The Path to Life

A deaf mother and her brood of 6 deaf little children were on the sidewalk yesterday of the abortion mill, praying for the babies destined to die. She spoke and read lips well, so we could communicate a little. She even taught me a few signs. I wondered what the abortion-minded mothers thought as they pulled into the Killing Place to see a little cherub, dressed in a pink tutu, with her brothers and sisters all standing for LIFE. None of them could hear, but they could see right from wrong.

One man came over to speak to me and one other counselor. He said he had driven his friend for the abortion, though if it were his choice, the baby would live. He was not the father and had no say. We pleaded with him to go back in and show the woman our literature, encourage her to come out for our free ultrasound. The abortionist had not yet arrived. There was still time! He thanked us, told us what we were doing would be blessed by God, but it was not for him to make up the woman's mind for her, since she was the only one who would have to live with her decision.

"But the baby will die for her decision. Her decision does not affect her alone. Please, go back in, try to convince her," I begged. He was pleasant and gentle with us, but he did not go in to try again to save the child. He did take our literature for post-abortive women.

We watched in dismay as the abortionist pulled in to the parking lot. As he walked into the clinic, another counselor told me that once he had stopped to talk to her. He had handed her a tract. It was urging people to fight for him to be reinstated as an OB-GYN at the local hospital. He had lost his license TWICE, and he insisted it was because he was Indian. (I read the reports for why he lost his license -- he had been reviewed by two separate commissions, and both found malpractice or concerns in a full 1/5th of his cases where he was the chief doctor.) The counselor told me there is even a restraining order against him stepping on hospital property. Dr. Virmani told my friend that if we wanted to protest something, protest his license revocation. 

If it weren't for that, he told her, he would be delivering babies instead of killing them.

Let that sink in, friends.


I prayed that his heart would be changed as I watched him walk into the clinic. I called out, "Please, get back in your car and drive away. Do not do this terrible thing."

He did not. But one couple came out a short time later and told us they had decided not to go through with it. They had chosen life. One baby appointed for death was spared that day.

I pondered what Dr. Virmani had said to my fellow sidewalk counselor. His sin seems horrific to me, but all sin is horrific to God. What struck me is that his rationalization was not so different from how all of us rationalize our sin: It is not our fault. We had no choice. Our circumstances gave us no options but to choose sin. If everyone around us were more supportive, less annoying, less unkind,  or if we had more money, or more opportunities, or more this, more that, less this, less that, etc etc etc...we would not be forced to sin this way!

In the end, the choice is really not as unclear as we pretend it is. We choose God or not God. We choose good or evil. We choose life or death. There are always reasons why sin seems alluring but it is never the path we should follow. Praise God that at least one mother Monday took the path for life. And an entire family who could not hear somehow heard His voice and came to pray at that terrible place.

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Psalm 50: 19-23
19 "You give your mouth free rein for evil,
 and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
22 "Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!"