I know we've been having fun with the Women's Bioethics Project, but I'm going to get serious. And - warning to all who are easily offended - tonight I will fail my mission by talking about my religious motives. But, as long as you're here, you might as well read on and learn about the whole motive for this blog. Think of it as cultural sensity training.This week, I was asked once again No, I wasn't asked. I was repeatedly reminded, by someone I believe to be a sincere Christian, that my true citizenship is in heaven, not this world, that the babies who are aborted are innocent and they will go to heaven, while their moms need to be saved. Paul's admonition to be all things to all people in order to win some for Christ was mentioned several times, and I was urged to just "Love them!" Well, I do love them. Out of love, there are some things I won't do, because they are unhealthy for the other people involved and unChristian and won't glorify God at all - and will actually interfer with my ability to be a good witness for Christ.
That good Christian didn't seem to believe that I love the people I'm thwarting - did not ask - and insisted that I explain why a Christian would support sidewalk counseling, push for legal and regulatory changes that restrict abortion and attempt to ban research dependent on the destruction of embryos, and even go so far as to study Bioethics. (Which is what put me in the position that I must comply with that insistence.)
So, I'm working on a paper to explain that I am also a citizen of a representative democracy where I am just as responsible for the acts carried out by the State as the non-Christian next door. I plan to explain about this blog, which is an attempt to reach non-Christians as well as Christians who don't feel welcomed at other pro-life sites.
Then I'll explain while it's true that unborn babies (if they have a soul) will go to heaven, so will children until the "age of accountibility." For that matter, it probably wouldn't make a difference to the ultimate fate of all those people who have lost all chance of coherence and consciousness. And that's pretty much the point of some psuedo-ethicists such as Tooley and Singer, who advocate for weighing the worth of human beings in reference to the happiness of a dog or chicken.
And, as a family doctor, if someone doesn't work to limit these actions, I will continue to have my ability to practice medicine literally threatened by people who believe that doctors have a duty to prescribe abortifacients, refer them to abortionists and unethical "fertility" specialists who practice pre-implantation diagnosis. I will have to withdraw from professional associations whose "ethics statements" and "standards of care" back the free access (by my hand and against my will) to "legal procedures" and who would lobby through those organizations to remove the age of consent - with it's "parental interference in the physician-patient relationship" - from my State laws.I will have to stand by why other professionals are made moral slaves by such as the Governor of Illinois.
In the near future, even Texas may have legalized Physician Assisted Suicide, embryonic stem cell experiments, cloning with State mandated killing of the human life, and even involuntary patient killing such as is now legal in the Netherlands.
And, if I renounce my citizenship in the representative democrocies of my State and Country, more hearts will be scarred over and hardened by participation and assistance in acts that I am sure will be just as heinous to future historians as past Christians' in regard to slavery, domestic violence and eugenics.
Which can't be good for the efforts to win hearts for Christ in the future.
Here's a couple of web sites with additional explanations about why a Christian should fight unethical laws and practices:
Christians in the Public Square
Why Should I Care?
Saturday, November 12, 2005
The Lost Children
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Dear Dr. Beverly,
I am one of the women you discuss in this post who need care in the pro-life community, professional and Christian, because I was harmed by aborting my child when I was sixteen. I appreciate the reminder that we need to love, in a Christian way, the women who sin, just as much as the children who die.
If we are of true faith, then we must believe that no one dies before his or her time (although this does not mean we give up our best efforts to save lives); and we know we cannot reach the unborn child, nor would it do any good if we could. He has no control over his fate. However, his mother does. She must be our focus if we want to save the child's life and her eternal soul. I don't believe we should ever have to choose between them, as this drives a wedge between mother and child just as surely as the abortionist does.
But we simply must keep trying to reach abortive women when we fail to save the children. First, a post-aboritve woman is likely to reabort (more than 40% of all abortions are repeat abortions). Second we must reach her on her way out of the clinic to help her deal with the trauma - new reports estimate more than two-thirds of post-abortive women will show signs of trauma (the Elliott Institute).
This does not mean we approve the abortion; it is clear that trauma cannot be healed without shattering denial; the first things we have denied in abortion are our parenthood and the humanity of the child. We will not heal from the trauma until we stop denying this loss of human life and our relationship to it.
After abortion, the child is gone, and God has his soul. The mother is here, in our hands. The lives of her future children, and her fate in eternity are ours to affect.
Finally, I don't believe it's necessary for you to separate your faith from your work. It is your compassion that calls you to heal, and I am pleased to see it included as it has helped you form your mission.
Thank you for your blog, and for the opportunity to comment. I am a daily reader.
"tonight I will fail my mission by talking about my religious motives."
C'mon Beverly, you fail in your mission to be non-partisan every time your hands are on the keyboard. Again I say: change the mission statement of your blog, it is a lie, and lying is not good.
Pro-life is the mission. Iam admittedly, constantly partisan on that subject.
"Our intent is to be more proactive than reactive and to remain neutral as to politics and religion."
I'm sorry, you say it is your intent, though it seems to be written into what looks like your mission statement.
In any case, there is no possible way of seeing your posts as being 'neutral as to politics and religion.' Not that this is a bad thing (who can stay neutral all the time, anyway?) but I feel that your mission statement should reflect the content and tenor of what is on the blog. Right now there is a big disconnect.
Why not say what is obvious to any visitor of this blog: you are a person of faith, who is against abortion and euthanasia, who is against cloning and use of embryos for stem cell research, who is for the protection of the vulnerable and so on.?
You're discription of me is accurate, but the intent is the intent.
I'm not sure I understand the problem.
Post a Comment