We’re a few days late to this story, which is “ugly” indeed, but not necessarily for the reason some may think.  Pro-life activists challenged Charlotte abortionist Ashutosh Ron Virmani at his door about his practice, which Virmani hotly defended.  As LifeNews and the Washington Examiner both note, Virmani offered up an argument that is not at all unique, but is rarely put so baldly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH0QT_p481o&feature=player_embedded

Charlotte abortionist Ashutosh Ron Virmani was caught on camera telling pro-lifers to “adopt one of those ugly black babies.” …

Virmani defended his practice of abortion as an effort to save taxpayers money and prevent crime.  “I as a taxpayer do not wish to pay for those babies to be born and brought up; and kill those people in Colorado,” he said in reference to the Colorado theatre killer.

Notably, the Colorado killer who killed 13 and injured 58 moviegoers was a physically healthy white male born to a middle-class couple.

Operation Save America representatives can be heard on the video saying, “We will adopt them.”

There are actually three arguments from Virmani, two of which are often made, and one of which only rarely is.  That’s the inclusion of “black” in Vermani’s emotional retort, a rather interesting inclusion, considering Virmani’s south-Asian accent. Virmani almost certainly is assuming that pro-life Americans are racist by nature.  He’s supporting his position by assuming that conservatives would balk at adopting a child other than a Caucasian, which is not just offensive and presumptuous, it’s a clear sign of another kind of bigotry altogether than what this first looks like – but not the kind of racism that some have imputed to Virmani.

The other two go more to the thrust of abortion support, and they are related.  The first argument is that it rids society of undesirable actors presupposes that all unexpected pregnancies produce evil results, or even that it produces evil results out of proportion to desired pregnancies.  Second, the use of the word “ugly” in connection to the usefulness of abortion underscores the utilitarian approach to human life on which the first argument relies.  If an individual human life is “ugly” in or out of the womb, does that give us the right to snuff it out, regardless of whatever value system is used to make that determination? Connecting the two, are we who have been allowed to live wise enough to judge the potential of these human lives to sanguinely throw more than a million of them away in the trash every year?

The last argument — that no one will want these children — is easily refuted by the lengthy wait times for adoption, even in private adoption organizations.  There are millions of people who cannot have children for medical reasons who want nothing more than an infant to add to their families, and most more than one.  At times, the only hope these people have is that an intervention will take place before an expectant mother goes to see a Virmani or his ilk, who routinely sell despair at a profit while ending lives that may have built a family, found cures for diseases, produced groundbreaking technology, and so on.

Despair is really the true disease at work here, and despair is all that really profits in the end.  The cure is hope, and reaching those who are despairing with that hope before Virmani and his colleagues can make their sale.

Update: I clarified the language a little after the video to make my point more plain.  Also, like some in the comments, I am a little uncomfortable with activists demonstrating at the abortionist’s home — although Virmani didn’t seem to mind enough to ignore them, as he engaged them in debate.  As I recall, we all had a lot of criticism for progressive protesters who staged demonstrations at the homes of AIG execs and such.