Have Baby, Will Abort?

Couple to Allow Web Visitors to Vote for Life or Death of their Child

UPDATE: Pete Arnold, the husband behind the BirthOrNot web site admitted to CNN that the site is a hoax. Arnold said that his wife supports abortion and the couple put the site up knowing that they never intended to have an abortion. He said that he put the site up to engage people on the issue of abortion.

Demonstrating a remarkable callousness toward the dignity of the human person, a Minneapolis couple has decided to let a website vote determine whether they should give birth to, or abort their unborn child.

Peter and Alisha Arnold, both 30, of Minneapolis, Minn. said that they set up their website www.birthornot.com because they’re uncertain whether they want to be parents.

Alisha is currently 17 weeks pregnant. They launched their website Sept. 28. They’re giving website visitors until December 7 to cast their vote. That date is just two days before the 20-week mark.

Peter’s a non-practicing Catholic. Alisha is Methodist. Both work in the IT industry. They’ve been married for nine years.

Alisha said that she worries about the pressures of juggling her career with motherhood.

“I’m not convinced that I want to change the status quo,” she wrote on her site. “I feel that as I age, I’ve actually gotten more selfish and set in my ways. I fear that the constant pressure to be the perfect wife and mother while maintaining a full-time job will eventually cause my brain to implode and lead to a nervous breakdown.”

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, if you’ll allow me to speak to you personally, you already are parents, whether you want to be or not.

The fact that you are parents should be clear to you through the ultrasounds posted on your website, and by the fact that you’ve already nicknamed your son “wiggles.” Whether you want to be parents or not is immaterial. You are.

Life has begun and is growing inside of you. You are cooperators with the Author of Life. The choice before you is not whether or not you should give birth to the child, but whether or not you want to raise the child. Hundreds of thousands of couples unable to have children, including my wife and I, would gladly adopt your son and raise him in a loving home. Right here, right now.

What a world of contradiction we live in.

“We want coffee without caffeine. Cream without fat. Beer without alcohol. War without casualties. Warm fuzzy faith without truth. Freedom of choice without responsibility,” said Father Jay Kythe, pastor in Canon Falls, Minn. during a recent homily before 1,000 young people.

Modern theologians, such as Scott Hahn, teach that Original Sin is the consequence of Adam’s failure to protect Eve. While the serpent was tempting her with his lies, convincing her to bite into that bitter apple, Adam was nowhere to be found. He had abandoned his post as guardian and protector.

While the abortion debate is most certainly about the rights of the unborn child who cannot speak for himself, we have to remember that it is also about protection – protection of the lives of the most vulnerable among us - mothers and their unborn children.

This week I spent a day walking the hallowed ground of Gettysburg and contemplating with gratitude the sacrifice of so many. The debate over slavery was not won through merely a discussion about human rights and dignity, and the wrongness of slavery. The debate over slavery was won through battle – and a costly one at that. At Gettysburg alone, there were more than 51,000 casualties over those three days in July. Our nation engaged not only in a war of words, but a physical war to protect the dignity of the human person and to preserve our union.

Our nation stands at a new crossroads. Before us is either life or death. How will we choose?

Scripture asks, “Would a mother desert her child?”

We live in a country, where, not only will a mother desert her child, but she’ll “take out” her own child, or even allow the public at-large to decide whether to kill him in her life-giving womb. Is this “freedom of choice”?

But, we also live in a country where the father deserts not only his child, but the child’s mother as well. He has abandoned his duty to protect mother and child. Both mother and father have abandoned their duty. A culture that cannot produce women who will care for their own young, will never produce legislatures, or courts that will make laws, that can do the maternal job for them.

Not until we restore a culture of protection, will we be able to change our present Culture of Death. In that culture of death, life is a commodity that can apparently be voted upon.

“Whatever may or may not be real about this website, the ultrasound of the baby is of a real human being,” said Rebecca Ng, spokesperson for the ProLife Alliance. “To think for one minute that his or her existence is going to be determined by those who log on and vote is absolutely spine-chilling.”
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