Seasoning Abortion With Sentimentality

The highly acclaimed movie The Cider House Rules (1999), from the book by John Irving (1985), is a good example of how pro-abortionists (and Disney Studios) attempt to lend some dignity to feticide. The abortionist is depicted as a wise, compassionate, and benevolent humanitarian taking in orphans. However, he also trashes dismembered corpses of unwanted fetuses in an incinerator outside the orphanage. The movie takes place during World War II, when abortion was not only illegal, but also when, in a curious contrast, another butcher was stoking the fires of other incinerators with the corpses of his victims. Of course, the one anti-abortionist of the film is finally persuaded to capitulate when a friend is impregnated by incest, as if incest had anything to do with abortion. One would think abortion is a necessary part of our culture to protect us from ourselves.

Hollywood’s usual penchant for violence is curiously missing in this film. Why not depict abortion as it actually is? The reason should be obvious. The sentimentality and “reasonableness” of the film would be lost if the Doctor hero were pictured with his curette hacking up a defenseless human fetus.

Proverbs 6 lists some things God hates, among which is “hands that shed innocent blood.” If the unborn are not innocent, who is?