More than 50 million fetuses have been aborted in America. Does anybody care?
Can minds be changed?
On May 6, 2015, the New York Times, citing the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote,
"A study of thousands of premature births, found that a small minority of babies born at 22 weeks who were medically treated survived with few health problems. ... Leading medical groups had already been discussing whether to lower the consensus on the age of viability, now cited by most medical experts as 24 weeks."
The U.S. House recently passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, to restrict abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy. Should it pass the Senate, the president -- who has opened the borders to save Central American Children -- threatens to veto it.
In the encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis has now tied saving the planet with saving unborn children:
"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification for abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings ... if we fail to protect a human embryo? ... If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.”
So, will what doctors, Congress and the pope have to say change any minds?
On May 6, 2015, the New York Times, citing the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote,
"A study of thousands of premature births, found that a small minority of babies born at 22 weeks who were medically treated survived with few health problems. ... Leading medical groups had already been discussing whether to lower the consensus on the age of viability, now cited by most medical experts as 24 weeks."
The U.S. House recently passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, to restrict abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy. Should it pass the Senate, the president -- who has opened the borders to save Central American Children -- threatens to veto it.
In the encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis has now tied saving the planet with saving unborn children:
"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification for abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings ... if we fail to protect a human embryo? ... If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.”
So, will what doctors, Congress and the pope have to say change any minds?
Are humans -- including fetuses -- animals? The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's website inanely makes clear that the questions are irrelevant.
"PETA does not have a position on the abortion issue, because our focus ... is the alleviation of the suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals. … And just as the pro-life movement has no official position on animal rights, neither does the animal rights movement have an official position on abortion."
You would think the ACLU might care. After all, its Capital Punishment Project works toward the repeal capital punishment. Indeed, the ACLU claims,
"The death penalty in America is a broken process. … Death sentences are predicted not by the heinousness of the crime but by the poor quality of the defense lawyers, the race of the accused or the victim, and the county and state in which the crime occurred. From 1976 to 2015, 1,392 executions occurred in the United States, and 995 of them took place in the South. Time and time again, we have proven that the criminal justice system fails to protect the innocent and persons with serious mental disabilities and illnesses from execution. … Every method of execution comes with an intolerably high risk of extreme pain and torture.”
The ACLU states that in the U.S. during a 30-year period, there were 1392 executions; since Roe v. Wade there have been more than 50 million fetuses executed. It claims, "Death sentences are predicted not by the heinousness of the crime.” But the death sentence can be imposed only for a conviction of murder; are not all murders heinous by definition?
The ACLU is concerned about "the poor quality of defense lawyers.” But the murder defendant at least gets a lawyer -- unlike the fetus. And why is the race of the victim and the county and state involved of more consequence to a murderer than to a fetus?
The ACLU argues "the criminal justice system fails to protect the innocent." Is the fetus less innocent than a murderer?
Is application of the death penalty in a murder case, after innumerable appeals, more random than an abortion performed on a mother's whim?
What is the ACLU's position on late-term abortion?
"The ACLU opposes the so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 … because it outlaws safe abortion procedures and thus threatens women’s health and reproductive rights. ... it bans safe and common abortion methods used in the second trimester of pregnancy, well before fetal viability. It also lacks an exception to protect women’s health.”
But the act would also ban abortions on "viable" children, and third-trimester abortions. Are a mother's health and reproductive rights more important than the rights of a child not to be exterminated?
According to National Right to Life organization, during a partial birth abortion,
"The abortionist punctures the base of the baby’s skull with a surgical instrument, such as a long surgical scissors. ... He then inserts a catheter (tube) into the wound, and removes the baby's brain with a powerful suction machine. This causes the skull to collapse."
How many abortions are really necessary and performed to save the life or health of the mother?
Do churches really care? The pope has jumped aboard the planet-saving bandwagon, linking abortion with saving the planet. How many of those who march carrying placards demanding that we save the planet, whales and lab rats give a damn about saving unborn babies, who are scientifically
demonstrably human? How long has it been since you heard a homily condemning abortion? Urging the congregation to vote against a party or candidate who is pro-abortion?
I have previously argued that the fetus is unquestionably -- as a matter of science -- more than a part of it's mother. It unarguably also carries its father's DNA. Ipso facto, it is a human being, distinct from both its mother and father.
The world condemns Hitler because he treated Jews as subhuman, and the slavery of the antebellum South because it regarded blacks as subhuman. We are appalled at the carnage of the Islamic State, which treats non-Muslims as subhuman.
So, why does a convicted murderer have more human worth and evoke more compassion than an innocent fetus?
If we kill our children, how can our nation claim the high moral ground? Today, in America, more opprobrium attaches to kicking a cat.
If morality is not dead in 21st century America, then how can we ignore the pope when he asks, "How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings … if we fail to protect a human embryo?"
Posted: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 11:00 pm QuadCitiesOnline
| Updated: 11:00 pm, Tue Jul 7, 2015.
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