There was an interesting article in the National Post this week by Michelle Hauser. Hauser explored medical advances that will make it difficult to blindly accept our abortion status quo. Here’s a taste:
And perhaps the most fundamental question of all: when common medical practice establishes that a 13-week-old fetus is worth saving through surgery, will it not also be worth protecting through the law?
It’s a fantastic piece and I tip my hat to Hauser for all the research she did to pull together such an informative piece. I plan to circulate it to the Physicians for Life’s membership this week.
While I try to remain hopeful, I’m not sure that these advances will change Canadians’ behaviour when it comes to abortion, and I don’t think they’ll influence our legislative stance on the issue. Rather, I think these advances will lead to the “designer babies”(eugenics) that the WHO is concerned about and greater rates of abortion.
We already have a consumer mindset about most things, including life, why would this be any different?
What we need is a change in our conception of human life – and a belief that it is unique and valuable.
We’ve dehumanized the unborn or flat out stated that our lifestyles/circumstances are more important than the actual life of our unborn children – I don’t think medical advances will change this.
We have graphic images, incredible ultrasound technology, life-size medical models of the fetus, and prenatal information from every imaginable source (from National Geographic to Pampers). And yet we continue to abort. And American research shows that the vast majority of abortions are for “lifestyle” (such a “bad timing”) reasons. We’re not talking about cases where the mother’s life is at risk, for example. And we’re not talking about the humanity and the human rights of the unborn child. Science has long established that (of course) a human fetus is, in fact, human.
Perhaps if this information is folded into existing and successful apologetics programs and educational resources – perhaps then it’ll play a role in changing hearts and minds.
But right now I think many hearts are hard or afraid, and many minds choose to be willfully closed.