Something to think about...
I have a friend whose family recently took a beach vacation. During one moonlit night, they shared a rare privilege with an impromptu gathering of other nocturnal beachfarers. The premiere event was a hatching of baby sea turtles. As the humans watched in rapt attention, a gang of struggling tortugas busted out of their shells, and wasted no time in tromping down to the Atlantic for their first swim.
Flopping and craning their necks all along the sandy path, the little critters put on a show of unparalleled excellence and amazing uniquity, not to mention inimitable cuteness. What a magical education for all those kids who were present! What an unexpected delight for the adults! The miracle of birth--there's nothing like it.
Nearby was a yellow metal sign on which was written this important message:Sea Turtle eggs, hatchlings, adults, and carcasses are protected by federal and state law.
I like that law, which is established to preserve the lives and continued procreation of an endangered species. We cherish sea turtles, and we would strive to ensure their well-being with us on planet earth for as long as we inhabit it.
But you know what? Here's an idea. Let's implement similar protection for unborn humans-- and maybe even some health coverage for those little ones under the public option. They (we) might be an endangered species and not even know it yet.
Flopping and craning their necks all along the sandy path, the little critters put on a show of unparalleled excellence and amazing uniquity, not to mention inimitable cuteness. What a magical education for all those kids who were present! What an unexpected delight for the adults! The miracle of birth--there's nothing like it.
Nearby was a yellow metal sign on which was written this important message:Sea Turtle eggs, hatchlings, adults, and carcasses are protected by federal and state law.
I like that law, which is established to preserve the lives and continued procreation of an endangered species. We cherish sea turtles, and we would strive to ensure their well-being with us on planet earth for as long as we inhabit it.
But you know what? Here's an idea. Let's implement similar protection for unborn humans-- and maybe even some health coverage for those little ones under the public option. They (we) might be an endangered species and not even know it yet.
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What sort of "similar protection for unborn children???"
August 10, 2009 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our government should not fund untimely ripping of their little bodies from mama's womb.
August 10, 2009 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, now, carey, our government DOESN'T FUND ABORTION, "untimely" or otherwise, though I wish it did. It should be a decision made by a woman and her doctor. Forced child-bearing is just hideous to me. No woman could like deciding to have an abortion, but she should not have you adding to her difficult decision.
New stats say it takes about $250,000 to raise a child, and that is prohibitive for so many Americans. It's not as though most pro-lifers want to spend money on programs to help a fetus once it is a child.
August 10, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Show me a way that a woman can lay a fertilized egg somewhere to hatch and have that baby raise itself with no adult involvement whatsoever and I will agree that it should be against the law to disturb it's growth environment.
August 10, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh and another thing:
That statement is completely absurd. See linked population growth chart below.
http://www.ecofuture.org/pop/images/worldpopline2.gif
August 10, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your comment, Wendy. I am in agreement with our government's present policy of not funding abortion. My hope is that, in the present rearrangement of health care, it stays that way. Why? Because we as a people need to support the giving of life, the preservation of life and health--not the taking of innocent life.
Child bearing is a matter of choice. The choice is made before conception. And that choice should involve consideration of parental responsibilities, as well as commitment to the partner with whom the child is conceived. If a couple wishes to partake of the benefits of sexual union, they should be willing to accept the natural consequences of that union. Sex is not just about having fun; children do result from it. Once the new creation (23+23=46 chromosomes) has occurred, responsibility for the resultant life becomes an obligation.
mageduly The "adult involvement" of which you speak is, in fact, the main issue here. Because widespread abortion artificially (and violently) relieves adults of their naturally-occurring obligations to nurture the next generation, grownups see themselves as being released from faithful commitment to a lifelong partner. This has produced an epidemic of heartache for our love-lost generation, and an epidemic of neglect for the next generation.
These two epidemics can be overcome with people uniting in faithful commitments to lifelong partners. Eliminating offspring, however, only devalues life itself, and perpetuates the problem, like deficit spending perpetuates fiscal irresponsibility and devalues the dollar.
Perhaps my statement about us being an endangered species is absurd. I think provocative is a better word. But it could be that the high-rising population curve(that you present above) tests our sustainability as a species. But I see parental and societal disdain for responsibility as the more dangerous factor. We need to take care of ourselves and our families, no matter how many billions of us there are on the planet. That caring is better managed if people stay faithful to their spouses and children, and continue to value the life that stirs within us.
August 10, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is something to think about..life that stirs in a petrie dish:
http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/classics4.shtml
August 10, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Carey, rec'd just for the thought-provoking juxtaposition.
It be nice if this issue didn't divide liberals from their natural constituents- true Christians. Oh well lets the powers that be keep up the game of divide and conquer.
Too bad really,
August 10, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, thanks, mageduley for the pnas.org link. I read that very informative article, and mentally compared it to research that I have recently done while writing a novel, Glass Chimera. Especially interesting is this passage at the end of the pnas article:
"in the absence of implantation, a reconstituted embryo has no possibility of becoming a human." Confusing the issue even further, scientists in China claim to have created cloned embryos by fusing a human donor cell nucleus with a rabbit egg cell, thereby blurring the boundaries between species."
The DNA in a cell cytoplasm, which is found in the mitochondria, is genomally "negligible," according to the sources I have read, because it constitutes less than 1/2% of the total DNA of the cloned cell. For this reason, the rabbit egg, for instance, has little genetic effect on the development of human nucleus material that might be injected into its cytoplasm. The possibilities for these procedures in therapeutic cloning may be valuable for producing new medicines.
These research-based scientific procedures, conducted for legitimate medical research, do not really disturb me as much as invasive procedures that terminate the heartbeats of fetuses.
Saladin, thanks for the rec, and for noticing the though-provoking juxtoposition. And yes, it is too bad about the politicians.
August 10, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um is this some kind of evolution post? You went from talking about turtles to human babies....
August 12, 2009 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink