1/18/16

Save the Planet...Abort a Child!? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.



http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=2392

Save the Planet...Abort a Child!?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

Just when you thought that rabid environmentalists could not get any more fanatical, another jaw-dropping story hit newsstands. Actually, this report was so nauseating that it appears relatively few major news outlets were willing to run it. (Those bold enough to show the dark side of over-the-top, irrational environmentalism included Fox News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.) The Daily Mail of the United Kingdom was first to break the story: a woman (Toni Vernelli) “terminated her pregnancy [the politically correct way of saying “murdered her baby”—EL] in the firm belief she was helping save the planet” (all quotations from Courtenay-Smith and Turner, 2007). According to Vernelli,
Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet.... Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.
Vernelli wants to “save the planet—not produce a new life which would only add to the problem.” Vernelli went on to describe procreation as “something negative” and claimed that there were many other people with similar planet-saving ideas. Daily Mail reporters Natasha Courtenay-Smith and Morag Turner concurred, saying, “Toni is far from alone.”
Thirty-one-year-old Sarah Irving seems to be in complete agreement with Vernelli. “[A] baby,” she said, “would pollute the planet.... [N]ever having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.” Sarah and her fiancĂ© Mark Hudson told the Daily Mail, “In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.” Mark added: “It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth” (emp. added).
It is a sad day when having children is described as “something negative” and “morally wrong,” whilemurdering unborn children is hailed as “helping save the planet.” The Word of God says: “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.... Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them” (Psalm 127:3,5). Conversely, “[h]ands that shed innocent blood” (e.g., unborn babies) are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 6:16-17; cf. Isaiah 5:20).
Finally, while faithful Christians oppose all murder (Romans 1:29) including suicide, one wonders why fanatical environmentalists like Vernelli, Irving, and Hudson refuse to be consistent and simply take their bizarre beliefs to their logical conclusion. If having fewer people on Earth will help save the planet, environmentalists should kill themselves. After all, just like every baby, every “selfish” environmentalist “uses more food, more water, more land, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gasses, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

REFERENCES

Courtenay-Smith, Natasha and Morag Turner (2007), “Meet the Women Who Won’t Have Babies—Because They’re Not Eco Friendly,” Daily Mail, November 21, [On-line], URL:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_ id=495495&in_page_id=1879.