Posted on 11/11/2004 1:16:35 PM PST by Caleb1411
A few weeks ago, I went to lunch at a diner with Rick Marino, a moral philosopher disguised as a home renovation contractor.
The subject turned to pregnancy and ultrasound. A decade ago, when I was having my last crop of kids, the pictures came out fuzzy. The doctor would point "These are the fingers" or "There is the head" and I'd nod. In truth, I couldn't make much of the blurry images.
Today's ultrasound photos come in 3-D and color. At 18 weeks you can easily discern fingers and facial features. At seven months, you have a fully recognizable human baby. It's so clear that even a man can see it.
For a couple of hundred bucks, a pregnant woman can go to the mall nowadays and have a picture taken of her baby. Or even a video with a musical soundtrack.
Rick and I were marveling over this when we were interrupted by the waitress. "You guys talking about ultrasounds?" she asked. At first I missed the edge in her voice.
"Amazing, aren't they?" I asked.
"They're going to be used against women," the waitress snapped. She was obviously ready to sacrifice a tip to make a point.
She was right, of course. Ultrasound images are already changing the perception of abortion. Once, the idea of fetal humanity was a matter of religious conviction. Now, it is an observable fact. If you don't believe me, go to Google Images on the Internet and type in: Ultrasound, 30 weeks.
The implications are both political and philosophical.
In the new Bush administration, abortion is going to become the hottest of hot buttons. The president will probably appoint three or four Supreme Court justices. At the very least, a Bush-leaning court would probably reverse previous rulings that outlaw a federal ban on third-term abortion. Ultimately, Roe v. Wade itself may be in danger.
Obviously this is a crisis for the abortion-rights movement. It is also a problem for the Democrats. Most Americans are already queasy about third-term abortions. As ultrasound imagery improves, abortion-righters may find themselves without significant support in their own party.
Dogmatic orthodoxy on abortion is also a philosophical problem for the left. In the great moral debates of our time, they have rested their case on science, not blind belief. Lately they have taken to calling themselves "reality-based," in somewhat sneering contrast to presumably simpleminded "faith-based" conservatives. The problem is, this time they are on the wrong side of science.
It is true that millions of opponents of abortion arrived at their position without the need for photographic evidence. They have always believed that human life begins at conception. But there are millions of others, neither reactionary nor religious, who have now concluded or are in the process of concluding that at some point, before birth, fetuses become babies, deserving of protection.
Finding that point will be the crux of the coming debate. If the abortion-rights movement wants the support of the middle-aged, socially liberal guys in the diners of America, it had better find a more convincing tone than anger and an argument that doesn't require us to deny, on doctrinal grounds, the evidence of our own eyes.
PING
Maggie, as a breastfeeding mom, has not had a period yet, and may be pregnant again. She, her husband and baby live with us. It would not be convenient for her to become pregnant again, but I already know what her response, and my response, to another pregnancy would be. When are blessings ever inconvenient?
Strangely, my very liberal husband has only one complaint about our son-in-law. He doesn't "adore" his baby enough.
You are never going to convince people by visually assaulting them. How much success have libs had with that tactic?
New Ultrasound Shows 3-D 'Fetal Portrait Technology forces us to see that abortions end lives
10 FALLACIES IN THE ABORTION DEBATE
12 WEEK OLD BABY WALKS IN THE WOMB!
"Studies show that if women can actually see the baby through an ultrasound, they are more likely to carry them to term," she said.
The Womb as Photo Studio States May Ban Abortion If Roe Overturned
Unborn baby introduces comparison of candidates for President
Partial Birth Abortion Ban Court Transcripts Foetuses [Fetuses] 'may be conscious long before abortion limit'
ultrasound Technology gives unborn fetus a 3-D image
ping
Fighting for the wee ones in Pennsylvania.
Thanks for posting this.
"They're going to be used against women," the waitress snapped. She was obviously ready to sacrifice a tip to make a point.
No. Just pictures of what you prefer to arbitrarily murder.
Most suicides are not persons of sound mind.
I have been a nurse for 20 years and in those years I have taken care of many,many terminal patients. I spent 10 years in ICU.
I have found that those terminal patients that are getting proper pain management and have the proper family support are not suicidal.
Just the opposite, since their life is slipping away and they know it, life becomes more precious.
The period of loosing to a terminal illness is usually one of tremendous spiritual growth. You discover that property isn't so important after all and that people are very important.
Having a terminal illness makes most people want to make their last days very meaningful.
Most suicide attempts by people who are ill happen early after the diagnosis. It happens during one of the stages of dispair when they are very fearful and doubt their ability to go through the experience. It is not a period of sanity.
The issue of a woman's 'court ruled right' to abortion was claimed as a privacy issue when it was voted through as a self defense reality. How? Because if a pregnancy threatens a woman's life, she has the unalienable right (due to the well established principle of self defense) to terminate such a threat (not necessarily the right to kill another human being innocent of assault, but the subpremes of 1973 skirted that truth by claiming the personhood of the unborn could not be addressed by them; a Federal court just a year before had ruled --stare decesis anyone?-- that there is a human being present from conception onward, but that case was ignored by the subpremes due to it not fitting the mold they were constructing for their illicit activism). Self defense is a standard for action because the first unalienable right is to LIFE, right to LIFE, then liberty, then pursuit of happiness.
Here's the catch though in self defense: if the alive woman has a right to self defense and that right is the basis for the right to terminate a pregnancy, then the alive little one also has a right to LIFE. We pro-lifers have too long allowed the leftists ghouls to skirt this truth and apply 'right to liberty from a pregnancy' for the true right that is the basis of pregnancy termination protected by the subpreme court of 1973 and later in Doe v Bolton, Casey, and the Carhardt horror of recent record. There is no firm precedent for a right to terminate a pregnancy other than self defense, the insane ghost of privacy created with Roe notwithstanding as miss-applied from the eralier Griswald contraception case.
What was visible on my ultra sound was...well let's just say I had boys.
bump
I don't understand how people who oppose violence can tolerate abortion.
Thanks.
I remember the last ultra-sound they did, at about 32 weeks. The tech was trying to get a good shot of the face and then BLAM! it was as if she was looking right at us.
I don't like them and neither do the people you are trying to convince. People instead will react warmly to a baby smiling in the womb and see that abortion is wrong.
You can make your point two ways: the softer subtle approach or the ram it down your throat approach (which hasn't worked so far)
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