Seth Drayer

Director of Training, Created Equal.

[createdequalorg]

Killing As a Solution to Tragedy in Paraguay?

“Horrific: 10-year-old rape victim is forced to carry child to term in Paraguay because of anti-abortion stance” – tweet by Rukmini Callimachi

In recent weeks, Paraguay and the tragedy of an abused child have become exclamation points to pro-abortion stump speeches. Seeking to sway those undecided on abortion, they point to this tale of brutality—and after all, why not? If our emotions are not stirred by the unthinkable crime this young girl has faced, will anything awaken our sleeping consciences?

As they clamor for abortion as the solution, however, they’re forgetting one critical point. What endears us to the pregnant 10-year-old is the very same thing which ought to endear us to her preborn baby: age.

After all, what makes this story stand out from the clutter of our newsfeeds? How young the victim is.

We should be outraged by the molestation of any human being, but to think that someone did this to a child is weightier still—because we know she was helpless to fight back against the victimizer.

Why, then, are we not equally horrified by the potential dismembering of another human who is younger still and therefore even more helpless?

Those who oppose abortion do not defend the crime committed against this 10-year-old girl. We merely believe that committing a second crime is not permissible.

To paraphrase apologist Stephanie Gray, the question we’re being asked is: When born humans are in unbelievably difficult circumstances, is it okay to kill another innocent human being to try to alleviate those circumstances?

What happened to this young girl is abhorrent. But the preborn baby is not the guilty party. Yes, someone should pay for the crime. But remember who is responsible: the stepfather and, perhaps, the mother.

Additionally, to oppose the killing of the younger human involved does not mean we believe the 10-year-old should be forced to raise the baby. Our contention is this: Now that a monster forced her into this situation, we should help her deal with the circumstances in a healthy way. Adoption? Perhaps. Killing? No.

The poor girl has already been through terrible trauma. Would an abortion undo that trauma? No. But it could compound her trauma, because now she would one day have to reckon with not only being a victim but also a victimizer. What a horrible thing to add onto a young girl’s already horrid pain.

There are two humans involved whose lives cry out for justice. Let us love them both—for they are both young and in need of our aid.

Seth Drayer

Director of Training

[sethdrayer-blog]

“Don’t you dare use Dr. King,” the young man shouted into the microphone. Cheers erupted from protesters scattered among the throng of students encircling me. “He fought for the rights of blacks, not children!”

I pulled the microphone back and paused. Most of the opposition during our “open mic” session at University of Buffalo had included garden variety challenges to our position—from red herrings (“Did you know today is Holocaust Remembrance Day?”) to ad hominems (“You don’t have a uterus!”)—but this statement was different. It was honest.

Rather than hiding or deflecting, this student expressed his simple offense at extrapolating the views of his historical champion to today’s issues.

Considering how to respond, I was reminded of two men who, one century before Dr. King raised high the banner of Civil Rights, became deeply embroiled in The Great Debates of 1858. The dialogue featured two candidates for Senate—Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln—and the main topic was slavery. These debates raised the vital question of what our Founders meant by the word “all” when they wrote “all men are created equal.”

Douglas interpreted this as white men only. Lincoln, however, defended a radical notion—that “all” meant all: white, black, and everything in between. Lincoln asserted no one had ever intended such prejudice “until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation.”

Looking at the student, listening to the shouts of protesters prepared to try to drown out my response, I was struck by how closely they mirrored Douglas’s position. Douglas was offended anyone would suggest our Founders’ appeal to equality should include those with black skin. And now these fans of Dr. King erupted with anger when it was suggested his defense of equality should be extended to today’s oppressed people.

King’s personal views on abortion, which have been debated, actually matter little. Rather, what truly matters is whether or not we corporately want the thing for which he and other reformers strove: veritable equality.

If so, then we must cease treating these notions like childish trinkets—enjoying them for ourselves while withholding from our neighbors—and instead declare finally that all means all—white and black, born and preborn.

