Protect the Children from Chemical Weapons

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Donor Officer

Dear Mr. President,

I am joining the unknown numbers around the world who are praying for wisdom for you as you confront this present evil of chemical weapons in Syria. God has promised to provide wisdom to those who trust in him (James 1:5). I do not offer this cynically. I want God to help you and hope you would welcome his help.

As the pictures of children who died stream across our screens, you are right to declare it unacceptable in our world. Earlier, Secretary Kerry called it a “moral obscenity,” and Vice President Biden noted that these weapons were used “against defenseless men, women, and children.” The desire for justice and peace rises within us for those who have been attacked this way.

What About Our Own Children?

I am grateful for such a clear statement against evil from you and your senior leaders.

But I fear that America is guilty of hypocrisy on this issue of how chemicals are used against defenseless children. You reminded us that Syria and the Nazis used chemicals to kill people; but today it will happen in America. We have no right to claim the moral high ground.

In 2008 alone, almost 200,000 children were killed through chemical or medical abortions in the United States, according to the Jones and Kooistra report. Because of cost and ease of administration, the number of chemical abortions today is likely even higher, though the overall abortion rate has dropped since 2008.

Children with Nowhere to Run

And it is a violent end; when administered “correctly,” mifepristone cuts off the production of a necessary hormone for pregnancies to continue. The baby’s source of life is cut off. Another drug, misoprostol, is then administered to force contractions, expelling the child from her mother’s womb.

Even when the drugs are not effective in “ending the pregnancy,” Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers require that a surgical abortion be performed to finish the task.

These victims have nowhere to run or hide. Their doctors are not about to provide comfort or care.

A Tragic Inconsistency

This makes no sense in a nation with a Federal Unborn Victims of Violence law that prosecutes people for violence against unborn children.

A man recently plead guilty in a Florida courtroom to other crimes as part of a deal to avoid being prosecuted under the Unborn Victims of Violence law because he was afraid he would end up in prison for the rest of his life. His crime: tricking his pregnant girlfriend into taking Cytotec, the second drug of the chemical abortion cocktail that kills unborn children.

He was going to be rightfully prosecuted for harming an unborn child using the very drug that is administered every day in abortion clinics and doctors offices across the United States.

Women Harmed As Well

And women are being harmed as well. Though marketed as a safe and less expensive alternative to surgical abortion, the FDA reported in 2011 that since mifepristone was approved in 2000, more than 2200 “adverse events” happened to women, and 14 women have died from using this drug.

Mr. President, you are rightly bringing the issue of chemical violence before the entire world.

You said in your speech that “with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run . . . .”

Be the Children’s Voice

Please, make that modest effort, and take that risk for children in your own country who are dying through chemical abortions. Please use your unique position as the leader of the free world to say this violence must stop against unborn children. Use your political pulpit to proclaim that chemicals must not be developed, marketed, sold, or administered for the sole purpose of killing defenseless people. It is outrageous in Syria, and it is outrageous here.

They literally have no voice, sir. You can be that voice, end the charges of hypocrisy against you, and truly take a moral high ground on this issue for the whole world to see.

(@johnpknight) is a Donor Officer at Desiring God. He is married to Dianne, and together they parent their four children: Paul, Hannah, Daniel, and Johnny. Paul lives with multiple disabilities including blindness, autism, cognitive impairments, and a seizure disorder. John writes on disability, the Bible, and the church at The Works of God.