Wanted: Another Cute Baby

7 months & counting!

I'm about 7 1/2 months along at this point, which I cannot believe. "Operation Beebee" (as our youngest says it) is in full swing:  we're trying to pick out names, need to register at the hospital, and all the other myriad of things to do to get ready for the birth.

Quite frankly, this little one is pretty lucky. He or she will be born into a (usually) stable, loving home. He will have food to fill his belly, a roof over his head. She will be hugged and nursed and read to and, if she is able, be taught to read on her own one day. He or she will also have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, little and big friends, not to mention older siblings, who can't wait to meet him or her and provide more love and affection than he'll know what to do with.

In a word, this child is wanted.

Baby Shaw #4 at 20 weeks gestation

But, what about the little one who is hidden in the womb of a single college student with no one to turn to when she finds out she is pregnant or a Chinese woman who already has one child and by Chinese law is only allowed that one or a poor woman in Africa dying of AIDS with other children who need to be fed or the couple who learn through a prenatal test that their child probably has down syndrome or even the woman, alone and abused, who through rape finds herself pregnant? What is the difference between those fetuses/babies and the one living inside me?

In a word, nothing.

They each began from an act between a male human being and a female human being, where an egg and a sperm came together to form a new and different human being. Scientific developments over the last few decades have given us the ability to sequence the human genome -- wow! -- and it is a biological fact that the tiny zygote growing inside the woman's body is, indeed, its own distinct self, never before and never again replicated, and needs only time at that point to develop into his or her potential as an adult human being.

Click on the picture to go to the book's
page on Amazon.com

Robert Spitzer, SJ, PhD has detailed some other arguments regarding life issues in his semi-new book, Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy on the Life Issues (published by Ignatius Press). He lays out, in frightening detail, how illogical the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade is, which legalized abortion in the United States. And how frighteningly similar it is to our country's past justification of slavery (as in the 1857 decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford). In short, the courts ruled an entire group of people as sub-human. Just as the courts began making a distinction between the words citizen and all human beings in the Dred Scott decision, they began making a distinction between person and all human being in the Roe v. Wade case. And so, in 1857, those who were of African descent were not considered citizens, and thus not given protection under the law of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as detailed in our Declaration of Independence. A white person's right to hold property was deemed more important than a black person's right to freedom. More on those rights later.

Spitzer also reminds us of the "Silver Rule", that of do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. It is the principle of nonmaleficence, which all other ethical and moral ideas rest upon. In effect, avoid unnecessary harm to others. Abortion clearly violates this principle. Even if we weren't sure that the tiny group of cells living inside a woman's body was a human baby (but which science has proven that it is), don't you think we should err on the side of caution that it is a human life and grant it protection from harm, since it cannot stand up for itself?

The last point I would like to mention that Spitzer brings to the forefront is that of natural rights and that rights cannot exist without the more fundamental one existing first. The Founding Fathers of our country were relying on centuries of philosophy when they declared our independence and formed a new nation: Plato, Aquinas, Suarez, Locke. Thomas Jefferson and his cohorts were working from the framework that the new government they were creating was not granting certain rights to its citizens. Nay, there were certain undeniable, underlying rights that each person had just because they were human beings (endowed by their Creator): those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, the order of those rights is not random. A person cannot pursue happiness (including hold property) without being free. And, a person cannot have liberty without first being alive. And so, the state does not grant these rights (or, therefore, have the ability to take them away) but instead should protect those rights.

In Roe v. Wade, one person's right to privacy (freedom and pursuit of happiness) is obviously trumping another person's more fundamental right (life).

Therefore, we have an immoral and unjust law that cannot be obeyed. We must work to overturn Roe v. Wade and any other law that does not protect a human being and his or her inalienable and self-evident rights. It took ten years to create and pass amendments (13th - 15th) abolishing slavery, giving equal protection under the law and the right to vote for black citizens. And, it took another hundred years for civil rights to come to fruition.

Let's pray that it doesn't take an entire century to legally protect the rights of the human beings who happen to still live inside their mother's womb.

We still have a lot of work to do. Let's keep this train movin'!