A Sad Day
Posted in The Historical Faith, The Life of the Historian and tagged with Abortion on January 22, 2009Today is the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Thirty-six years…many of the babies that weren’t given the chance to be born would have had the opportunity to have their own children by now. I’ve made my position on abortion pretty clearly in the past, but I wanted to share with you an encounter with a customer back when I worked at Walmart. It so upset me, that I’ve never been able to share it with anyone.
Not surprisingly, a cashier’s job is boring. One of the ways I would entertain myself and engage my customer is ask about their strange combination of items and speculate how they might be used together. It was all fun and games, until one day.
A lady and her preteen daughter were buying a few basic food items and a big bag of pine shavings, usually used for bedding for small animals. I did my usual, “This is an interesting combination, what are you making for dinner?” or some such thing. The customer’s answer was so straight-forward, so matter-of-fact, that I almost thought I had misheard her.
She said, “Oh, I work at an abortion clinic. We find that the hamster bedding absorbs the best.”
Immediately the smile on my face fadded. What I had thought was amusing conversation turned with that stomach-churning statement. To her, it was a mere fact of life, but to me it was the remembrance of the murder of those innocent babies. They have no funerals, no coffins, but instead get thrown into hamster bedding to be discarded as if they were trash.
I couldn’t even finish the conversation with the customer. I finished ringing up her items, told her her total, and wished her a good day as she walked away. I didn’t hate her for being a part of the abortion industry, but I no longer could have a normal conversation with this enormous burden placed before me so suddenly.
So today, I’ll mourn the estimated 50 million babies legally not given the dignity of being born. Estimated, because they haven’t even been given the respect of being reported and counted.
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January 22nd, 2009 at 9:07 am
This is very thought provoking.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
It’s such a travesty that this is even legal, but for people to be mistaken that its anybody’s right is a horrific shame. I find it hard not to feel contempt towards people who think it should be legal, especially Christians. I lose respect for them. I’m sorry if some of your readers find this harsh, but it’s that sick to me. I continue to try to love them, but as a follower of Jesus where is their understanding of how Jesus feels about the innocent?
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:29 am
It breaks my heart that people think about life so flippantly.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Just curious about your thoughts:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/01/21/how-to-stump-anti-abortionists-with-one-question/
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
That is a sad story. I had no idea. We’ve got to pray for women’s hearts to change. For our society to have higher morals and be truly educated about what an abortion is. The abortion industry thrives because they have customers and those customers are women.
♥
Joy
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
That is so sad. I had no idea they used those shavings for that! How awful! Well, I know one baby that didn’t have a funeral except in my heart and he was born and he was a baby and he was mourned. I hope that we can work towards the gray area of this issue while still stressing the importance of keeping all unborn life alive.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 am
Oh my. However, you’ve appropriately shared the burden and the saddness which should overwhelm us all more frequently than it does. It’s sad that we, as Americans, need such shock treatment. However, being an American I admit that I need it also.
Thanks for sharing this story – even though it isn’t a pretty one. It is a reality we need to wake up to.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 am
I believe God also grieves.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:49 am
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 am
[...] innocent lives who have been lost since Roe v. Wade was decided, 36 years ago [...]
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Thank you for sharing. Yet another reminder of the heartless, billion-dollar industry of killing the unborn…
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Oh my gosh Ronnica. I’d have probably started sobbing right then and there. What a cold, harsh reality to be thrown right in your face when you were least expecting it. I actually did some reading not long ago about partial birth abortions. I had *no* idea of the brutality…no concept of how seemingly normal human beings could justify such inhumane, disgusting, murderous acts. I can’t believe it. And I can’t believe people call it “the right to choose”.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I can feel your pain, Ronnica. How horrible, and to say it so flippantly right there in front of her daughter. I don’t think I could’ve held my composure. I probably would’ve started bawling. I’m emotional that way.
Yes it is sad.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Wow… I could imagine the shock on your face when that lady said that because I’d have the same reaction. Makes me so sad to think of the sheer number of children who have been lost to abortion.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
[...] Ronnica at Ignorant Historian has an anecdote. Frankly, I don’t know how well I would have handled the situation in which she found herself. Please check out her thoughts in “A Sad Day.” [...]