[sethdrayer-blog]

Immediatists in the pro-life movement must answer the question Gregg Cunningham posed to T. Russell Hunter in last weekend's debate.

GC: I’d like to return to the question with which I began, which Russ hasn’t answered. Should we allow these babies to die rather than enact incremental legislation?

TH: No.

GC: I’m sorry?

TH: Like, should we allow – should we allow babies to die?

GC: Should we allow these – because…

TH: The charade is – the charade is not even what we’re talking about – the incrementalism/immediatism debate. Focusing the ax at the tree, getting all the people who follow incrementalism to become immediatists and help put that ax to the branch – to the root…

GC: Would you answer this question?

TH: [unintelligible]

Moderator: That was the last question. Russ, go ahead and answer that, and then we’re gonna end this.

GC: Just for the record, Russ didn’t answer the question: Should we have allowed these babies to die, which this university professor says would have died had that legislation not been enacted. Should we have allowed them to die rather than enact the incremental legislation?

Moderator: Ok, Russ, answer that question, then we’ll change.

TH: Um, well, I firmly believe that abortion is evil, and it is one of these things that the powers and principalities of darkness and high places are very in to. It’s the crown jewel of darkness, and I actually believe that if they can keep abortion going by deceiving people into becoming gradualists, they will do it. And if to deceive them they have to give them empty, illusory victories, and law professors may claim that babies were saved, they’ll do it. But I – if someone goes to an abortion mill and shoots a doctor, a baby might be saved that day, but that’s not going towards abolishing abortion. It’s not establishing justice that day [unintelligible] a baby that day.

GC: May I ask for clarification for your answer? You’re saying this guy’s making this up?

TH: Uh, no, I have to read it. But I’m just saying that convincing people to be gradualists by saying, “Hey look, we saved some,” while they’re still being – I’m pretty sure that you can convince people to be gradualists for the next 40 years…

GC: Hey Russell, let’s do both. Let’s do both. Let’s do both.

[sethdrayer-blog]

“This is our story.”

My daughter’s eager eyes had already moved on to another treasure along the gold-paved streets of the toy aisle, but I paused to turn over the package in my hands. I wanted to know more about this doll ostensibly speaking for her generation.

“We’re a very special generation of girls, aren’t we?” the text read on the back. I rolled my eyes at the self-importance, yet a smile returned to my face when I read the ensuing laundry list of activities in which developing debutantes might take interest. But then I read the final paragraph:

Whether we’re washing cars to support animal shelters, writing letters to help save polar bears or reminding our parents to recycle their newspapers, we’ve proved ourselves both smart and full of heart.

I appreciate the effort to encourage tomorrow’s leaders to invest in something larger than themselves, to cultivate a sense of justice. But the listed causes--animal shelters, polar bears, recycling--left something pretty big out of the picture.

How about helping humans?

I’m certainly not so naive as to expect a major corporation to put on the back of a child’s toy, “We pray outside of abortion clinics to try to save babies.” But surely there are plenty of efforts to help humans which don’t traverse our carefully guarded lines of political correction.

For example, why not write, “Whether we’re washing cars to support kids without families, writing letters to help send medicine to Africa, or reminding our parents to take us to visit lonely people...”

When three causes are pitched to young ladies and two involve animals, one emphasizes the environment, and not a single one is focused on humans, the exclusion is glaring.

In many ways, however, the marketing of children’s toys says more about our generation than it does that of our youth. Packaging playthings, we put on it what we think they want to see.

Apparently we think kids care more about animals and the environment than they do their human neighbors.

Perhaps that will indeed become the anthem of my daughter’s generation, but I hope it is not her story.

[sethdrayer-blog]

UF Protesters: “Safe Space”?

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! This propaganda has got to go,” the mob shouted, brandishing homemade signs and gesticulating frantically.

