‘Let’s do a nice, normal, mainstream topic. Let’s talk abortion.’
I hope I have shocked my readers with this introduction – it was my intention. The quote is from American stand-up comedian Bill Burr, and the sarcastic remarks in fact speak to the feelings most of us have about the topic. It is something that people do not like to discuss in public (unless you are a pro-abortion fanatic or a devoted anti-abortion activist). But speak we must, because while the number of abortions is declining worldwide, the murdering of innocent pre-born children continues. And the situation is not as rosy as we might think in Hungary, either.
On the positive side, there has been a huge drop in the number of abortions performed. In 2020, roughly 75 per cent fewer pregnancies were terminated than in 1990 and the number of abortions has almost halved since 2010, as Viktor Orbán also highlighted in his Dallas remarks. As we also pointed out in an earlier Hungarian Conservative article, family-friendly policies have most certainly contributed to growing birth rates and declining abortion rates in the country.
But consider this: almost 24,000 abortions were performed in Hungary in 2020. That is 24,000 babies who were never born. That figure, when put into the context of abortion rates and abortion ratios per country, is still one of the highest in the EU. In addition, the abortion rate in Hungary does not seem to be improving significantly among teenagers, which is great cause for alarm.
Almost 24,000 abortions were performed in Hungary in 2020
Another sad fact to be reckoned with is that abortions are the leading cause of death in Hungary. Malignant tumours, the officially reported number one mortality cause, killed 16,804 Hungarians in 2020 – abortions were in fact responsible for almost eight thousand more deaths. Not to mention the fact that those were induced deaths, which could have been prevented – all of them.
At this point, many will invariably say – but you cannot compare the two! Those foetuses that were aborted were not people, they were just a clump of cells! Well, let me quote Bill Burr again in response – I think what he had to say on this issue in a recent show hit the nail on the head in its simplicity. (And apologies for the profanities, but they were necessary to get the message across, I think.)
‘“That wasn’t cake, yet.” Well, it would have been if you didn’t just do what you just did’
‘Pro-choice always makes sense to me because I don’t like people telling me what to do, and I was just like, it’s your body. Who the f**k am I to tell you what to do with your body,’ Burr said. But then he continued: ‘I still think you’re killing a baby. See? That’s where it gets weird. It’s not a baby yet, that’s what they say. Which may, or may not be true, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. But I’ll tell you, my gut tells me that doesn’t make sense.’ And Burr explained: ‘That would be like if I was making a cake and I poured some batter into a pan, and I put it in the oven, and then five minutes later, you came by, and you grabbed the pan, and you threw it across the floor. And I went, “What the f**k? You just ruined my birthday cake.” And you were like, “That wasn’t cake, yet.” Well, it would have been if you didn’t just do what you just did. There would have been a cake in 50 minutes. Something happened to the cake, you cake-murdering son of a b****.”’
Perfectly put – there is a gut feeling, a natural understanding that people have that to say the little creatures done away with are not babies. People, deep down, are all instinctively pro-life, even if some do not verbalize or realise it. Confronted with an “unwanted” pregnancy, the gut feeling would (or should) normally become something more – a conscious decision, an understanding of the moral commandment of thou shalt not kill.
But that does not always happen, and those who refuse to take that step “choose” to get rid of what they and their enablers fool themselves into believing is just “a lump of cells.” Thumbs up, or thumbs down, like the Roman emperors-allegedly- used to do, deciding about the fate of the defeated gladiators in the arena. But if that train of thought was correct, we, who are alive, could regard ourselves as simply lucky – the lucky survivors of a selection process. You get to live, some were told, you get to die, others were.
As a Christian, I believe that we were all created in God’s image, and therefore there is that of God in all of us, including pre-born babies. But one need not be a Christian to understand the fundamentally evil nature of abortions. If we want to change the type of thinking that refuses to acknowledge that abortion is killing a baby, we must stop sitting on our laurels. More sexual and moral education is needed in schools, and braver and more outspoken advocacy is required.
