They used to sing louder as the train got closer. That German church near the railroad tracks where the Jewish people screamed on the trains as they were carried away. That church knew those Jewish people were being killed, but the only thing they did about it was to sing louder so they didn’t have to hear the screams as the train passed by.

We hear the screams coming out of Planned Parenthood, but many of us are just singing louder. “It’s about women’s healthcare! About a woman’s right to choose! About our reproductive freedom! This isn’t the 1950’s, for crying out loud!”

You’re right, it’s not the 1950’s. Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, over 55 million abortions have happened in America.

My story:

“It’s just a clump of fetal cells,” they told us.

“You’re getting rid of fetal tissue. Nothing more than a clump of cells. You don’t need this in your life right now. Let’s get this taken care of.”

Not the clinic worker’s exact words, but you get the gist. My friend was nineteen, unwed, and scared. We’d never seen an ultrasound in 1987. People hear what they want to hear. “It’s not a baby,” they assured us. We believed them and gave them the cash we’d scraped together for my friend’s abortion.

It’s not just body parts that bring in money at Planned Parenthood.

“Yesterday was the first time people wanted lungs,” says the doctor in that first video. “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. That’s easy. I don’t know what they’re doing with it, I guess if they want muscle.”

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

Isn’t this what gets us? The way they crush the baby to get the heart out intact? The lungs out intact? The liver out intact? Do we really care about the money exchanged for these tiny organs?

“I’m not gonna write about this,” I told myself when that first video exploded on social media. “I’m not going to post anything on Facebook about Planned Parenthood. I’ll let the news agencies handle this.”

A month has gone by, and frankly most of the major news agencies haven’t handled this. You know why? Because we value sex for pleasure more than we value unborn babies. We value birth control for convenience more than we value unborn babies. We value a woman’s right to choose more than we value an unborn baby’s right to live.

Aren’t we all a part of this happening? Don’t we all pay taxes that fund Planned Parenthood? Isn’t it best that we plan our families? That we only have children we can afford? Children we are sure to love and take care of in this big, bad, beautiful world?

Don’t we need Planned Parenthood for population control? We can’t have a bunch of young women popping out babies so let’s crush those fetuses (in Latin fetus means little one) in the womb so they don’t end up on welfare. And let’s not talk about it, write about it, or heaven forbid, video tape it for people to see and squirm over.

Maybe it was her holding that glass of wine, eating that salad so casually as she talked about doing abortions that made us all squirm with that first video.

Because isn’t it our right to choose in America?

It’s my body. My life. My future. The right to choose sounded good to me in college.

And then I saw my first ultrasound. I should have been filled with wonder in that moment of viewing my first child when I was pregnant at 22 years old, but instead I was filled with horror. We killed that, went through my mind as I watched my baby’s heart beat on the screen. Watched her little arms swim around inside me. Watched her do a somersault in my womb at 16 weeks old.

Sixteen weeks.

A good age to get that baby’s heart out intact.

Actually it’s the livers they really want, according to the undercover Planned Parenthood video.

But the videos are edited and spliced and diced to really pierce our conscience, those defending Planned Parenthood say.

I don’t care if it’s edited and spliced and diced, and they aren’t actually selling baby hearts for profit at Planned Parenthood at all. They could be giving baby hearts and livers and lungs away to the best research labs in the country to cure cancer, and I’d still be absolutely sick after seeing this first video. I haven’t brought myself to watch the rest of them. They’re too upsetting. In college, not just one, but a number of my friends had abortions. I was involved in more than one. Had I gotten pregnant back then, I could have had an abortion, too.

This isn’t an easy decision. Women don’t just airily say, “oh well, I’ll just get an abortion and move on.” My friends agonized over their abortions and I agonized with them. I’m not condemning women who’ve had abortions. I know some amazing women who’ve endured abortions. What I’m sick of is the industry. Those profiting off of this gut-wrenching thing. These people in the know who hide the truth about abortion in America.

But we now know.

All of us know.

For 25 years, since my first pregnancy and ultrasound, I’ve known Planned Parenthood kills babies. But it wasn’t in my backyard so I’ve buried my head in the dirt for more than two decades. In my backyard, my babies swing on the swing, jump on the trampoline, play with our two golden labs on the lawn.

My babies are safe. Well-fed. Well-loved.

What will we do with all these babies who aren’t safe? Who aren’t well-fed? Who aren’t well-loved? Instead of aborting them, really America, what will we do with these babies if we allow them to live?

Will we have to pay more taxes to care for these unwanted children? Will this cost us money? Cost us time? Cost us our compassion?

Where will we find this money? This time? This compassion for all these unwanted kids?

Remember my friend Miss Kay? The homemaker in one of my earlier posts? A loving wife. A loving mother. Not only to her own family, but loving to our family as well. God didn’t give Miss Kay a womb that produced babies. But He gave her the babies she prayed for, nevertheless. Two beautiful babies adopted at birth and raised by Miss Kay and her husband Mitch in a loving home. One of the best homes I’ve ever seen. Their precious babies are grown and in college now.

The truth is America doesn’t need Planned Parenthood. There’s all kinds of loving parents out there planning their families at this very moment. Couples contacting adoption agencies. Traveling overseas to get babies because they haven’t been able to adopt a baby in America. And there’s thousands upon thousands of great clinics out there that provide women’s healthcare. Obamacare provides women’s healthcare.

Can we please wake up to the wonder of adoption instead of waking up to the horror of a woman holding a glass of wine, eating a salad while talking about the harvesting of baby hearts in America?

Please don’t argue this battle is about women’s healthcare. Or women’s rights. During the Civil War people insisted the war was about states’ rights. Today we all know the Civil War was fought over slavery. Human beings enslaved, mistreated, and killed because of the color of their skin. Now we’re fighting over the size of a human being. Can we still kill them after 20 weeks? These tiny humans murdered by the millions in this country while we the people of the United States of America just sing louder.

This Planned Parenthood battle is not about women’s healthcare. It’s about abortion. And let’s be specific. It’s not simply abortion, but the butchering of second trimester babies at Planned Parenthood and the sale of their organs. I read that in the last video they cut a baby’s face open to get its brain out intact. It sickens me to write this. I hope it sickens you to read it. Please don’t sing louder as the train passes you by. Ask God to forgive you for being a part of this holocaust.

If you’ve had an abortion, and this is still painful for you, please turn to Jesus. He died for you. He loves you. There’s healing for you. “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings” Malachi 4:2. 

If reading this hurts you, I’m praying for you, my friend. I’ve been in your shoes. Abortion has hurt me. Hurt my friends. Hurt my husband. He paid for a girl’s abortion in high school because it was his baby. Making peace with this abortion was painful for him. The truth is, Scott made peace with God before he was able to make peace with this abortion.

Please remember, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how many abortions you’ve had, “the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases. His mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23.

And please, no matter how painful this is for you, how painful this is for our country, don’t look away. Don’t just sing louder as the Planned Parenthood train passes by.