The Rights of the Born
Before an audience of 1,300 people, a panel in Washington was discussing politics and faith. The panel consisted of two clergymen with “progressive spiritual leanings,” a moderate who is liberal and Catholic, and Anne Lamott, the author of Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. According to a guest editorial written by Lemott (Anne Lamott, “The Rights of the Born,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2006, p. B13), all was going well until a soft-spoken, neatly dressed, older man asked the panel how they could reconcile their progressive stances on peace and justice with the “murder of a million babies every year in America.”
Lemott said, “I sat there simmering.” “I wanted to respond by pushing over our table.” Then she added, “There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion—one born (the pregnant woman) and one that is not (the fetus)—but the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.”
She had other things to say such as, “Fetuses are not babies yet.” “A woman’s right to choose was nobody else’s Goddamned business.” “I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teen weenie so-called babies—some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to stand up for—when real, alive, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shaft from the current administration.” “As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a critical part of that.” She concluded the article saying that she and an older woman “Eat M&Ms to give us strength. It was a kind of communion, for those of us who still believe that civil rights and equality and even common sense will somehow be sovereign, someday.”
It would take more space than this article allows (I limit “A Piece of My Mind” to one page) to respond to the nonsense she calls common sense. For example, from a scientific as well as a Biblical point of view a fetus is an actual human being, not just a “so-called” baby. Beyond that very important, critical point, however, is perhaps a more fundamental issue, namely, who has the right to decide what is right?
This is the most fundamental issue in the abortion debate. According to Lemott, “The born person must be allowed to decide what is right.” That reminds me of, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 NKJV). According to the Scripture, The Giver of life was the right to say what is right. “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy” (Jas. 4:12 NKJV).
© G. Michael Cocoris, 2/27/2006
Lemott said, “I sat there simmering.” “I wanted to respond by pushing over our table.” Then she added, “There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion—one born (the pregnant woman) and one that is not (the fetus)—but the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.”
She had other things to say such as, “Fetuses are not babies yet.” “A woman’s right to choose was nobody else’s Goddamned business.” “I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teen weenie so-called babies—some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to stand up for—when real, alive, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shaft from the current administration.” “As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a critical part of that.” She concluded the article saying that she and an older woman “Eat M&Ms to give us strength. It was a kind of communion, for those of us who still believe that civil rights and equality and even common sense will somehow be sovereign, someday.”
It would take more space than this article allows (I limit “A Piece of My Mind” to one page) to respond to the nonsense she calls common sense. For example, from a scientific as well as a Biblical point of view a fetus is an actual human being, not just a “so-called” baby. Beyond that very important, critical point, however, is perhaps a more fundamental issue, namely, who has the right to decide what is right?
This is the most fundamental issue in the abortion debate. According to Lemott, “The born person must be allowed to decide what is right.” That reminds me of, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 NKJV). According to the Scripture, The Giver of life was the right to say what is right. “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy” (Jas. 4:12 NKJV).
© G. Michael Cocoris, 2/27/2006