Synod officials say recent videos ‘lay evil bare’

“It had a face. … Its nose was very pronounced. It had eyelids.” In the seventh Center for Medical Progress video, Holly O’Donnell, ex-procurement technician for StemExpress, describes what she witnessed in a Planned Parenthood clinic: A baby boy, an abortion survivor, was rinsed off and dropped in a pie plate for the procurement of his organs.

She continues, recounting the doctor’s words and her own thoughts: “‘I want you to see something cool, kind of neat.’ … She has one of her instruments and she just taps the heart and it starts beating. I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating. ‘You know why that’s happening?’ I knew why it was happening. It’s because an electrical current, nodes were still firing.”

Her words are heart-stopping.

A child, still alive, is then cut — through the chin and face and forehead — so that his brain can be invoiced and sold. “I can’t even, like, describe, like, what that feels like,” O’Donnell says.

But we as the Church can. It feels like — it is — evil.

The infanticide that is occurring at Planned Parenthood must end. It is not simply time to defund that organization; it is time to end abortion in the United States altogether.

As for us, we can no longer claim that we didn’t know Planned Parenthood doctors killed children so ruthlessly or that we weren’t aware human bodies were cannibalized for their organs.

We can’t just say it’s a woman’s choice or shrug our shoulders and mumble, “Who are we to judge?”

We can’t hide behind the half-truths that women have no other place to find health care or that Planned Parenthood provides millions of mammograms per year.

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

Children are being killed, their organs are being sold, and their mothers are left with physical scars and — greater still — haunting memories that sometimes never fade. The death of these children is barbaric, and it is evil, and we are without excuse. Silence and attempts at justification are no longer options. The only option is for each one of us to act. Here’s what you can do:

• Participate in the nationwide Aug. 22 Planned Parenthood protest. Search online for protest locations. Give up two hours of your Saturday morning to speak out against the infanticide occurring at these clinics.
• Write a letter to the president and to your congressman or senator regarding this issue. Ask them if they’ve watched the videos. Tell them why you believe life — no matter how young — has innate worth. Encourage them to end abortion and to defund any organization that performs them.
• Support LCMS Life Ministry. Its staff members are committed to teaching why human lives and bodies matter and why there is hope and healing in Christ.
• Call your LCMS representatives who serve at local, state or federal levels of government. Remind them of their Baptism and confirmation vows, of the faithful confession they are called upon to make, even when it’s unpopular.
• Use your social media channels to share pro-life resources or LCMS life-related social media imagery (click on “Religious Freedom Toolkit”).
• Share resources from Lutherans For Life, start a life team or kick-start a young adult life team in your congregation.
• Pre-order a new, free resource from the LCMS — the Ultrasound Education Project — that will bring the miracle and sanctity of human life into the middle-school and high-school classroom through the use of ultrasound technology.

We see in these videos how Satan thrives on darkness and chaos, how he delights in baby boys and tiny girls picked apart with sterile utensils. And while we are repulsed and horrified, we no longer have the option to turn away. In this, we have been provided with the biggest opportunity of all: to highlight a still greater need that every person — pro-abortion or pro-life — has for the mercy and forgiveness of Christ.

Without Him, we are all capable of performing equally horrifying acts, of seeing children as nothing more than line items or cadavers. But our Lord is merciful. Because of Him, we have been given consciences that cause us to act and tongues that can speak truth in the midst of evil. We have been given His forgiveness in water and Word, and so we speak it, in turn, to hurting mothers and repentant participants in the deaths of these babies. We have the truth, and we are no longer ashamed to call the deaths of 55 million children what it is: genocide.

Our heavenly Father, it turns out, knows a thing or two about hearts. He knows our own, and He knows each heart of each child, even as He knows their faces and noses and eyelids. We are the reason He allowed His own Son’s heart to stop beating for a time, so that ours may thrive for all eternity. In so doing, He shows us His own heart, full of grace, mercy and compassion.

Through each of these videos, He has seen fit to lay evil bare, and by His grace, our hearts and lips are freed to speak, to act, to pray, to repent, to call upon His name and to trust in His heart, which is ever turned toward us in Christ.

It’s all that matters.

Rev. Kevin Robson, Chief Mission Officer
Rev. Bart Day, executive director, Office of National Mission

Rev. Heath Curtis, coordinator, Stewardship Ministry
Rev. Dr. Roosevelt Gray, director, Black Ministry
Rev. Joel Hempel, interim director, Specialized Pastoral Ministry
Rev. Dr. Carlos Hernandez, director, Hispanic Ministry, Church and Community Engagement
Rev. Ross Johnson, director, Disaster Response
Rev. Mark Kiessling, interim director, Youth Ministry
Rev. Todd Kollbaum, director, Rural & Small Town Mission
Deaconess Dorothy Krans, director, Recognized Service Organizations
Tracy Quaethem, project coordinator, Life and Health Ministries
Deaconess Grace Rao, director, Deaconess Ministry
Rev. Steve Schave, director, Urban & Inner-City Mission
Terry Schmidt, director, School Ministry
Rev. William Weedon, director, Worship
Rev. Mark Wood, director, Witness & Outreach Ministry
Rev. Marcus Zill, director, Campus Ministry and LCMS U

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