CALLING CELLS PEOPLE DOESN’T MAKE IT SO
Colorado Springs Gazette, 10-30-08
In four years of writing
this column, I’ve never written about abortion.
I hoped that I wouldn’t have to.
But next week’s election
changes the picture. I urge citizens of
I’m very familiar with the
arguments behind 48. Life is
sacred. Science says life begins at
conception. Somebody needs to speak for
the fetus. If abortion remains legal, we
will eventually become a society that exterminates the mentally and physically
inferior, followed eventually by the end of morality and the lack of respect
for all life anywhere.
None of these arguments
are compelling. They are outweighed by
the terrible consequences of requiring the law to treat a zygote like a human
being.
The reason abortion is
controversial is not because the Devil is at work in the world. Nor is it because people
choose to complicate a simple issue.
The reason is very simple: To
people not already convinced by faith, it is not self-evident that an embryo
deserves the same legal status as a person.
That’s really all there is to it.
After all, can something
be called a person if it can only survive inside an adult human? What if it has no brain waves? No emotions?
No ability to feel pain? Does a
person die when a collection of cells is expelled from a woman, solely because
her body unconsciously detected that something was wrong? Why do we call that “miscarriage”, and not
“accidental death”?
I am sorry to be so
direct, as these words will offend some readers. While I mean every one of them, I am also a father
of two who was present at the birth of his children. I share every parent’s sense of the wonder
and joy of how new life is brought into the world. That sense, I think, ought to lead us to the
right understanding of Amendment 48. An
embryo is not a person, but neither is it mere protoplasm. It is a potential
person.
What is it, then, that
turns a potential person into an actual person, one deserving of protection
under the law? I would suggest that it
is the love of the one on whom its life depends, and her desire to bring it into
the world.
This isn’t exactly
unprecedented. Love and nurturing are
what enable all of us to become fully human.
People who do not receive it behave like frightened or angry animals,
and are often exhibit animal-like behavior.
It is also consistent with the genuine love that I believe many backers
of Amendment 48 feel for each and every aborted fetus. They see potential persons as actual persons
because of their love. They know that it
is love that makes the difference.
But the proper response
under such circumstances is persuasion, not force. Persuade women to love their unwanted fetuses
enough to carry them to term. It’s a free country, the
First Amendment protects your right to talk.
In fact, armed with the
courage of your convictions, you can treat all embryos inside you as
people. When it comes to your uterus,
you can make Amendment 48 the law of the land.
Who knows, that might get you a vice presidential nomination.
But extending that purely
theological-based view to other women who don’t share it goes too far. It would make women mere breeding hosts for
potential persons, it would send desperate women underground when they need
lawful, quality care the most, and it would create a horrible bureaucratic and
legal quagmire from which society would never recover.
Someday, technology will
solve this problem. With enough time and
research, we’ll be able to transfer potential persons out of the bodies of the
women who don’t want them into the bodies of those who do. If the pro-life movement would spend a tenth of the money on
embryo transplantation research that it currently spends trying to ban
abortion, that day will come a lot sooner.
But until then, we must
live with the imperfections of a world where potential persons can come into
being in the bodies of women who may not want them there. The decision of what to do next must rest
with them. Vote no on Amendment 48.