Author Archives: Facilitator

Too Young for Rights?

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A rewritten version of this post has been published by Secular Pro-Life under their paid blogging program.

The below comments were comments on the original version. Since they are mostly still applicable to the linked-to revised version, I have not deleted them. But reading them, one should remember that they were not made in response to that linked-to version exactly.

 

You may leave a reply, if you wish, without giving your name or email address. If you do give your email address, it will not be published. Back up your work as you type, in case of accidents.

Some future posts:

Life Panels

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes Too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World

The Reasons Better Be Good

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Despite the extreme vulnerability of unborn babies and the relative ease of killing them when technologically well-equipped adults make a choice to do so, occasionally an attempt to kill one fails. As Gianna Jessen says, “And to everyone’s great shock and surprise, I didn’t arrive dead, but alive . . . in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic.”

Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden are two women, now in their 30’s, who survived attempts to abort them. From the information I can gather, both of their stories are authentic (though really the point these two women make could stand even if their stories were just fictional). Shaped by their experiences, both became ardent pro-life advocates. Both also attribute their religious belief to their survival against steep odds and what they see as evil designs. Jessen’s public activities seem to be motivated as much by religious evangelism as by her pro-life convictions; this might make her less effective as a pro-life advocate than she might otherwise be, with some audiences.

I am not myself a Christian, and my purpose is not to weigh in one way or the other on the validity of Christian doctrine. I would like to point out, however, that pro-choice forces often try to dismiss the pro-life feeling of Christians by saying that their feelings derive only from an abstract and debatable religious doctrine. Yet in the cases of these two survivors of the front lines of the “silent holocaust” (Gianna Jessen’s phrase), the converse seems to have happened: these two seem to have been driven toward doctrine by their highly-understandable revulsion against abortion.

I recommend watching both the following videos (10 minutes and 8 minutes) in their entirety. Here are the links and a few words from each of the women:

Melissa Ohden: Aborted At Birth

“I couldn’t understand at the age of fourteen how any parent could make that decision — to end their child’s life. . . . I felt like I deserved to know — you know, why is it my life was just a choice for someone . . .”

Gianna Jessen Abortion Survivor in Australia Part 1

(She is American, but speaking in Australia.)

“. . . if abortion is just about women’s rights, ladies and gentlemen, then what were mine? There was not a radical feminist standing up and yelling about how my rights were being violated that day, and in fact my life was being snuffed out in the name of women’s rights.”

The disproportionate importance of these rare cases is this: These cases, where the intended victim has grown up and become loud and visible, make most obvious what is always the simple truth — that even if you kill someone when they are quiet and invisible and preborn, you are killing a person.

What could any abortion-rights advocate say if face to face with such a survivor? To be consistent, they would have to say, “Your mother’s choice was not properly honored. Those bungling doctors let us all down. They should have upheld the Constitution of the United States (or wherever) and finished you off.” But would anyone have the guts to say that? No.

And what could any parent (barring those motivated to abort by the most extreme circumstances) say if they later came face to face with a child they had tried to kill? Could they say, “The abortion was a good idea in principle. And in the end they heard you cry and fished you out of that garbage pail. So everything worked out for the best” — ? They would not have the guts to say that. They would normally have to admit that they could have sacrificed a little more. And the fact that they would not have the guts shows that it was never a good idea in the first place. Yet somehow it takes rare cases such as this to reveal what a bad idea abortion so routinely is.

The potential value, for our social discourse, of such cases coming to light from time to time, is not to prove to anyone “I told you so” about the past. Their value lies in their potential impact on the minds of mothers and fathers and doctors contemplating abortion in the present. Any adult who contemplates aborting an unborn baby knows that the chances of ever having to actually face the grown-up target of their intentions, are extremely small. But if they have once or twice had a chance to meet an abortion survivor, as we all have had in the above videos, they will know that at any moment in their consciences, if not in external reality, they may be reminded of a fact — they may be reminded that the unborn baby whose life they took when it was tiny, helpless and perhaps shapeless, was a person destined one day not to be tiny, helpless and shapeless. They will know that in their consciences they will have to look that person in the eye one day and explain their reasons for what they did. And they will understand that their reasons had better be good.

Thus it would not matter if the stories of Melissa Ohden and Gianna Jessen were untrue. Their real value lies not in demonstrating a statistical possibility, but in their impact on our consciences and imaginations.

Anyone should be able to figure out that what is now small is in the process of growing up, and will do so if allowed to. But somehow we fail to see that except in those rare cases where our technology has failed us.

You may leave a reply, if you wish, without giving your name or email address. If you do give your email address, it will not be published.

Some future posts:

Life Panels

Evolution, and the Humanizing and Uplifting Effect on Society of a Commitment to the Unborn

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

Abortion and Problem-Solving

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes Too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World

Education and Art to Change Perceptions about the Unborn

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Once when I was about eight, my younger brother did something, perhaps involving physical pain for me, for which I felt that retaliation was fully justified. As I ran after him, I was intercepted by our mother. I was outraged that she would so unfairly interfere. She in turn was shocked by the desperate fight that I put up, and finally resorted to lying down on top of me, as the only way to keep me from breaking free. I can still remember my impotent rage. I hated it.

