There's a great quip my boss uses when a stranger asks him what line of work he's in.
"I'm in the population growth movement," he tells them, often to their surprise. Of course, this is every bit as clear-and-murky as telling them he serves the "pregnancy help community." Either answer requires further explanation.
But here's what's so great about telling people we're in the field of population growth, and why it catches most folks off-guard: We've forgotten that the world was meant to be inhabited by people. That our Creator did not, in His own words, "create [the world] to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited."
The biblical understanding of humanity includes what is often called the "Cultural Mandate," a fancy way of referring to God's blessing to Noah in particular that he would "be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
At this point, if we share the same Judeo-Christian, or what's typically referred to as a "traditional" worldview, it's likely you and I are on the same page: All people are created in the image of God, and that same God wants to fill this ball of dirt we live on with lots and lots of people.
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Since you're still with me, I want to draw your attention to a letter to the editor that was published online at the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader over the weekend. The title of the letter may identify the anti-child mindset festering just under the surface of abortion in a way no columnist—syndicated or otherwise—ever could. Are you ready for the headline? Here goes:
"Letter: Quest to defund Planned Parenthood would increase population."
That, my friends is a terrifying statement. The gentleman who took the time to write this letter is concerned primarily with the specter of the likely fallout of a cease-funding of Big Abortion by our tax dollars: more people would be born.
Now, let's be clear here, this is just a letter to the editor, and we shouldn't pay too much attention to the piece in and of itself. But the Springfield News-Leader not only saw this argument as worthy of publishing, but its editorial staff decided the best way to capture what the writer said was by the above headline.
Tweet This: If #PPAct were defunded, more people would be born. #MondayMotivation #DefundPP #PPSellsBabyParts
To some, the idea of more babies being born represents a threat. Notice, I didn't say more babies being conceived—in the case of an abortion, or 86 percent of Planned Parenthood's income, this has already happened—just born. (In light of the ever-increasing evidence of Planned Parenthood's harvesting of born-alive infants' body parts, perhaps we need to forge a new term to distinguish between "born, killed and sold" and "born and cherished.")
And lest we dicker over "fetus" versus "baby," let me remind you that we call people "fetuses," "babies," "toddlers," "kids," "teenagers," "adults" and "old folks" at various ages. It's just that nowhere else on this spectrum do we decide one is less "human" than the other and thus dispensable, burdensome, and acceptable to kill.
We only do that at the beginning—and increasingly, at the end—of a person's lifespan.
Back in the 1960s, the impending apocalypse of the "population explosion" was introduced by pseudo-scientists like Paul R. Ehrlich and Stewart Brand. The thought that the growth of the human race was out-pacing our resources and leading straight to hell on earth was perpetuated through the arts by the novel "Make Room! Make Room!" which was the basis movies like for "Soylent Green" and songs like "In the Year 2525."
Using appearances on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show" to promote his ideas, Ehrlich predicted in his 1968 book, "The Population Bomb" that hundreds of millions would starve to death—including 65 million Americans—and the odds were fair "England would not exist in the year 2000."
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Much to Ehrlich's chagrin—some might say perpetual denial—the New York Times reported this May that the "horrors of population explosion" have been "unrealized," thanks in large part to advances in global agriculture, which started in the 1960s.
But even today, doomsday predictions of overpopulation and the overcrowding of the planet persist, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It's evidence of a strangely anti-human humanism that can only, perhaps, be expressed in the headline of a letter to the editor.
Yes, if Planned Parenthood were defunded, we would hope to see the population increase. Yes, we'd love to see 327,000 more children born in 2016. It would mean Planned Parenthood's fungible income stream had been finally dammed up by politicians who'd located their collective backbone.
Yes, we'd love to see 327,000 more women find actual help, rather than abortion, during an unexpected pregnancy in 2016. Yes, we'd love to make room for more. Yes, we'd love to redirect our efforts to providing for people, rather than killing them. That's the heart of what it means to be pro-life.
Tweet This: Yes, we'd love to see 327K more babies born in 2016. #prolife #mondaymotivation
There are 2,500 life-affirming pregnancy centers and medical clinics and another 400 maternity homes, plus fleets of mobile ultrasound units, and non-profit adoption agencies in the U.S., all doing their part to rescue lives one woman at a time. Wouldn't we love to see those numbers double in 2016? Wouldn't we love to double the number of lives we rescue from the jaws of the abortion industry this year?
As those invested in the "population growth movement," we've got a message for the population explosion: bring it on.
