The Yappie Tells It Like It Is

Some time ago, I represented the prolife position at an informal debate on a university campus. About twenty-five students gathered in the lobby of the co-ed dorm to witness me take on the opposition, which that night was present in the form of a Yappie.

A Yappie is a Young Abortion Professional. Yappies look a lot like the nearly extinct, rarely lamented Yuppie: perfect hair, big glasses, dressed for success. But unlike Yuppies, whose lives center on business, law or high finance, the Yappie's world is, of course, abortion.

This Yappie was a college student, volunteer counselor at a local abortion facility, and probably future president of Planned Parenthood. She wasn't belligerent, but on the other hand, she was just so gosh darn perky you wanted to slap her.

She spoke in soothing tones of unrelenting psychobabble, assuring all present, including me as I made my comments, "Hey, it's okay to feel like that...those are your feelings...it's good to talk about them. But - " and here she got serious and almost pouted, "-please don't force your feelings on others!" God forbid.

The most discouraging, if not downright frightening part of the evening occurred when I posed a question., especially designed to get her to talk about things she probably wouldn't bring up voluntarily.

"How far along in pregnancy do you offer abortions?"

"Twenty-four weeks," she answered proudly, "We're the only clinic in town that does!"

Can you explain how an abortion is done at that stage?"

"Sure," she began as she settled back into her chair, "the cervix is slowly dilated, and when it's ready, the fetus is removed...." she paused and added, almost apologetically, "...in pieces."

A young man sitting next to her murmured, "Chop, chop."

She turned to him, shrugged and nodded. "Yeah," she sighed, as if to say, "That's just the way it goes, ain't it?"

And I was the only one who flinched.

Most of the students were agreeable to the Yappie's point of view on just about everything. Some were mildly disturbed by the video we brought, but the majority were unimpressed. "We've seen it all before. We know what it looks like," they said.

And only the African-Americans in the group seemed to resonate at all with my reflections on the selective and subjective distribution of basic human rights.

At one point, I asked the group what we would say about a man who, asked to support a child he had helped conceive, begged off by maintaining, "I want to finish school. I can't afford it. It's not a good time in my life. I can have more children later."

Might we not characterize his response as selfish? Why are we afraid to apply the same standards of responsibility and maturity to women deciding whether or not to abort?

Why no, replied these students, we wouldn't say that man was selfish at all. After all, if he didn't intend to conceive the child in the first place, if it wasn't planned, he doesn't have to take responsibility for it.

We say that the law is a teacher, and these young people whose entire lives have been lived under the shadow of legal abortion, have learned well. They have learned that human life has no inherent value, but is dependent on the will and the desires of the powerful. They're not so stupid that they deny that what grows in the womb is a living human creature, but they readily affirm that the life can be ended by those lucky enough to be already born. The only thing immoral in abortion is restricting the choice to do it. Can such an education be undone?

Some tell me it's happening, pointing to the multitude of young faces and youthful energy filling up prolife rallies and organizations. I hope so. It's a hard fight, because every institution of our enlightened society has erected tremendous barriers against the possibility of the prolife message getting through to them.

I grieve for the children who will be aborted by the Children of Choice, and just as much, I grieve for the young women who, sucked into this abortion culture, will place their bodies and their children's lives into the hands of the abortionist, only to realize five, ten or fifteen years from now that the "choice" they were so smoothly sold by the Yappies was nothing but a cunning, deathly lie.