No one likes to be restrained from doing what they want, even when what they want is to harm another person. So though unborn child-protection legislation may be unavoidable if we are to save all the lives that can be saved, it will always be problematic. It will never be completely successful. (Among other things, what we could call a “kitchen-ingredients week-after pill” might be just around the corner.) And such legislation will have bad side effects.

Parents who decide to kill their unborn kids may rarely if ever be motivated by anger as I was at the age of eight. Even when the abortion is unjustified, their motivations are normally more thoughtful, and sometimes offset by hesitation and guilt. Some factors may make them less resentful of restraining authority than I was, some even more resentful. But in any case, clearly a deeper solution is needed than mere legislation.

If we can unlock the love and protectiveness for the unborn that already lies within us as part of our deepest nature, this will not only shield the unborn better than any legislation, but will represent the biggest breakthrough yet in the slow process of unfolding our own humanity.

As we begin the process of facilitating in society an appreciation for the unborn, one of the foundations of that process should be a non-technical but thorough course in embryology — “Getting to Know Our Unseen Neighbors,” we might call it — for all children at the fifth- or sixth-grade level. The emphasis in such courses should be on the wonder of the life that is transforming itself, reinventing itself, hour by hour, deep within the body of a somewhat senior and more-developed member of our human family.

One of many sources to give us a hint of how prosaic science can tug at the heart in the right way is this one: http://www.birth.com.au/pregnancy/

To make vivid to children that a human life is a seamless process, students could be given thought experiments such as: “Pretend that Mary the embryo can speak and tell the world about her hopes and dreams — how she longs to begin to beat her heart, to pump her lungs, to touch from the outside, for the first time, the skin of the mother who has nurtured her inside . . . to learn to stand up, to learn to throw a ball . . . What would Mary say to the world, if she could?”

What we’re up against: We may have to admit that the default viewpoint, the mental starting point, for many people, likely is that the unborn are of little significance. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Many people may not be able to see the humanity and personhood of the unborn without going through a process of mental development. But if education can to a great extent create a salutary aversion to the limited destructiveness of smoking, can’t it create a salutary aversion to the extreme destructiveness of killing unborn babies?

Little girls, in particular, should hear as they grow up some viewpoints, and perceptions of the unborn, that all too often go unheard, such as this dialogue between the president of Feminists for Life and one of her correspondents.

Serrin Foster: “Women aren’t stupid. We know it’s a baby that is growing just like we did in our mother’s wombs. . . . For years, abortion advocates have been pitting women against their unborn children, dehumanizing the growing child with misleading phrases like ‘blobs of cells’ and ‘products of conception.’ . . .”

Michelle Stewart: “I am a prolife feminist. Abortion before 20 weeks is equally wrong. The founding feminists understood this truth. Women are strongest when they engage as warriors to protect the most vulnerable. What is more vulnerable than an unviable human being in development?”

Children are likely to start hearing at an early age the view that women should be free to kill their unborn babies. In a small example of the effectiveness of art, Neil Young once satirized almost this same kind of “free world”:

That’s one more kid that’ll never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool
Keep on rockin’ in the free world . . .

As children grow up, they will hear all the messages that different groups want to bombard them with. We cannot and need not, and even should not, prevent this. But if children first come to understand the realities that lie deeper than the messages, they will be able to discriminate. Certainly children as they grow should learn to understand the heart-rending plight of many pregnant women, and to consider deeply all the possible solutions. But the plight of the unborn is a plight that is easier to overlook than any other, and that therefore requires a more proactive education. The prevailing positional disadvantages of the unborn can be summarized very well by three old proverbs: “Out of sight, out of mind” (already mentioned), “Might makes right,” and “The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”

And for adults: Just as Uncle Tom’s Cabin made vivid, to people unable to see it before, the human yearnings of slaves, a blockbuster book or movie could make vivid the yearnings of the unborn to live and realize their potentials. Some of those yearnings are very undeveloped or unconscious, but they exist (they are in the genes), and could be portrayed imaginatively by art. We need a suspenseful movie portraying an unborn baby imminently threatened by abortion.

To conclude, let’s elaborate a little on “the slow process of unfolding our own humanity,” mentioned above. It humanized us (those of us who are white) to come to see other races as persons; it humanized us (those of us who are men) to come to see women as persons; it humanized some of those of us who are Americans to come to see the Vietnamese as persons; and it will humanize us to come to see the unborn as persons. That step, crossing that last civil-rights frontier, will humanize us more than any other, because of the subtlety of thought involved. But that may only be possible through education and art.

© 2013

 

You may leave a reply, if you wish, without giving your name or email address. If you do give your email address, it will not be published.

