In the post, Why I Hate Jesus, I wrote four sentences about abortion. Here’s what I said:
This Jesus, no matter the circumstance, demands that a woman carry her fetus to term. Child of a rapist, afflicted with a serious birth defect, the product of incest or a one night stand? It matters not. This Jesus is pro-life.
That’s it.
Yesterday, a man who I assume is a Christian left the following comment (which he later deleted) about these four sentences:
I would argue with you on only one point. You say this “Jesus” is pro-life and demands that a child be carried to full-term, regardless of handicap or disability of the child. Another man argued for only perfect babies being born. His name was Adolf Hitler. If you weren’t a “perfect” child, you were put in a hospital by your very own parents, and “caring” doctors would look over you, until it was time for you to get clean. They brought you to a shower room where you undressed, were hurded [sic] into a room full of shower heads and…. given the Nazi history…. You know the rest. “Loving” parents? “Caring” doctors? Throw away babies that are “damaged” goods, and what? Throw away children who are? Throw away teens who are? Throw away adults who are? After all, it’s for the “greater good” of society.
I’m sorry, but as an autistic child whose mother was told, “put him in the loony bin”, I take offense at that. My mother refused, and she raised me, gave me the best care, put me in the best special ed program she could find. Today I am a college graduate with a computer science degree, a successful career, a wife and two children who are honor students. “Damaged” goods? Some people would challenge you on that.
If you can argue for abortion on the argument that the child is “defective”, then who is safe? Are you? Could you crash your car tomorrow, put your head through the windshield and be brain dead for the rest of your life? (a la Terri Scheivo [sic]?) Should they kill you then? What if you “recover” to the point where you have the mind of a 3rd grader, but still have all of your feelings, emotions, likes, tastes and hurts? Should they still kill you because you’re not “perfect”? Should they kill people over 70 because they’re not “productive” members of society anymore? Where does it end? How “perfect” does society have to be? Where does the quest for a perfect society’s interference with the individual right to life, liberty and persuit [sic] of happiness end?
You can like or hate Jesus given the hypocrisy of modern Christianity, which is a stench! But please dispense with your utopian, perfect society model of Karl Marx or Lenin or Hitler or whoever your favorite “wordly” philosopher is. While I may agree with you about the “modern” Jesus, I acknowledge that there is a Devil, and this philosophy comes straight from him out of the pits of Hell.
All I could do is *sigh* and shake my head.
Why do fundamdamentalists have to drag Hitler, or Stalin into these discussions? They aren’t helpful equivalents and they get bloody noses every time.
Hitler was in favour of a programme of eugenics, a long term attempt to deliberately manipulate the genetic makeup of a population. A bit like the way we breed dogs. The trouble is, and this ignores the vast philosolophical debate, it could never have worked. Populations are just too big to radically alter, and their interbreeding with non-controlled populations meant it was doomed from the start.
This is completely different to the issue of abortion in this day and age. Terminating a pregnancy based on the fact that the foetus is massively deformed isn’t an experiment in eugenics, it’s a decision based on practicality. Terminating for other reasons may be viewed in varying lights; some may agree with the reasons, others disagree, so ultimately it is down to only one person, the woman carrying the foetus.
Of course there will be many hindsight opinions. Your correspondent feels lucky to be here, as he may have been an abortion target. I believe one of the successful US gymnasts recently entered the debate in the same way. ‘So what’, is all I can say? We can’t base every decision we make on what might be, or we’d never do anything. Decisions should be based on the best available information at the appropriate time, and in the long term that results in an overall ‘what’s best’ state of affairs. There are far more problems caused by unwanted babies than ever there are from the reverse.
He lost me at “I take offense to that”. Seriously….
I am happy the commenter had a mom who wanted him.
That said, how arragant to assume his circumstances apply to everyone. Having a parent rage at a child they wished were never born leads to massive issues later in life. I’ve encountered too many forced birth children in the mental health system and on the streets for me to be a fan of no choice.
Planned Parenthood has a motto – every child is wanted. If a child is not wanted then the humane course is to allow a woman to make choices for herself.
No child deserves to grow up without love. No child deserves to grow up knowing they are not wanted.
Oh – the Biblical argument many forced birthers try to use is bogus. There are no passages condemning abortion and at least three (that I’ve found) that advocate the use of ‘bitter water’. Of course getting them to admit defeat… That’s another story.
Actually, Hitler definitely did not like abortion. Abortion was completely outlawed in the Third Reich, and women who accessed one could be executed, as could the abortionists. The entire role of every Aryan woman was, in the Nazi view, to be a mother, regardless of whether she had any aptitude or desire for that.
But as you say at the top, it’s well nigh impossible to debate with these people.
Abortion is a very emotive topic. I had a discussion with a Muslim gentleman about it quite recently, and I raised an example from my own family involving a sweet little girl who sadly passed away a few months ago. She was happy, but she was also very ill, and her life raised the difficult question of quality of life. Pro-lifers tend to demand a woman carry a baby to term but have little regard for what happens next. Their respect for life ends at birth.