomerate of programs and activity. in 134 countries on all continents.

In the United States alone, Planned Parenthood mobilizes over twenty thousand staff and volunteers on the front lines of the conflicted and corrosive battle over abortion. Today, these minions run the organization's 150-plus affiliates and its nearly one thousand clinics in nearly every major metropolitan region from the east coast to the west coast of the country. It boasts a national office in New York, a legislative center in Washington, D.C., regional headquarters in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, and San Francisco, affiliates in 49 states and the District of Columbia, and international centers in London, Nairobi, Bangkok, and New Delhi. With a total annual budget—including all of its regional, national, and international service affiliates—of over one billion dollars, this abortion industry beacon is perhaps the largest and most profitable nonprofit in history.

And as if that weren't enough, the current Democratic administration in Washington -- aided and abetted by the Democratic-controlled Senate and House of Representatives -- is the most ardent supporter of abortion in American history. With a series of directives, meetings, and administration policy changes—not to mention her 2,407 pages of monolithic, partisan "health care reform" legislation that removed the long-standing ban on federal funding for abortion in favor of far easier overturning of government regulations – the abortion industry posted more profits during this administration's brief tenure than in its entire history combined.

And so the great divide continues. Despite its obvious cultural influence, its insatiably deep corporate pockets, and its carefully considered public relations efforts, the abortion industry has yet to win the battle for the hearts and minds of most Americans. Polls conducted in the first year of Obama's administration found that on the topic of abortion, 51% Americans identified themselves as “pro-life,” while only 42% said they were “pro-choice.” Moreover, in just five years, the number of Americans , who want abortion to become more difficult to obtain, rises by 6%. In 2005, 59% of respondents agreed that it would be good to reduce abortions. Today, the 65%s occupy that position. Another poll also found that fewer Americans and fewer pro-lifers are willing to compromise on abortion in search of a “middle ground.” Naturally, support for a compromise on abortion fell 12 points among conservatives and by 6 points among all Americans. And according to another poll, 58% of Americans say that in most cases abortion is morally wrong. Only 25% disagree, the rest have no opinion. The survey shows that women are more pro-life than men, with 64% of women saying most abortions are morally wrong, a view shared by 51% of men. Meanwhile, another poll shows that a majority of Americans, 52%, think it's too easy to get an abortion in America. This share is 7% higher than two years ago, when 45% of the respondents thought so.

So why does the Goliath-like support for abortion seem to be melting away just as its power and resources are at its peak? At least part of the reason may lie in the very nature of the abortion industry—along with the inevitable consequences that accompany it. Consider:

  • Although touted by the abortion lobby as both “safe and legal,” it is now clear that abortion is only “legal.” Complications from this most widely performed medical procedure in America today are legion. These include sterility – occurring in 25% of all women with second-trimester abortions (between 13 and 28 weeks' gestation); hemorrhages - in almost 10% of all cases, a blood transfusion is required; viral hepatitis – occurs in 10% of all transfusion recipients; embolism – obtained in 4% of all cases; cervical tear; inflammatory disease of the organs located in the pelvis; inflammation of the genitals; cardiorespiratory arrest; acute renal failure and clots in the amniotic fluid.
  • As a result of these side effects, women in America have seen substantial increases in health care costs. While the average cost of maintaining normal health for men has risen by 12% over the past 15 years as a result of inflation, the average cost for women has shot up by as much as 27%.
  • A flurry of lawsuits against doctors for botched abortions has heightened tensions in the industry, where a crisis with the sector's insurability is already looming.
  • At the same time, the cultural and political stigmatization of abortion providers has dramatically reduced the number of qualified doctors willing to work for them. As a result, many clinics are forced to rely on less well-prepared staff - practicing doctors and nurses, most often with failures in private offices and medical institutions.
  • Revelations of deliberately suppressed research data on the various risks of the procedure – especially in relation to the established link between abortion and breast cancer – have raised new questions about the industry's medical objectivity and professional integrity.
  • New clinical data that reveal the serious dangers of other industry-backed treatments—from the harmful effects of the abortion drug RU-486 and the contraceptive operation Norplant to the inherent risks and complications of using intrauterine contraceptives—raise the question of “ wholesale institutional quackery.'
  • The shadow over the industry's iatrogenic indolence was further cast by the enthusiastic defense of the gruesome second-trimester surgical procedure "dilation and extraction"—more popularly known as D&X or "partial-birth abortion."
  • In addition, the industry stakes its fragile reputation on the therapeutic utility of two very dangerous chemical therapies – the long-term birth control injection Depo-Provera and the abortifacient Methotrexate-Misoprostol. Both drugs pose a serious risk to women's health, according to a series of recent clinical studies.
  • Horrifying new evidence of the barbaric human rights abuses—including forced abortions, forced sterilizations, and excruciating disfigurement—Planned Parenthood's population program in communist China has cast an ominous shadow over the industry's myriad and other state-funded international activities .
  • Not surprisingly, the abortion industry's censoring of information about viable alternatives to clinical, educational, and surgical services has drawn the ire of various health care consumer advocates.
  • Parents outraged by the promiscuous content of sex education materials, AIDS awareness campaigns, and community advocacy projects produced by the abortion industry began organizing grassroots efforts to ban organizations like Planned Parenthood in schools, charitable networks, and civic coalitions in communities across the United States.
  • The few criminal lawsuits filed by the abortion industry — filed in an attempt to shut down pro-life agencies and crisis pregnancy centers as alternatives to abortion — have begun to give the impression that the organization is more concerned with ideologically enforcing its agenda than for the health and well-being of its customers.
  • A series of negative PR campaigns by the well-heeled pro-abortion lobby – against conservative society in general and conservative Christians in particular – shed light on the industry's unabashed goals and set the standard for the abortion movement's increasingly virulent rhetoric and hysterical extremism .
  • Allegations of conflicts of interest have begun to emerge in Washington over close ties between certain past and present federal officials and vocal industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
  • The backlash against vastly unpopular "healthcare reform" legislation pushed through in the early 2010s not only led to renewed support for pro-life organizations, maternity crisis centers, and principled politicians, but also to renewed scrutiny of the dreaded drug trade. abortions. New calls to enforce existing laws and introduce tougher ones do not bode well for the industry's growth and expansion plans.

In short, scandal after scandal has descended upon the abortion industry, its medical staff, practitioners and researchers, lobbyists and administrators. As a result, her "Teflon" reputation begins to wear off and the "grand illusion" begins to lose its luster.

As a result, Dr. Sproul's insightful analysis in this book is as relevant and necessary today as it was in the last decade of the twentieth century. Naturally, he points out the way to the only possible resolution of this deeply emotional issue.

At one time in American history, a national consensus was forged in defense of life, laws were changed, and life was protected. In fact, by the early 1800s, abortion was legal—albeit to a minor degree—in every state of the Federation. By the end of the century, the procedure was criminalized everywhere.

Most of the legislative changes occurred in the relatively short period of twenty-one years between 1860 and 1880. In less than two decades, Christians were able to attract hostile journalists, controversial doctors, reserved politicians, and even radical feminists to the cause of crisis pregnancy mothers and their unborn children. They have enjoyed astounding success despite the enormous wealth, power and political backlash from the burgeoning abortion industry. At a time when the nation is divided by conflict over the insubordination of indentured slaves, the spread of abortion, and the challenge to the most basic principles of American liberty, Christians show by word and deed that every human being is created in the image of God and therefore his life is sacred.

The popular press makes abortion information available to the average person on the street. Medical associations educate physicians about the physical risks and moral compromises inherent in the procedure. Lawyers, politicians and judges are forging the legal restrictions necessary to criminalize the abortion racket. But it was the church that was the catalyst and initiator of the extremely successful efforts to protect life in the 19th century.

It is perhaps not surprising that America's 19th-century pro-life forces not only said no to abortion; but also "yes" to women in crisis. They say yes to the poor and desperate. They say yes to the confused and hurt. In a word, they fulfill their duty to serve alongside their duty to speak.

Lives are being saved, families are being restored, and the men and women who dedicate themselves to the cause of the inviolability of human life are laying a remarkable foundation for the freedom of future generations. At last, America seems ready to fulfill its promise to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Let it happen again. And may God be pleased to use this book as a means of accomplishing it—the great work of the church to stand firm for truth, justice, and mercy in the midst of a wretched, sinful world.

George Grant

Franklin, Tennessee

January 2010