Today is the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade supreme court decision legalizing abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 45 million legal abortions were performed between 1973 and 2005.
Would you consider abortion in the following situations?
1. There is a preacher and wife who are very, very poor. They already have 14 kids. Now she finds out she is pregnant with her 15th. They are living in tremendous poverty. Considering their poverty and the excessive world population, would you consider recommending abortion?
2. The father is sick with sniffles, the mother has TB. They have 4 children. The first is blind, the second is dead. The third is deaf and the fourth has TB. The mother finds she is pregnant again. Given the extreme situation, would you recommend abortion?
3. A man abused a 13 year old girl and she is now pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending abortion?
4. A teenage girl is pregnant. She is not married. Her fiancee is not the father of the baby, and he is very upset. Would you recommend an abortion?
If you have answered “yes” to any of these situations...
In the first case you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great evangelists of the 18th century.
In the second case, you would have killed Beethoven.
In the third case you would have killed Ethel Waters, the great gospel singer.
In the fourth case you would have recommended the murder of Jesus Christ.
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10 comments:
What a great resource!
For every story about great people who we would've lost if they were aborted, you can find a story of how the world would've been improved if certain people were aborted.
e.g
Hitler
Stalin
Mao
etc...
I would never consider abortion as I'm a male and it's not a decision I would ever have to make.
Perry, since, as you implied, any given child could become either a Hitler or a Mother Theresa, I think it's best to postpone the execution until after the crime has been committed.
Who a baby will grow up to be should not even enter into the decision. Is Beethoven's life more valuable than anyone else's? If I fail to adopt a child that is instead aborted am I responsible for it's death? Maybe I could have prevented an abortion from taking place?
I guess I agree that who will grow up to be should not enter into the decision. I've heard many stories like this (cf. proposed Tim Tebow Superbowl commercial) and it's just sad to consider the effect that abortion creates in that so many children never have a chance.
I think that if I can save a life and I don't, I am in some way partly responsible, in the same way that I would be responsible if I were an expert swimmer and saw a drowning person and walked away because I was late for dinner.
This would apply to people who suggest that others have an abortion, support abortion "rights," vote to keep abortion legal and "safe" (except for the baby, of course), etc.
"I think that if I can save a life and I don't, I am in some way partly responsible"
Does this mean that you are responsible for all the people in the world who are currently dying from hunger or other preventable diseases?
If you are not donating all the extra money you have (not required by you to live)and all the time you have to saving these people, does this mean you are responsible for killing them?
No doubt there are many factors involved in the plight of those who are dying from hunger and preventable diseases. I would not put them in the same category as the drowning swimmer. For example, many people are starving because they have oppressive and corrupt governments who keep them in their condition despite the best efforts of charitable organizations and individuals who do exactly as you suggested.
Just the same, I think we should assume a certain amount of responsibility for our fellow man's greatest needs.
I remember when President Bush was severely criticized for his slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. At the time many people held him personally responsible for what he did not do, but could have.
Does the morality of an action depend on the immediacy of the results? And does morality depend on the difficulty of the action? You seem to be implying that it does.
The example of the world's poor and starving seems more closely applicable to the morality of abortion laws than the example of the drowning swimmer.
Any action you take on abortion (since you're not a woman) is an indirect action. Similarly, giving away your money to save starving people is an indirect action. Saving a drowning person is a direct action.
Personally, I don't think there is a moral difference between saving a drowning person and saving a starving person. They are morally equivalent. IMO, convenience and immediacy of results shouldn't affect the morality of an action.
I think the expert swimmer-drowning person analogy directly applies to the feeding starving people and adopting babies. In all three situations you can have a direct affect on the outcome. You can directly go up to a starving person and give them food. You can directly go to the pregnant women and say, "I will adopt your child." You can directly swim out to the drowning person and drag them back to safety.
nice post. thanks.
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