If you're gonna send one of these things, make sure you put it in the right envelope

With the Internet connecting people from every walk of life and every social and political perspective, this item has certainly been around a lot so likely if you’re reading this, you’ve heard of it before. I’ve yet to break a story!

 Two nights ago CNN’s Paula Zahn invited Aspen Baker, the founder of the post-abortion counseling organization Exhale on her show to talk about a new and controversial  sympathy card, one you’re not likely to find in the stationary section at CVS or Walgreens.

It’s an abortion sympathy card and you can send them through the Internet. An e-card! Awesome. But there’s others. Awesome!

I’ll begin by saying that I’m pro-choice. By default. I don’t like abortion. I think it’s pretty revolting. I also think it is the proverbial red herring in politics. Both camps throw it out when in my belief abortion effects our collective society much less than the global climate, war and the economy. I am convinced making it illegal is about as effective as the war on drugs. Pro-choice activists—I hate that term because anyone can call themselves an activist these days—have a valid point. It will just go underground. My solution is not giving it any public subsidies, of which it receives very few. Fair enough.

 People must face the consequences, whatever they may be, bodily or spiritually of having a living thing removed from their body.

 And that’s why I find these cards so incredibly tacky. Because the people who are so gung-ho about abortion are generally speaking the ones who want things to be both ways.

They would like the right to terminate a pregnancy—which is offensive to some—but they would also like their decision to be seen as sacrosanct and beyond question.

It’s a free marketplace of ideas and some people can handle abortion better than other. As a social worker, my mother told me there were several women she came across in her time working in an inner city hospital who had numerous ones

I generally believe that God is merciful. There’s no reason to believe He’d be any less merciful to a woman with an abortion than he would to a common criminal or someone who watches pornography day and night. I fully support the ideas of forgiveness, redemption and personal growth in life.

But something about wanting things both ways just seems like a joke. If an abortion is such a serious decision, then why how is a sympathy card–printed or downloaded–going to mean anything. It’s an empty gesture like a yellow ribbon on a tree or one of those Lance Armstrong wristbands. Just idiotic in my opinion. Birthdays and anniversaries and graduations and promotions already mean very little. And meaning very little, a cottage industry of card makers swoops in to grab up the cash of those who are too lazy or to insincere or dishonest to admit that these are boring events in life. Therefore, a card in the mail with a $5 bill will suffice. Awesome.

<——————–I love this one for it’s intense emotional detachment.