This past weekend, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama both spoke to a crowd in Pennsylvania about faith issues. Besides the verbal sparring, which we can expect to continue, one cliché came out of Senator Clinton’s mouth that I’m tired of hearing: “Safe, legal, and rare.”

Of course, she was talking about abortion, but only one those three words can accurately describe abortion in the United States, and the other makes the combination an oxymoron.

The first, safe, is inherently an oxymoron. When asked whether life begins at conception, she showed her ignorance (giving her the benefit of the doubt) by saying, “I believe the potential for life begins at conception.” OK, how do we define “alive”? Well, I’ll give you a hint. When a stillbirth occurs, that fetus (Latin for “baby”) is dead. Something cannot be dead unless it was once alive. “Dead” does not mean, “Not alive.” Rather, it means, “No longer alive.” This is common sense. But to answer with science, the common traits of living things from the dictionary definition: the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. The embryo does every one of these things. If blue-green algae, which doesn’t even have a cell nucleus, is alive, then certainly so is an unborn human child, who has a complete set of human chromosomes.

So abortion is, by definition, unsafe for the baby, as its goal is that child’s death. But neither is it safe for the mother. Abortion facilities are notorious for their dirty standards and even have lower cleanliness standards, by law, than a standard hospital. There’s nothing safe about that. Does making the facility legal make it safer? Given how many more women are subjecting themselves to them instead of abortion alternatives like adoption, no. The “coat hanger” argument makes a rule out of the exception, as self-inflicted-abortion was extremely rare before abortion was legalized.

This of course leads to the final word, “rare.” She says she wants to keep it “rare”. How does she define rare if she considers the status quo to be “rare”? Every day, about 3,300 babies are aborted. That’s more than 1 every 30 seconds, and yes, that’s just in the United States. Now if I tapped you on the shoulder once every 30 seconds 24/7/365, would you consider that “rare”? But of course, we’re not talking about tapping shoulders. We’re talking about ending human lives. And just so we’re clear on “rare,” the birth rate in the United States is about 4 million per year. The abortion rate is 1.2 million per year. That means that 23% of births are intentionally prevented in our country. How is that rare? And furthermore, what has any politician who speaks that mantra ever done to increase the safety standards of abortion facilities or to limit the number of abortions performed? I’m sure the legislation and voting records are out there, but I have seen very little actions to back up those words.

On Easter 2008, we mourned the 4,000th American soldier killed in Iraq over the past 5 years, but nearly that many babies, none of whom made the valiant decision to put their lives in danger to protect the ideals of this country, are killed daily.

Thank God that He made that same decision, that He gave up His life on the cross to pay for all those sins, as well as my own.