Bryan Fischer
Wendy Davis is pro-life and doesn't even know it
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Wendy Davis rose to national prominence in 2013 when she launched a solo filibuster on the floor of the Texas state senate to prevent the closing of abortion clinics where babies are dismembered in the wombs of their mothers by hired killers.
Thus Ms. Davis, by her own actions and words, is adamantly pro-abortion and pro-death.
However, by her own admission she knows better. She is pro-life at the core of her conscience and is either blind to that plain fact or refuses to admit it.
This is evident from the release of her new memoir, in which she reveals the details of two abortions she had before pursuing public office.
One of the two abortions was a second trimester abortion performed in 1996 on a baby who was far enough along that she and her then-husband had already named her Tate Elise Davis. Blood tests revealed that the baby's brain had developed separately on the right and left sides, leading doctors to believe that the baby girl would likely (but not certainly) be deaf, blind and in a permanent vegetative state if she survived delivery.
And so, because she was carrying a disabled baby, she killed it.
She paid the abortionist to stop Tate's beating heart, and then the next day paid him to surgically remove the baby he had killed from her womb.
Make no mistake. Ms. Davis knew she was killing a baby, not removing a clump of tissue. Read the following excerpts from her memoir with references to the humanity and personhood of her baby highlighted:
"I could feel her little body tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her, and I knew then what I needed to do. She was suffering.
"The following morning, after spending my last night with Tate, talking to her, sobbing as I felt her tiny body tremble inside mine, I managed to rise, to dress, to take Jeff's hand as he helped me into the car and drove me to the doctor's office. The previous night, as I lay awake, I was unsure if I would be able to muster the strength to make my body move toward the inevitability of what would follow from each of those movements. But somehow, and with Jeff's support, I did.
"In our doctor's office, with tears flowing down both our faces, Jeff and I looked at our baby daughter's beating heart on the sonogram screen for the last time. And we watched as our doctor quieted it. It was over. She was gone. Our much-loved baby was gone.
"Afterward I accompanied my doctor to the hospital and delivered Tate Elise Davis by cesarean section, just as I had when Amber and Dru were born. The following day a dear friend who was a nurse in the unit where I delivered Tate brought her to me. She had dressed her in a tiny pink dress and placed a knit cap on her enlarged head. On her feet were crocheted booties, and next to her was a small crocheted pink bunny. Jeff and I spent the better part of the day holding her, crying for her and for us. We asked an associate minister from our church who was a trusted friend to come and baptize her. We took photographs of her. And we said our good-byes. The next day, as I lay in the hospital sobbing, my hand over my now-empty womb, Tate's lifeless body was taken away and cremated."
Tate was not an "it," a blob of protoplasm, she was a "she," a "her," a "baby daughter," a "much-loved baby." In other words, Wendy Davis knew she was putting to death her own child. Whether she will ever accept the reality or not, she is pro-life.
It is natural to sympathize with Ms. Davis' pain. But the solution to that pain is the sustaining power of God's grace and mercy, and reliance on his will to be done when the baby is born. The solution is not to terminate the life of a baby because of physical abnormalities. A civilized society does not kill children just because they are disabled.
I vividly remember once counseling a couple, the wife of which was pregnant with twins. One of the twins had several fetal anomalies and the doctors urged her to selectively abort the child. They called me in pain and anguish and wanted to know what to do.
Everything in me wanted to give them permission to follow the doctor's advice in order to alleviate their intense agony, but my biblical convictions about life in the womb would not allow me to do so. I walked them through the consequences they would experience if they terminated the life of this child, the lifetime of guilt, darkness and self-recrimination, and a constant questioning about whether they had done the right thing by choosing death rather than life for their baby.
On the other hand, I urged them to believe they would never regret giving that baby a chance at life. I urged them to carry both babies to term and allow God's will to be done. And they did.
The doctors were right. The baby was born with severe problems and didn't survive the day. But they were able to cradle their baby for the duration of his short life, name him, and then give him a proper and God-honoring burial. They called me later to tell me that they knew they had made the right moral choice, to honor God, to honor their child, and to honor life. They knew they would never regret giving their baby the opportunity to live.
