I was struck yesterday, on the 40th memorial of Roe v. Wade, by several statements by those favoring legal abortion who stressed the “need to protect the right to choose for the sake of our daughters.” Our daughters. Hmmmm. . . . Every child (or, if you prefer, since it changes nothing, every “fetus”) slain in an abortion is male or female. The victim is not a male or female mosquito or rat. He or she is a male or female human—a son or daughter. As it happens, worldwide more often the child killed is a female, a daughter, and very often the child is killed precisely because she is female. A daughter is destroyed in the womb because her father or mother or both want a son, not a daughter. She is not good enough. She will not do. She must be gotten rid of. How sad an irony that the defense of the legal right to take the life of a child in the womb is made in the name of protecting “our daughters.”
Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 8:27 AM
January 23rd, 2013 | 12:23 pm
Of course, the idea is that the person who gets to decide whether or not to have her body dedicated to bringing a fetus to term is a woman – hence, “our daughters.”
And arguably it’s a shame that we have such perverse regard for how an individual wants to see her body used. After all, people are constantly dying for lack of kidneys to transplant. Not merely mosquitoes or rats, but human beings – our sons and daughters. And most of us have more than enough kidneys; we feast as others starve. Yet, wisely or not, the law permits each of us to decide whether or not to dedicate our bodies to the preservation of someone else’s life.
I can see sound reasons why we might want the law to be different – but not reasons that would burden only our daughters.
January 23rd, 2013 | 1:42 pm
Nobody really,
You really cannot draw any distinction between deliberately killing a human being you have played a role in bringing into the world (both parents) vs. donating an organ to someone who is ailing that you may or may not know? I bet you could if you tried.
January 23rd, 2013 | 2:19 pm
“Her body used”? Does the writer of this reply think for a moment that he or she “used” his or her mother’s body? Did he not dwell there for a time, the first nine months of his time, for nearly all of us as a result of a consensual “invitation”? Human beings moreover are by no means constrained from donating extra tissue (kidney, blood, marrow) so that another may have life, but they do not kill the donated tissue to offer this. A person who wished a kidney torn out to satisfy some need referenced to their autonomy but not to assist another would, one hopes, find no physician willing to perform the operation. It would be an act of pure destruction. How much more is it an act of destruction to take the life of another, one’s own child, who is so dependent? I am presuming that the law would indeed stop a “doctor” who surgically removed kidneys and dropped them into a waste basket. At the margins a decision must be made when a truly medical decision arises. But if sex selection is a medical matter, everything is. The “physician” who would do this must first heal himself.
January 23rd, 2013 | 5:23 pm
nobody.really,
You bring an interesting point. Basically you are saying we should not apply a different standard between the preservation of life in a fetus and the preservation of life in a person waiting for a kidney transplant.
In other words, while we expect that a woman should be obligated to have her body dedicated to bringing a fetus to term; we don’t blame anybody for not dedicating their body to save the life of a person waiting for a kidney transplant.
However, I don’t think the two situations are comparable. While a person waiting for a kidney donation could be benefited by many persons, the fetus’ fate is only dependent on the woman.
Moreover, while we can assume that nobody is responsible for another’s person kidney failure; in the vast majority of the cases, the woman gives implicit consent by having sex in the first place. She knows that sex is the means by which conception takes place. And she knows that contraceptives are not 100% effective. And even if she somehow doesn’t know these things, we don’t take ignorance to be an excuse for not accepting the consequences of your actions if you choose to engage in other kinds of risky activities.
Still, I think we are missing the bigger picture. The fact is that the woman is the mother of the fetus, and thus has a special duty to protect that child. Besides contrary to what happens to someone who gives a kidney for donation; a woman’s body is biologically designed to carry and give birth to a child.
I truly believe that is our failure as a society not to provide the means for women to care for her child. And thus in many circumstances, bringing a child to the world represents for a compromise for a brighter professional career or education. However, letting a mother kill her innocent and defenseless child for personal reasons is an act that we should never allow.
January 23rd, 2013 | 8:30 pm
Thank you for pointing out a poignant irony that is often overlooked by both sides of the debate. I’ve little doubt such sentiment will be much more widely appreciated generations from now, when Roe v. Wade has taken its rightful place alongside Dred Scott v. Sandford atop the dustbin of jurisprudence history, and the “justifications” for legalized abortion are afforded the same incredulous disdain as their 19th-century counterparts regarding legalized slavery receive today.
