Posted on 12/21/2011 9:13:33 AM PST by Morgana
Opinion Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions Pro-lifers, the tide just turned
by Jennifer Fulwiler
Tue Dec 20, 2011 16:19 EST Comments (9)
December 20, 2011 (NCRegister.com) - As you’ve probably heard by now, the Duggar family lost their precious daughter Jubilee Shalom on December 8th at 20 weeks gestation. They held a memorial service for her last Wednesday, which has generated even more discussion than the original announcement that they were expecting their 20th child. At the service, the Duggars chose to display some professional photographs of the baby’s hands and feet. Someone leaked the pictures to the media, and the blog world has exploded with conversations about it.
As I made my usual rounds on the internet this weekend, it seemed that I everywhere I clicked there was someone writing about this. The secular blog world seemed particularly interested in the issue: TMZ posted the leaked pictures, and was flooded with hundreds of comments. Posts at Babble, the Stir, the Daily Beast and Jezebel also generated a ton of responses. [Note: Click through at your own risk, since some of those posts and comments have not-safe-for-work language]. At first I moved on from these posts with nothing more than a glance; I didn’t want to dampen the Christmas spirit by reading the inevitable vitriol about those wacky pro-lifers and their obsession with “fetuses.” But then I noticed something shocking: Wait a sec…nobody is denying that this is a baby!
I went back and read each of the posts, then scanned through comment after comment, hardly able to believe my eyes. The debate that all of these people were having was whether or not the Duggars had disrespected their child by showing pictures of her deceased body at the funeral. Of the hundreds of comments I read, nobody suggested that this was not a full-fledged child. The cause of contention was the issue of whether they had respected their daughter’s dignity, not whether she had dignity in the first place. Her worthiness of respect was taken for granted. I have been reading sites like this since I first got online. I have been following this kind of subject for years, both when I was pro-choice and now that I’m pro-life. And I can say with certainty: This would not have been the tenor of the conversation 10 years ago—or even five. Even as recently as 2006, there would have been a flood of “it’s just a fetus, who cares?” remarks, and the debate would have centered around whether the child was even worthy of a funeral.
The old myth about unborn life being “just a clump of tissue” has been under attack since the advent of the ultrasound machine, and now it would seem that it’s finally been relegated to the dustbin of history. And, after reading all of these internet discussions, I know that more than a few people are going to be thinking hard about the fact that abortions at this point of gestation are all too common. (As for the myth that abortions at this age are extremely rare: Here’s a video in which an abortion doctor casually mentions women having abortions at 20 weeks because their boyfriends left, or at 24 weeks because it took them a while to collect the money. Also, a quick Google search of second trimester abortion certainly doesn’t seem to indicate that this is a rare or inaccessible procedure. And, if my math is correct, according to this Guttmacher data, over 60,000 babies were killed after 16 weeks gestation in 2008.)
I’ve thought for a long time that the pro-life position will be the default position in the future. I fully believe that 100 years from now, the vast majority of people will consider abortion morally wrong—modern technology has made it too hard to deny the dignity of human life within the womb. The only question was when the shift would finally happen, when society would finally stop clinging to the antiquated, unscientific ideas about unborn children. Survey data has been looking promising for a while, but the internet reaction to the Duggar photos seals it. There is no question that our society has far more respect for unborn human life than it used to.
Ten years ago, the average person would have felt uncomfortable admitting it if she thought abortion were wrong; in the future, I think that public opinion will have shifted to the extent that it will not be socially acceptable to be in favor of abortion. And I believe that history will point to 2011 as the year the balance of public opinion tipped, and the momentum began moving in a pro-life direction.
I believe that we have just witnessed the tide turn.
excellent points. It just goes to show too—never give up no matter how one is crucified and to what extent.
Well, since the pro-Death people think that the “tissue” in the mother’s womb is just garbage or, as one congressional committeeman called it . . . an obligate parasite . . . what do they care what the receptacle of this parasite do with the remains?
I disagree. The author obviously underestimates the degree to which secular humanism has overtaken our culture. The majority of Americans are so dedicated to selfishness and convenience that abortion will never be recognized for the murder it is.
Because, if America officially and nationally ever came to its senses, we would be descending upon and burning down abortion clinics with a wrath not seen since the first Crusade. Abortion murderers, physicians, would be executed on the spot. Politicians who promoted and protected this holocaust would be imprisoned for life.
No, the cost of sanity would be too great.
The ability to see the baby in utero has had a huge impact. My friends post images of their babies and grandbabies on FB all the time. It’s amazing. I’ve now seen several pictures of my upcoming grandson (it’s weird to me, we know that he’s a boy already and he even has a name, and he’s not due until the first of April). It has humanized the *fetus* into a baby for the average person. I think it’s a real nail in the coffin of the abortion industry. At least people are not going to be able to call them a “clump of cells” with a straight face.
I meant to say my friends post sonogram images of their babies and grandbabies on FB all the time. Sorry for not proofreading.
folks like jennifer have been telling us the tide has turned for the past 25 years.
Those who abort are fully aware that they are killing a baby.
That fact doesn’t slow them down.
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