Sun Blogs: Borderline Inappropriate
Altering the Course
June 28, 2007 - 9:12pm
Last week, my family welcomed our eighth cousin into this world, a beautiful eight pound baby girl. Anne Rose McMorris -- a beautiful name. Although, it was not the name that my uncle and aunt had in mind for the newest McMorris; they wanted to call her Stephanie. But life would be hard enough for a person born with Down syndrome without having to learn such a long and complicated name; my father’s younger brother decided to spare his third daughter such a daunting task.
My aunt Maria, who had almost lost her own life in both of her previous two pregnancies, was just happy that the new baby did not have any physical problems: "God doesn’t give you blessings you can’t handle," she said to me in the hospital.
This attitude baffled the doctors caring for her; you could tell by the looks on their faces. One of the "more caring" gynecologists was discussing different specialists that could help my aunt and uncle. She related to our family the story of a couple that found out their coming newborn would have Down syndrome and in her story, one phrase stuck out in my mind. The gynecologist explained that since the family was religious, they did not want to "alter the course of the pregnancy."
You see, in the medical world, aborting a baby because you don’t want it falls under "family planning." If you do want a baby, but it does not turn out exactly like you want it is called "altering the course of the pregnancy." These are the disingenuous word games that liberals use to seem compassionate when really they just want to kill some babies. By substituting terms like "choice," "family planning," and "altering the course" for abortion, liberals consciously deceive and muddle the debate.
Pro-lifers, on the other hand, have no problem outlining their position because we know our cause doesn’t need to be sold under false pretenses. After all, you have never heard a pro-lifer defend an abortion clinic shooter on the grounds that he was simply "altering" the course of a doctor’s life.
Billy, If you want to make
Billy,
If you want to make light of supposed euphemisms, why not start with "pro life." Was doctor-slayer James Kopp's 'outlined position' an ideological justification for his 1998 fatal shooting of the obstetrician Dr. Barnett Slepian? And we've never heard "pro-lifers" defending such acts? What about the letters and donations Kopp received to support his legal fund, or the two co-conspirator anti-abortion activists who helped Kopp avoid capture?
However pernicious one might find the "choice" it implies, at least "pro-choice" signifies an reasonable stance. Just like the "death tax" or the "Welfare queen," "pro life" is an incendiary attempt to obfuscate the issue at hand, and frame opponents -- ridiculously -- as somehow against "life" (or in your words, wanting to "kill some babies.")
The pro-choice position is value-neutral and humble; it does not seek to legislate moral beliefs on reluctant citizens, and it preserves autonomous choice -- a conservative principle at heart. Your family is free to engage in whatever planning it so chooses, just as another family might follow a different path.
The question of when life starts is so complex that we might never have a definitive answer; and for that very reason, we must preserve freedom of choice, and allow families to make their own decisions.