January 23rd, 2013 | 8:41 pm
Hello nobody,
“And arguably it’s a shame that we have such perverse regard for how an individual wants to see her body used.”
And – save in the 1% or so of abortions that follow sexual assault – that individual has the power to see how her body is used when she makes the decision to have sex.
January 24th, 2013 | 10:36 am
I understand there is a vital need for every kidney donated. My choice to donate a kidney will (barring medical complications) save a life; my choice to withhold the kidney will forfeit that life – whether or not I know which life it would be.
Yes, you can say “That life is not my responsibility.” Priests and Levites often do.
True. Just as a man’s body is designed to impregnate a woman.
Yes, an abortion eliminates the possibility for another person to be born (all else being equal). But if we’re concerned about willful, unnatural behavior that stops people from being born, focus on chastity. Right now you could be obeying your biological drive to have sex – but aren’t. The possibility for a unique combination of sperm and egg has now been lost forever – and more such possibilities are lapsing with each passing moment. This is a holocaust of unimaginable proportions.
Unless you choose not to attach importance to forgone lives. Or, at least, THESE forgone lives.
Given all the competing demands for public policy – compelling people to aid hypothetical people who were never conceived, or hypothetical people who were conceived but not born, or people who are standing by my side at this moment – I know where my compassion lies.
Your religion gives you different values. I don’t begrudge you your religion. I just don’t share it.
January 25th, 2013 | 7:19 am
nobody.really,
Blown away that you’re considering the chastity aspect as a holocaust of unimaginable proportions?? Did you really say that? Do I also understand your definition of a child in the womb as “hypothetical people who were conceived but not born”? May i ask if you’ve ever seen an ultrasound? Have you ever heard the heart beat from the mother’s womb? Hear the hiccups? Felt the kicks? Known someone who names their child while in the womb? Been there when someone buries a child that was born too soon or still born? This is a child, from the moment of conception.
When there is no solid foundation to stand on, such as faith in God and Jesus Christ who has given us the same truth for over 2000 years, we seek to define our own truths.
Please, set out to prove Christianity wrong. Dive into educating yourself on the values Christianity entails. Prove Jesus wrong in his love for you and his mercy to forgive.
January 25th, 2013 | 11:11 am
Yup, I’ve got kids. As do most of the people who get abortions, for that matter.
Have you ever been to a dialysis clinic? Been with the sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers of people slowly dying for lack of a kidney? Been to the funerals?
Here’s the insight: Every person who dies of renal failure was someone’s child. Every one. What a shame that a benevolent God hasn’t seen fit to open people’s eyes to this fact.
Please, set out to prove history wrong. Dive into educating yourself about the history of abortion. Or note that the very next post on this blog has a link to an article called “How Abortion Became an Evangelical Issue.” Hint: abortion wasn’t always an evangelical issue.
In sum, there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that faith in God and Jesus Christ does not obliterate all difference of opinion. If I may offer that opinion.
January 25th, 2013 | 8:11 pm
Yup, I’ve got kids.
Then I would certainly hope that you would agree that a child inside their mother’s womb is not a hypothetical situation.
Have you ever been to a dialysis clinic? Been with the sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers of people slowly dying for lack of a kidney? Been to the funerals?
Yes, I have been with a Grandmother who suffered from kidney failure and watched her go through regular dialysis. And a friend who donated her kidney to her Father, only to lose him several months later anyway. I have also been with and witnessed the loss of loved ones to death from Cancer. The difference is what we’ve both experienced are the result of diseases or sicknesses or body failures…which a person cannot prevent. It’s not a choice to get sick or not. Pregnancy, however, is not a sickness or disease. It is exactly what is supposed to happen when people engage in intercourse.
Hint: abortion wasn’t always an evangelical issue.
You are absolutely correct. Abortion does not need to be an Evangelical Issue. It’s Murder. Pre-meditated, and often torturous, murder. And the murder of another human being is not allowed. Here we are again to twisting the truth to fit our definition… Stealing, drug dealing and many other crimes are also not evangelical issues. Their societal laws put in place to protect the people.
