This is unbelievable: a woman has an abortion induced at 23 weeks gestation, but the abortion is not completed. The baby is born alive, then bled to death and thrown in the trash by one of the clinic owners.

The story itself is horrific, but I’m more amazed by the tone of the newspaper article, and of the people quoted in it. Why is everyone so shocked that this could happen? Why is the mother acting as though she’s been wronged? After all, killing a 23-week old fetus is legal in Florida. The woman visited the clinic three times in the space of one week in order to plan and carry out the death of her unborn child. The child ended up dead. Why is she surprised?

It’s obvious, of course. We all recognize that a child outside the womb is human, and deserves care. But this story highlights the logical and ethical impossibilities of the pro-death position: What essential fact about the child changed when it was born prematurely? Outside her mother’s womb, the baby had the exact same physical makeup as she’d had had a few minutes earlier, inside. She was the same person, whether in the womb or out of it. The clinic owner only carried out the mother’s expressed wish: the death of a child she didn’t want to be burdened with.

Wake up, America. Millions of similar innocent children are murdered every year, and we stand by idly. If this story shocks you, think a little bit about the thousands of helpless babies just like this one killed every day. Simply because their bodies are mangled and mutilated before anyone ever sees them and recognizes their humanity doesn’t change the essential fact.

May God have mercy on this nation, and lead us to stop killing our babies.