I wish all my readers a beautiful spring (finally) from up here in the land of snow (now finished), maple syrup (yum), where the moose roam freely (yes I did see one blocks from my house), the beaver chews trees (she can leave some nasty teeth marks especially if you threaten mama's babies), and the Mounties always get their man (well I'm not sure if they do). I hope to be back online in June.
I'd like to leave you with the thoughts below from Dr. Donald De Marco's book Abortion in Perspective, where he argues for the rights of the fetus because of its inherent goodness and value.
The responsibility falls on us "to judge wisely the fate of those who must plead their case in silence".
And Mr. Harper? Don't worry. I'll be back.
"With the right-to-privacy ruling[from Roe Vs. Wade], the human foetus's right to life is judged to be conferred upon him by his mother. By being unwanted by his mother, the human foetus loses all claim to his existence. What could be a clearer case of arbitrary authoritarianism? The human foetus is nothing until the mother sanctions his existence by wanting or needing him. The human foetus is good only because he is wanted; he is not wanted because he is good. The wish of the mother outweighs the substance of the foetus. The foetus has no intrinsic value, goodness, or dignity. The mother, in conferring value upon him through mere approval, becomes a symbol of power rather than love.
Opponents of abortion develop their discussion from a concern for the objective reality of the foetus which disposes them to accept the proper ordering of things and the rightfulness of creation. Anti-abortionists are realists, because they consider the substantial reality of the human foetus to be good and lovable and consequently more valuable than idea, wish, or convenience. They are democrats because they believe ordinary people to be capable of discovering and affirming the foetus's objective reality and therefore of avoiding authoritarian legislation directed against him.
Sacrificing the human foetus for the sake of an ego preference demonstrates a blatant disvaluation of reality, "an exercise in raw power". The human foetus is good because he is a human life struggling by virtue of his own inner dynamism to possess life in a larger measure. By constantly transcending himself in time, in a properly human way, he manifests the common destiny he shares with all men. No man has ever lived who did not once live as a foetus. It is deeply disturbing to think that law now regards the early foetus's right to exist as based no longer on his intrinsic goodness but on someone else's arbitrary decision. Is this not a form of human slavery?
A democratic solution to the abortion issue is possible only if people are enlightened, that is, if they exercise the intellectual vision and moral perspicacity necessary to discover and embrace a world of real values. The authoritarian refusal to revere goodness, and the insistence upon satisfying self prepares for the decay of effective democracy. "It is sad not to see any good in goodness." These words of the Russian author Nikolai Gogol capture the spiritual malaise of modern man. Man has retreated into himself and has demanded the freedom to sever all ties with truths that lie beyond his ego.
When the authoritarian transplants the natural basis for goodness for reality to the ego, he also, by the same stroke, denies the natural basis for his own goodness. If good is only externally and arbitrarily conferred, then the basis for any good, even that of the authoritarian, is undermined. Authoritarianism toward the unborn ultimately invalidates all natural bases upon which human life can be valued as objectively good. At this point no one can enjoy security against arbitrary condemnation. People will live in mutual distrust, ever fearing that the justification of their own existence will suddenly be removed by another as easily as it has been conferred. When democracy yields to authoritarianism, power replaces love. Society can not endure such moral regression.
The human foetus, frail and peaceful, can offer little protest to man's destructive ego. The full burden of wisdom falls upon those who live outside the womb. Theirs is the awesome responsibility to judge wisely the fate of those who must plead their case in silence. The silent plea for life will thunder across man's heart if he only stills his ego to listen to another's truth."
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