Some future posts:

Life Panels

Evolution, and the Humanizing and Uplifting Effect on Society of a Commitment to the Unborn

A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature

Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party

The Motivations of Aborting Parents

Why Remorse Comes Too Late

The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill

Only a Potential Person?

Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation

The Woman as Slave?

Abortion and the Map of the World

Some Comments on “Personhood and Citizenship”

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(Recently on another website I had some discussion about “Personhood and Citizenship” with a reader named “My turn.” I will reproduce here the more probing parts of that reader’s critique, and my replies. -Acyutananda)

My turn:

A fetus has potential to be a person, but is not one yet, and it is not guaranteed by nature.

No Termination without Representation (Acyutananda):

“A fetus has potential to be a person, but is not one yet . . .”

This was clearly rebutted in the post, so to be convincing you would have to address that rebuttal. Please see the post again.

“. . . and it is not guaranteed by nature”

It is not guaranteed by nature that a 4-year-old will turn 5, but we have no moral right to kill her.

My turn:

[In your post there is] not alot of science (none in fact). . . . It did not rebut anything. The cornerstone of your argument seems to be that because we were all once a fetus, a fetus is therefore a person. This is not logical, as each person was once two haploid cells, and before that genetic code in our parents gonadal cells. You still have not made the case that undeveloped fetuses are any more “people” than the living cell stages before it. Nor have you made a case for giving them rights, especially greater rights than the living enjoy, and at the expense of subjugating the woman.

NTWR:

The cornerstone of my argument, as regards your points, is:

“One can define personhood, or define anything, in any way one likes. But to view any object of the universe, not to mention an unborn child, with disregard of its potential, would be a very abstract and disconnected way of seeing reality. Full human potential exists at the zygote stage.”

This is what rebuts your attempts at definition. [Web pages] such as this one are full of definitions. Objectively speaking, none of the definitions is right or wrong. It is all semantics. I put my definition, rather, on a subjective, psychological basis: if one disregards the potential, one’s view of anything will be very abstract and disconnected. If one disregards the potential of an unborn child, one’s view will be “disconnected from the deepest nature of our species.”

No one can prove this objectively, but look deep enough within yourself and you’ll see it. You appeal to objective science, but in the field of psychology, objective science cannot even presently prove that you are aware of your thoughts, although you know that you are. Science can prove by the outcomes of your thinking that you have thoughts, but cannot prove that you are aware of them. Each of us has to do lonely experiments in our own mental laboratory to test some hypotheses of psychology.

You wrote: “The cornerstone of your argument seems to be that because we were all once a fetus, a fetus is therefore a person. This is not logical, as each person was once two haploid cells, and before that genetic code in our parents gonadal cells.”

At those times the “person” did not have the DNA of a person, i.e., the DNA that it would maintain at 1 month of gestation, at 4 years, at 60 years. I think brother pmsulley [another contributor on that web page] has made the point about the DNA of a zygote.

You wrote: “and at the expense of subjugating the woman.”

This also is addressed in the [post]. I gave an example of a man legally and morally required to sacrifice some of his interests for the sake of a baby. Again, you may have your own definition of “subjugation,” but if this is subjugation, it is highly justifiable subjugation.

[end of dialogue]

My last reply does not mean that women who abort in violation of the unborn child-protection laws of the future should be severely prosecuted, if prosecuted at all. But abortionists who flout the decisions of the future “life panels” set up according to those laws, should be considered to have taken innocent life without justification.

Reflecting further on the dialogue, I would observe that if objective science cannot presently be our exclusive guide on this particular moral issue — abortion — then better not to forcibly contrive an exclusively-scientific formulation, or claim to have successfully arrived at such a formulation, as some do.

Above I said that at the pre-conception stages of haploid cells and their pre-conception genetic code, “the ‘person’ did not have the DNA of a person, i.e., the DNA that it would maintain at 1 month of gestation, at 4 years, at 60 years.” On the question of identification as a member of the human race, objective science is very clear and there are no arguments; on the question of personhood, it is strange that some people divorce it from such identification, but some people do.

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Personhood and Citizenship

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(This post, first published August 1, 2013, is an explanation of why there should be no termination without representation.)

The unborn babies of the world today, January 7, 2015, are living their lives just as you and I were living our lives a short time ago, and as each of us may, in the view of many, soon be living our lives again. What you are today is you as you are today, and what you were not long ago was the same you, as the unborn baby that you were then. An unborn baby is a typical person, operating as one would expect a typical person to operate at its age. It should be considered a citizen of its respective nation or nations, or a citizen of the world, with the rights of a citizen. The era in which we treated the unborn, legally and otherwise, as second-class and “other,” will in future be seen like the dark ages.

One can define personhood, or define anything, in any way one likes. But to view any object of the universe, not to mention an unborn child, with disregard of its potential, would be a very reductive and disconnected way of seeing reality. Full human potential exists at the zygote stage.

And yet, an unborn baby is “a citizen who complicates the life of another citizen.” Let’s look at an example of what this means: Continue reading →