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It’s not often that an abortion advocate writes or does something that actually surprises me. I’ve seen them compare babies to excrement and to parasites, I’ve seen them claim that pro-life women don’t actually qualify as females, and I’ve seen them dressed up in enormous foam penis costumes. But today, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada’s proudly godless and happily pro-all-abortion Joyce Arthur actually posted something that caught me by surprise: an article entitled “Abortion as a Blessing, Grace, or Gift-Changing the Conversation about Reproductive Rights and Moral Values.” To this, the suddenly spiritual Ms. Arthur added the tagline, “Here’s a wonderful piece about why abortion is a blessing and a sacred moral value.”

The essay article, written by psychologist Valerie Tarico, begins by describing the decision to have a child as a sacred decision—and then continues into one of the most obliviously grotesque statements I’ve yet read: “My friend Patricia offers a single reason for her passionate defense of reproductive care that includes abortion: Every baby should have its toes kissed. If life is precious…then being able to stop an ill-conceived gestation is a sacred gift.”

Yes, you read that correctly. If a child is not going to be loved quite enough, Ms. Tarico thinks the un-kissable toes of the rejected child should be severed and tossed in the trash. Or perhaps adorn the trophy collection of an abortionist such as Kermit Gosnell, who kept the severed feet of fetuses in jars on a shelf in his office.  It turns out that the choice here is between motherly affection and a suction aspirator.

The problem with the pro-choice response to the obviously evil pro-lifers, says Ms. Tarico, is that “so many of the pro-choice movement’s leaders…are secular and civic in their orientation, awkwardly uncomfortable with the moral and spiritual dimension of the conversation.” The solution? It’s time for the champions of unethical choices and still-attached kissable baby feet to embrace religion.

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We need to change our messaging, says Ms. Tarico—“The other sides talks about murdering teeny, weeny babies…with faded photos of late term abortions. And we come back by talking about privacy?? Is that like the right to commit murder in the privacy of your own home or doctor’s office?” Well, er, yes Ms. Tarico—couldn’t have said it better myself.

She then lists ten ways that abortion advocates can reclaim the “moral high ground”—from “OWN religious freedom” to “Admit the qualities of personhood begin to emerge during gestation” to “Embrace abortion as a sacred gift or blessing.” Here Ms. Tarico informs us that “an abortion should be exactly as safe, legal, and rare as a surgery to remove swollen tonsils or an infected appendix.” By which she means to say, of course, not at all. She follows that up by suggesting that we “honor doctors who provide abortion services as we honor other healers”—because “the human body fends off most infections and cancers, but not all.” Thus abortionists, she says, by killing children that won’t have the opportunities others might, “are—literally or metaphorically—doing God’s work.”

What utter and complete trash. Surely it is obvious to those who do not live down Ms. Tarico’s Carrollesque rabbit hole that dispensing with human life that one considers inconvenient is not “God’s work” and that the fetal hit-men she fawns over are not healers in any sense of the word. However, if Ms. Tarico wants religion, I believe I know the one she is seeking. The ancient Ammonites were known to worship a god they called Molech, to whom they sacrificed their children in order to prove their devotion. While I realize that it may be impractical for abortionists to use actual fire during the abortion procedure, medical professionals have compared the effect of a saline abortion on pre-born children to napalm on adult soldiers. I guess the “healer”-priests of Ms. Tarico’s gruesome death cult will have to improvise.