But now, thus says the Lord,
    who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have called you by name: you are mine.
—Isaiah 43:1

This quote from Isaiah is true of every child whoever has been, or whoever will be, conceived.

It’s also true of every child taken by Planned Parenthood from his mother’s womb – perhaps with heart still beating – and pulled apart in order to harvest his body parts to sell.

The series of undercover videos being systematically released by the Center for Medical Progress has revealed the increasingly vile methods Planned Parenthood uses to procure tissue from aborted fetuses. Frequently those fetuses are intact and gleaned from the womb well into the second trimester.

In the most recent video, former StemExpress technician, Holly O’Donnell, describes being instructed to cut through the face of a fetus with still-beating heart in order to harvest his brains.

To Planned Parenthood and its supporters, this baby is nameless (and literally faceless after it was mutilated). To God, the child has a name and a face, and the dignity of being his child.

Perhaps the children aborted in Planned Parenthood clinics (and elsewhere) will never be named by their parents, but God has given them names. To him, they are precious.

They should be precious to us – all of us – as well.

To signify that, Students for Life has initiated the #CallHimEmmett campaign, launched recently with a YouTube video and website. The gist of the campaign is to create awareness that the aborted babies indeed have names, are loved by God and deserve our love and the dignity endowed to them by their Creator.

The initiative is the idea of Students for Life President, Kristan Hawkins. In a letter to the Register, she explained how it came about:

“At the end of one of the videos, the Planned Parenthood medical staff assistant calls out “another boy!” When I heard that, I had to close my eyes and hold back a lump in throat. That’s something that is said in delivery rooms every day but never should be said in a Planned Parenthood “products of conception” lab. And never about a baby whose parts are being dissected for sale in a cold pie dish under bright lights.

That baby, that little boy, deserves the human dignity that was ripped away from him by Planned Parenthood. That little boy deserves a name. I want to name him Emmett, after another little boy whose broken body changed the course of history in our nation.”

Hawkins is referring to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy who was kidnapped and brutally tortured and killed for allegedly speaking inappropriately to a white woman on August 21, 1955 in Money, Mississippi, where he was visiting relatives.

Emmett Till’s mother insisted on having an open casket funeral so that the world could see what racial discord had done to her son. Emmett’s killer later admitted to their crime, and the picture of him in his casket made international news and is considered one of the biggest inspirations of the Civil Rights Movement.

When asked why she didn’t move to the back of that Montgomery bus, Rosa Parks said: "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back.”

As part of the campaign, Students for Life is asking for shows of support on www.CallHimEmmett.org.  

“Our team at Students for Life has made a memorial website for baby Emmett - and the thousands of baby Emmetts aborted each day in this nation,” Hawkins wrote. “We are asking you to leave a memorial message of love. Leave it for Baby Emmett, leave it for his mother, leave it for all of those affected by the horror of abortion.”

Students for Life is hoping that Emmett’s broken body will be a turning point for abortion in our country. It’s one thing to talk about all those aborted babies; it’s another to talk about them suing their names. We don’t know what names God has given them, or what names their parents would have given them. But, we can name them, and we can make sure that they are never forgotten.

The horrors of Planned Parenthood’s baby body parts business has gone on long enough. It’s time to turn the tide of this abominable outrage.

I’m hoping, praying, that as a people we will think of Emmett Eleven-Six and be unable to go back.