ISS:The Hidden Holocaust  by C. Everett Koop

   as told to Dick Bohrer

   From "The Rebirth of America" (used WITHOUT permission)

   Submitted by Michael Hyde

   "Abortion is an atrocity changing the whole thought process of our
country," says the United States Surgeon General. "More than a million
unborn lives a year cannot be violently terminated without taking its
toll on us as a nation."

   Abortion: The whole issue has been foisted upon us through deception.

   Its advocates have convinced much of the American public and the
courts that abortion concerns a fetus that is not a person in the true
sense, that it concerns a woman's right to privacy, and that the issue
is political and social rather than personal or moral.

   The Supreme Court has championed these views. The secular public has
split down the middle. Pro-life groups flex muscle in major cities. But
we should be seething with outrage and storming the nation in protest.
Instead, too many still wait in the wings, trying to make up their
minds.

   Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia stand before us like dominoes;
the first to fall has been abortion on demand. It is a grave issue.
Nothing like it has separated our society since the days of slavery.

   The pro-choice faction says that children who result from rape or
incest, or who are defective or deformed really never have lives worthy
to be lived. And they lead us to conclude that nearly all abortions
performed in this country correct one or another of those tragedies.

   THE GREAT LIE.

   It simply isn't true. Abortions in the United States for rape,
incest, to protect the life of the mother, or to void a defective fetus
comprise less than five percent of all abortions. The rest are
performed for convenience. And we're talking about 1 million abortions
a year.

   Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is
a smoke screen. In my 36 years in pediatric surgery I have never known
of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's
life.

   The medical profession must not let itself be pushed by society and
by our social planners into the role of social executioner. As he
allows infanticide in his intensive care unit, he becomes the social
executioner of the newly born. In days ahead, he may well be required
to commit euthanasia and become the executioner of the elderly.

   Every opportunity the Supreme Court has had to back off its position
of 1973, it has not been taken. Every new decision concerning abortion
has compounded the original unfortunate decision.

   Parental rights groups are gone. Spousal rights are gone. The rights
of the baby are gone. Legally, a minor child may now have an abortion
without her parent's knowledge; but technically, she cannot have her
ears pierced for earrings without parental consent.

   THE GREAT ATROCITY.

   Abortion is an atrocity changing the whole thought process of our
country. More than a million unborn lives a year cannot be violently
terminated without taking its toll on us as a nation.

   I have spent 36 years in the practice of pediatric surgery, longer
than anybody else now practicing in this country. I deal primarily with
the correction of congenital defects and I know what these "defective"
children become.

   But the verse that really gives me great courage to do what I am
doing is Exodus 4:11, where God speaks to Moses at the burning bush
when Moses doesn't want to plead to Pharoah.

   God says, "Who made man's mouth? Who made the deaf or the dumb or
the seeing or the blind? Have not I, saith the Lord?"

   Like it or not, God makes the imperfect. And you and I as His
stewards have no more right to destroy the imperfection than we have
the right to destroy the perfect.

   If you believe the universe came about by chance, that you and I
evolved from primordial ooze, then there is no unique dignity to human
life. Why worry about it?

   But if you believe that man was created in the image of God and that
he has total, unique, specific specialness, then he should be protected
to the best of our ability for all of his lifetime.

   The story of the incarnation leaves no room for doubt. The angel
told Joseph, "That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit."
From the moment of conception God had entered human life.

   The soul that I am has also existed from the moment of conception
and the fetus that became me was God's method of enclosing the soul so
that it could become incarnate. I am a soul. I inhabit a body. I have a
spirit. The story of the incarnation confirms this.

   By the 21st day - before most women even know they are pregnant - a
baby's heart demonstrates its first feeble beats.

   By the 6th week the adrenal gland and the thyroid are functioning. A
child's fingerprints are indelibly in place by the 12th week. Abortion
kills a developing human being!

   THE GREAT CHALLENGE.

   Unless a human life amendment to the Constitution gives us once
again a national respect for human life, born or unborn, certain things
will come that you don't have to be a prophet to anticipate.

   I believe that infanticide, now practiced illegally behind closed
doors, will become legal and eventually, for certain types of
deformity, may be mandatory.

   I believe that through the Living-Will, passive euthanasia will
become so much a part of our culture that after we've had it for 5
years or so we will adopt active euthanasia.

   I believe it might well be illegal for an obstetrician to deliver a
baby with a congenital if that defect could have been detected before
the birth and the baby aborted.

   So, what will be next? The parallels that can be drawn between
Germany with its Holocaust and America here and now are frightening. We
are too close to the abyss.

   We are right on the edge.
