A few days ago Emily Letts, 25, posted a video showing her abortion. It went viral.  "I just want to share my story, to show women that there is such a thing as a positive abortion story," she says to the camera.

First of all, full disclosure.  Emily works at the Cherry Hill (NJ) Women’s Center as an abortion counselor.  It’s located on Kings Highway, just a mile from my home and less than that from my church.   I drive past it nearly every day.

This is my community, a place where families raise their children, a place that takes pride in its superior schools.  Our church overflows with happy children.  The community provides parks and unlimited opportunities for children so they may experience the better things of life.

Emily says, “I remember breathing and humming through [the abortion] like I was giving birth. I know that sounds weird, but to me, this was as birth-like as it could be. It will always be a special memory for me. I still have my sonogram, and if my apartment were to catch fire, it would be the first thing I’d grab.”

It is more than weird.  It’s horrifying.  Happy children living in homes all around her, and what Emily cherishes is a picture of death.

“I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby. I can make a life. I knew that what I was going to do was right, ’cause it was right for me and no one else.”  God makes life.  What Emily made was death.

Apparently a lot of people are pleased.  Emily entered her video in a contest sponsored by the Abortion Care Network, an organization of independent abortion providers.  The goal of the contest was to “bust” stereotypes.  Emily’s video won.

But let’s consider all of this from another perspective.  I recall one time being informed at a little league baseball game, that a family in my church had just lost their six-year-old son.  He was swimming with his daddy when he slipped away and drowned.  I have rarely encountered such a heart-wrenching scene of shock and grief.

The world has been gripped for several days now by the sorrow and anguish of mothers in Nigeria mourning the nearly 300 little girls who have been abducted by the Muslim terrorist group, Boko Haram.  No one knows where they are.  The terrorists have threatened to sell the girls as sex slaves.  We can hardly imagine a greater evil.

The Bible contains the story of how King Herod’s troops stormed the homes of Bethlehem and slaughtered the little children of that town in a vain attempt to kill the baby Jesus. In relating the massacre of the innocents, Matthew quotes the prophet Jeremiah who foretold it 600 years earlier: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.” (Matthew 2:18)

The point being, when a child is lost, when death takes away a little one’s life, parents are stricken.  Their grief knows no bounds.  It is not supposed to be this way—a child snatched from life before he has barely begun to live.  Oh, what sorrow!

And yet Emily Letts says, “I didn’t feel bad.”  And presumably neither did those who helped her.

There is something wrong here.  Terribly, terribly the opposite of what mothers feel when they lose a child.  How far have we fallen?

Dr. Rick Perrin is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship..  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..