"In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell
PERSONS OR PROBLEMS? COLORADO HAS TO CHOOSE!
By Judie Brown
At American Life League, we have spent nearly 30 years trying in every way we can to humanize the preborn baby, even when he is a single-cell zygote. We have challenged those who deny the personhood of the preborn to explain what precisely is different between the way their life began and the way every person's life begins. The response is usually something rather obtuse that translates into "Don't bother me with the truth." I am sure you know all about that type of intellectually stimulating argument.
So, I am encouraged when I tell you that my good friends at Colorado for Equal Rights are making a lot of headway in their campaign to amend the state constitution by clarifying that every human being, from his beginning, is a person. They have brought the truth out of the closet of political correctness.
But in the process, the enemies of human life have come out of the woodwork, and things are heating up in Colorado. Just yesterday, the Denver Post ran a rather interesting article focused on the individuals and organizations opposing Amendment 48. The article gives us a lot to think about because it provides the rhetorical mumbo-jumbo pro-aborts are using to try to defeat the personhood intitiative. It is nothing new, but perhaps it bears repeating, for those who constantly strive to develop pro-life apologetics that actually resonate in our current, declining culture.
One slogan on an anti-Amendment 48 T-shirt is "Women's health matters." The T-shirt is clearly designed to imply that pregnancy can make a mother very unhealthy, and that is why only the woman should have the "right to choose." The message subliminally asserts that pregnancy is a condition in need of treatment, and in the abortion world, the treatment of choice is abortion.
This is but one of the abortion cartel's frequently used fear tactics, as it denies the reality that the preborn child's health matters too. If abortion advocates thought about that, they would agree to personhood. If they considered the obvious truth – that a just society respects and nurtures mother and child equally – they would end their association with the culture of death.
A law student wearing the T-shirt at an anti-Amendment 48 rally told the Denver Post that if the proposed amendment passed, "This would be a huge step backward. I want to be part of that never happening again."
Her comment conjures up images of a time when, supposedly, all sorts of dreadful things happened to expectant mothers. Moreover, it attempts to justify the current legal system's denial that the preborn child is a person and the notion that a woman and her doctor are entitled to decide whether to allow a pregnancy to continue.
Her statement also sets forth the principle of dehumanization. The Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton Supreme Court cases denied that babies in the womb are persons, thus dehumanizing them. Naturally, the pro-aborts subscribe to that mentality, based solely on arguments of contrived personal rights and legal precedent.
The newspaper reporter never addresses the result of abortion and what that act does to the second person involved in the pregnancy, because that is not on her agenda. Apparently, she was not committed to querying the T-shirt-wearing student about the substance of Amendment 48 which is, after all, personhood.
In the ongoing debate regarding abortion and whether or not the law should protect it, we frequently witness mothers being pitted against their babies, as though they were mortal enemies. This sort of tactic, of course, has tragic results, which we have witnessed time and time again. The human suffering caused by abortion is unfathomable.
According to pro-lifer Michele Jackson, writing about the problem of abortion in the black community,
The women suffering abortion in silence, and their dead children, are a part of our community in staggering numbers. We have the job of rallying the community to stop the killing of our children. We have the job of rallying the community to find better solutions to pregnancy than killing the baby, than pitting mother against child.
Jackson is correct, but the pro-aborts will have no part of that argument. As far as many of them are concerned, abortion is the demonic "sacrament" of the culture of death and, as such, must never be infringed upon in any way.
This is why we also hear the argument that only a woman can decide and that she is, after all, in control of her own body. What this argument fails to acknowledge is that once she is with child, she is in control of the bodies of two human beings, to the extent that anyone is actually in control of life.
Everyone knows that the U.S. Supreme Court itself, in its 1973 abortion decisions, made it perfectly clear that if personhood were ever established, the Roe and Doe decisions would crumble. Thus, our opponents will do all within their power to attack the very idea that the preborn child is a human being who has an inherent right to be recognized as a person. This is why they are compelled to stay on message, deny the existence of a living human being and demand that the so-called right to choose be enshrined as a constitutional right. These fanatical individuals are committed to an agenda that cannot admit the humanity of the preborn child.
As barbaric as this may sound to those of us who understand the real identity of the child within, we are dealing with abortion devotees who have their heart set on the freedom to kill at will under cover of law and with the full agreement of politicians. This is the lesson we must remember every time we hear arguments against personhood, be it in Colorado or anywhere else.
Our opponents are scared to death of babies. They cannot admit the obvious. When we focus on personhood, they get out their bag of deceptions and expect everyone to fall in line, for fear of losing something if they don't.
Something has already been lost, my friends, and that something is honesty. It does not matter what you call the human being whose life begins at the beginning; he is still what he was before the denial set in. In the past 35 years, our nation has relegated a person's status prior to birth to that of an "issue," "political hot potato" and other such nonsense. We have, for the most part, avoided focusing on the facts and have instead preferred polite conversation about opinions and religious beliefs.
The result is too bloody for me to think about. This is why Amendment 48 is such an urgent matter.
Colorado is facing a watershed moment in the history of the human race. The voters in that state will make a crucial choice: Affirm human dignity or affirm the cruelest act of child abuse ever to be decriminalized in a civilized nation.
Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
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