Standing as a group, at the end of a long day of outreach, we did not respond. There was no need. Something was frozen on the massive TV screen next to us—someone, that is, whose face shouted louder than all of the protesters combined—and we stood in silent solidarity with that dead baby as she testified to the decades of abuse she and her brethren have faced.

The protesters had mobilized ostensibly to create a “safe space” for those who would be alarmed by the reality of abortion. But the long tunnel they formed of chanting, shouting on both sides of the main sidewalk next to our display all students had to pass through suggested otherwise.

Nearly every time one of the protesters would engage me, their ringleader approached to shut the conversation down. Thus, when one of them told me he and his girlfriend had recently lost twins to miscarriage, I asked him if he would leave the tunnel of protesters so we could talk more privately. He agreed, though a “chaperone” protester was assigned for his protection.

Heartbroken for the young man, I set aside the topic of abortion, instead sharing that Aubrie and I have lost preborn babies, too. I told him I know what it is like to feel powerless as a father. Though quiet, his eyes registered understanding even as the “chaperone” denounced me as disrespectful.

But it didn’t take long for the ringleader—who later told university officials she was “tired of babysitting” me—to decide our conversation was taking too long. She inserted herself into the dialogue and began to drag the young man away. While I was able to communicate that he is and forever will be a father and the children he lost were real humans made by God who are, I believe, with the Lord, she cut me off before I could fully lay out the Gospel.

But reading his eyes, I think the poignancy of the moment was not lost on him: his “safe” friends stifling conversation about his own babies while the anti-abortion Christian wanted to honor them. Who truly cared for him and his family?

I pray he will continue to reflect on this and real truth behind all the slogans.

Please join me in praying God would use others to plant seeds of truth in his life so that he and his girlfriend may find true healing at the cross.

[sethdrayer-blog]

Liberal = Pro-What?

At U of North Florida on Created Equal's Justice Ride. Me: "What do you think about abortion?" Student: "I'm from Portland." Me: "What does that mean?" Student: "I'm liberal." Me: "So do you believe in equality?" Student: "I believe in choice." Me: "Do you believe mothers should have the choice to drown their toddlers in the bathtub?" Student: "I believe in choice."

[sethdrayer-blog]

"A Happier Truth"

Aubrie: “You have to finish your lunch before you can have dessert.” Adia: “Is that the truth?” Aubrie: “Yes.” Adia: “I don’t like that truth. I want to think about a happier truth.”

Sometimes Adia’s simplistic way of thought can be refreshing in a world of unmitigated skepticism—such as her comment recently that babies inside women have to be human like their mothers. This particular exchange about dessert, however, struck me because of its shocking similarity to many conversations I have during our outreach efforts.

“How dare you come here and show that in front of our school!” one woman shouted at our team through her rolled-down window while exiting the parking lot of Whetstone High School in Columbus recently.

Seemingly every time we go to Ohio State University, we receive comments like, “It was a beautiful day on the Oval until you showed up.”

Comments like these are not new to me, but what continues to surprise me is the notion some seem to hold that abortion only becomes ugly when our team shows up with our signs. But, in truth, the ugliness of abortion is a 24/7 atrocity that waits for no activist.

Our culture has become quite skilled at avoiding unpleasant realities. We’ve learned to shove inconvenient truths off to the side, like a young toddler dismissing the veracity of her mother’s words that she may not yet have dessert. If we don’t think about it, the fact will become fiction.

But that is a luxury only afforded born humans. The preborn child cannot avoid abortion by sticking fingers in her ears or closing her eyes—for it will destroy those fingers, ears, and eyes as it destroys her.

Encountering that fact is certainly not pleasant. But ignoring it will not make it go away. It will only increase our complicity in it.

One mother leaving Whetstone understood that. She rolled down her window and said, “Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing the reality.”

I certainly wish abortion were fiction. But so long as it continues in America, we must expose it before our culture.

[sethdrayer-blog]

Do minds ever change on abortion?