No one wins on this, sadly, and we could debate for days. God is a most loving, forgiving, and benevolent God, who is waiting for you with his arms out. He will rejoice if you so choose to bring him whatever you’ve got and He will show you love like no other. He gave us all free will do to as we please, so I wish you the best in whatever path you choose.
Paragraph 314 from the Catechism – We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often…
January 26th, 2013 | 9:03 pm
nobody.really,
I think you have made a basic error whereby you would split a moral truth into parts and then set each part against the others.
You said: “Given all the competing demands for public policy – compelling people to aid hypothetical people who were never conceived, or hypothetical people who were conceived but not born, or people who are standing by my side at this moment – I know where my compassion lies.”
First, sperm and ova are not “hypothetical people who were never conceived”. I think you threw that in for some sideways consideration of contraception. Factually, you got it wrong regarding chastity, also. In the process, you managed to reinforce the idea that one uses one’s body, and the body of others, and so is entitled to discard the body of others, as well.
This leads to another point, but, next, I’ll remark on the second point, first. Heh.
January 26th, 2013 | 9:09 pm
nobody.really referred to “hypothetical people who were conceived but not born”.
My second in reply is that the fetus is a human being in the earliest stages of her life. The fetus is a daughter.
There is no point during her life that she is something other than a human being. There are millions of unborn children in the world who are people in the earliest stages of their lives. They are with us. They are at our sides.
They are in their mothers’ wombs. Their mothers are also at our sides.
The lives of these daughters (not just the fetus but also the mother, both daughters) began with their conception.
Now, while yours and mine (and the mother’s) lives continued through birth and onto other stages of normal human maturation, the unborn daughters are vulnerable precisely because they are dependant on us — and particularly on the individual mothers.
Many live beyond their birth. Many other people’s lives are terminated prior to their births.
Born and unborn, these are not hypothetical people. You accept that the fact of some of their births makes them people. Well, the very purpose of the abortion of the pregnancy via death was, well, end real lives. They and their deaths are a reality both morally and physically and, yes, conceptually.
January 26th, 2013 | 9:18 pm
nobody.really also said:
“Given all the competing demands for public policy – compelling people to aid hypothetical people [...] or people who are standing by my side at this moment – I know where my compassion lies.”
There is no such competition, on you and I as moral beings.
However, you narrowed your remark to public policy. You therefore advocate prioritization of human lives. And yet you do so on faulty thinking. This is not truly about values for you and I both value the lives of our fellow human beings. You value some more than others, and have said so forthrightly.
Now, the basis for your weighing of lives, which you say are in competition for your feeling compelled to assist, is superficial, at best, even if you wish to attach the label, values, to your conclusions.
But here is my third point in reply: If there is a demand made on public policy it is to protect the birthright of each child to a mother and father (barring dire circumstances or tragedy) and this presumes that the child’s life is in itself of inherent worth and compels us to protect our daughters (both the mothers and the unborn children). There is no conflict for public policy on this score.
To protect the birthright of the child, society is obligated to promote the marriage idea: integration of the sexes combined with provision for responsible procreation. That responsibility part applies to mom and to dad and to society (in a supporting role). It is the flipside of the coin on which the child’s birthright is stamped with indelible ink: the moral truth whereby we are forbidded to use another’s body nor to abuse another’s body nor to do either to our own.
January 26th, 2013 | 9:30 pm
There is growing evidence that science supports the claim that the life of our daughters begins with their conception. That is the starting point, also, for consideration of her needs and our responsibilities toward her. “We” includes her.
That she is vulnerable, that her mother is vulnerable, does not provide grounds for valuing a human life less and less and less to oblivion.
Rather, their vulnerability provokes the moral obligation to serve and to protect. And that obligation, I feel, is a burden that, by its design, falls disproportionately more on men than on women but, as per the nature of humankind, it is a burden that, if unwelcomed and disparaged, can be too easily abandoned by men. “We” are not just daughters and mothers; we are sons and fathers, too. But what unites us, at base, is that we are human beings, all vulnerable to some degree or another, and all dependent on the goodwill of friends and strangers alike.
The cruelty of “abortion” is that it turns the mother and the father against their own progeny. That some who abort their children have already had children or will later have children hardly balances the cost of the lives aborted prior to birth. In the normal course of things, the prioritization of siblings is the tragedy of the “Sophie’s Choice” dilemma. Nobody, really, should be ready to impose such a competition on a mother and father.
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