Wendy Davis suffered horribly through this difficult pregnancy, and still appears haunted to this day by her choice. I hope and pray that she will come to recognize the enormity of the deed she committed that day and come in humility, tears and repentance to the foot of the cross. There she will find forgiveness, cleansing and newness of life.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
September 9, 2014
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Wendy Davis rose to national prominence in 2013 when she launched a solo filibuster on the floor of the Texas state senate to prevent the closing of abortion clinics where babies are dismembered in the wombs of their mothers by hired killers.
Thus Ms. Davis, by her own actions and words, is adamantly pro-abortion and pro-death.
However, by her own admission she knows better. She is pro-life at the core of her conscience and is either blind to that plain fact or refuses to admit it.
This is evident from the release of her new memoir, in which she reveals the details of two abortions she had before pursuing public office.
One of the two abortions was a second trimester abortion performed in 1996 on a baby who was far enough along that she and her then-husband had already named her Tate Elise Davis. Blood tests revealed that the baby's brain had developed separately on the right and left sides, leading doctors to believe that the baby girl would likely (but not certainly) be deaf, blind and in a permanent vegetative state if she survived delivery.
And so, because she was carrying a disabled baby, she killed it.
She paid the abortionist to stop Tate's beating heart, and then the next day paid him to surgically remove the baby he had killed from her womb.
Make no mistake. Ms. Davis knew she was killing a baby, not removing a clump of tissue. Read the following excerpts from her memoir with references to the humanity and personhood of her baby highlighted:
"I could feel her little body tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her, and I knew then what I needed to do. She was suffering.
"The following morning, after spending my last night with Tate, talking to her, sobbing as I felt her tiny body tremble inside mine, I managed to rise, to dress, to take Jeff's hand as he helped me into the car and drove me to the doctor's office. The previous night, as I lay awake, I was unsure if I would be able to muster the strength to make my body move toward the inevitability of what would follow from each of those movements. But somehow, and with Jeff's support, I did.
"In our doctor's office, with tears flowing down both our faces, Jeff and I looked at our baby daughter's beating heart on the sonogram screen for the last time. And we watched as our doctor quieted it. It was over. She was gone. Our much-loved baby was gone.
"Afterward I accompanied my doctor to the hospital and delivered Tate Elise Davis by cesarean section, just as I had when Amber and Dru were born. The following day a dear friend who was a nurse in the unit where I delivered Tate brought her to me. She had dressed her in a tiny pink dress and placed a knit cap on her enlarged head. On her feet were crocheted booties, and next to her was a small crocheted pink bunny. Jeff and I spent the better part of the day holding her, crying for her and for us. We asked an associate minister from our church who was a trusted friend to come and baptize her. We took photographs of her. And we said our good-byes. The next day, as I lay in the hospital sobbing, my hand over my now-empty womb, Tate's lifeless body was taken away and cremated."
Tate was not an "it," a blob of protoplasm, she was a "she," a "her," a "baby daughter," a "much-loved baby." In other words, Wendy Davis knew she was putting to death her own child. Whether she will ever accept the reality or not, she is pro-life.
It is natural to sympathize with Ms. Davis' pain. But the solution to that pain is the sustaining power of God's grace and mercy, and reliance on his will to be done when the baby is born. The solution is not to terminate the life of a baby because of physical abnormalities. A civilized society does not kill children just because they are disabled.
I vividly remember once counseling a couple, the wife of which was pregnant with twins. One of the twins had several fetal anomalies and the doctors urged her to selectively abort the child. They called me in pain and anguish and wanted to know what to do.
Everything in me wanted to give them permission to follow the doctor's advice in order to alleviate their intense agony, but my biblical convictions about life in the womb would not allow me to do so. I walked them through the consequences they would experience if they terminated the life of this child, the lifetime of guilt, darkness and self-recrimination, and a constant questioning about whether they had done the right thing by choosing death rather than life for their baby.
On the other hand, I urged them to believe they would never regret giving that baby a chance at life. I urged them to carry both babies to term and allow God's will to be done. And they did.
The doctors were right. The baby was born with severe problems and didn't survive the day. But they were able to cradle their baby for the duration of his short life, name him, and then give him a proper and God-honoring burial. They called me later to tell me that they knew they had made the right moral choice, to honor God, to honor their child, and to honor life. They knew they would never regret giving their baby the opportunity to live.
Wendy Davis suffered horribly through this difficult pregnancy, and still appears haunted to this day by her choice. I hope and pray that she will come to recognize the enormity of the deed she committed that day and come in humility, tears and repentance to the foot of the cross. There she will find forgiveness, cleansing and newness of life.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
