How Planned Parenthood’s Shocking Video Changed My View of Abortion

I’ve never been a die-hard anti-abortionist. 

I’ve known in my gut that it was wrong, but calling abortion murder sounded a little harsh to my ears, however “right” that statement might be.

I never thought that a woman went into abortion willy-nilly. Rather, I considered the decision to be free of something growing in you to be one of heart-wrenching pain. If they went through with an abortion, it was on them—not on me to scream at them outside a clinic or share photos of mutilated children. 

In my mind, a clump of cells wasn’t a child until there was blood pumping through his or her veins. I was operating under the Old Testament philosophy that life is in the blood. Without that blood, there was no life. 

No one debates that a child is a child once he or she exits the woman’s body in the throes of labor. Rather, the debate over fetus vs. baby happens in utero. However, after the recent leaked Planned Parenthood video where Dr. Deborah Nucatola discusses not “crushing” certain parts of the body so the organs can be sold (or donated to scientific research, depending on what the news is reporting), I find myself reeling. 

Abortion is an issue that the church glosses over because it seems like yesterday’s news. I can almost see Christians rolling their eyes at me: “Yeah, Jessilyn, we know abortion is a bad thing. Yeah, yeah, it’s murder. Yeah, yeah, babies are dying.”

I say those statements because the preceding sentences rattled around my brain for years. My perspective changed when I watched a Planned Parenthood leader talk about tearing apart a body. 

How can we as Christians cry persecution over a great many things, but not also lift our voices in defense of people who are being forcepped to death? 

How does that not make your gut churn? 

Are we afraid of offending our social media friends who may not believe the specifics we do? Are we ignoring this plight because it simply isn’t as juicy or scandalous to address as Christians being sued by gay couples?

Even now, certain sites are out to discredit the video, claiming the conservative media is blowing the statements out of proportion, that Planned Parenthood is operating within its full, legal rights. 

According to CNN, “Planned Parenthood has countered that it donates the tissue for scientific research and receives only reimbursement for its expenses, which is legal. The group also says it helps people donate tissue ‘with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards,’ according to a statement from spokesman Eric Ferrero.”

Many of our columnists have written that this generation of Americans—and I don’t mean Millennials, I mean everyone walking on this planet right now—is facing a Dietrich Bonhoeffer moment: 

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

We use that quote against gay marriage and sexual immorality, but I would argue that the true evil is allowing people to die without giving them their right to know Christ. 

Jessilyn Justice is the assistant news editor for Charisma. Born and raised in a pastor’s family in Alabama, she went to Lee University and the Washington Journalism Center. She’s passionate about the church, jogging, news and cupcakes—not necessarily in that order. Tell her what you think of this story on Twitter @jessilynjustice.