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I agree, its a sad day, and unfortunately, not a day that will be ending soon in our country. But my heart goes out to the ladies who are tricked into thinking that they should have an abortion and then live with a life time of regret. Their “choice” becomes a life of anguish.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Wow Ronnica… Good post. So sad, I agree. We need people like you that are so pationate about this to remind us of what is going on out there. Thanks. I know of two women that had abortions when they were teens. They both totally regret it. SO sad.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
The people who work in such places must have to repeat the lie over and over to themselves every day that they go to work that “this is not a baby”. It’s unfathomable in my own mind how they find mutilating a baby to be so commonplace and ordinary when it would make me wretch, if I ever had to witness such a horror.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Gosh Ronnica. I imagine this was painful and revealing to you. It is hard to imagine someone feeling so glib about the death of babies. Glad you chose to share your story today. We have to remember the Grace of God, and that He loves the abortionist just as much as the baby being aborted. That kind of grace is truly amazing!
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
thank you for sharing this story. at church on sunday, one man put the large number of 50 million into perspective. when you see a group of 4 people (under the age of 36) together, there really should be 5 people. that really hit home to me! i teach 24 first graders. that means there are 6 more that were killed as a baby.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Thanks for sharing that.
Wow. I don’t think I would have been able to complete that transaction. I would have had to have someone take over the register for me – or send her to a different register.
The mouthy side of me thinks I would pull the bag of shavings off the counter, tell her that it’s for hamsters and say, “It might do you some good to hold those precious bloody baby parts in your hands for a few minutes before you toss them aside like they have no value. I’ll bet your heart could absorb a life better than cedar shavings.”
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:10 am
Yes, it is a sad day, made even more so by the real possibility of our new leader making abortion easier yet. I also believe God grieves deeply over this sin. The world needs a revival and needs it soon!
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
Yesterday was such a crazy day for me and I thought about reading your post multiple times as I knew you would post about Roe V Wade – I didn’t even have time to post on my own either.
I am so thankful to have found a kindred spirit in the blog world. It is so hard for us to imagine a conversation like this being so casual as it breaks our hearts to the core.
Thank you for sharing this with your readers. You have such a great heart for the unborn and I am appreciate you.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Thanks for sharing this, Ronnica. I meant to come by yesterday – but time got away from me. As I read this, my stomach lurched into my chest.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:29 am
Gosh WOW. I don’t think I would have known what to say…I probably would have wanted to ask her a stack of questions but would have been rendered speechless. It is so sad. visiting from BPTOW btw
January 24th, 2009 at 8:03 am
[...] Joy had two comments that I really liked, but when pushed came to shove, lighthearted comments pale in site of our country’s serious tragedy. She said about Thursday’s post on my story about the lady at Walmart buying pine shavings, [...]
January 25th, 2009 at 12:04 am
That is just sickening. I don’t know how you finished your shift, honestly.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I completely agree with you. You’d like my pro-life posts.
http://lorenelizabethchristie.blogspot.com/search/label/pro-life
March 1st, 2009 at 9:48 pm
That is the straight faced comment I would give some nosy clerk who asked me what I was using the pine shavings for too. She was trying to shock you into not being nosy and succeeded.
That is most definitely not what they were used for. I have not worked in that kind of clinic, but I have worked in Veterinary and health clinics where minor surgery was performed in janitorial and in reception and NEVER seen pine shavings used in any of them.
If you want to be pro life, do so on the merits of the arguement (ie all life is sacred, new born babies and newly concieved fetus are equivalent, etc) not on hearsay made up stories of the horrors to be found in an abortion clinic.
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Perhaps you’re right. I have no proof that she was telling me the truth, any more than someone else does that she was lying. Though joking about killing babies, and that in front of your child, certainly doesn’t sound any better.
I’m afraid you might have missed the point of this post if you thought I was intending to make an argument for the pro-life stance. I’ve done that on other posts (search “abortion”), but this post was meant to mark the tragic anniversary and mourn those precious babies that were killed.