It’s just tissue!
I am such a product of our culture, I have a really hard time geting my mind around the fact that a foetus is really a person - until I see a picture of an aborted child. When I hear about abortion, I am naturally tempted to believe a piece of tissue was removed in the process referred to as “medical termination” - even if it looks like a cut up alien, resembling human beings…in that case, I want to convince myself it was more like a tumor being removed. In fact, medical termination of pregnancy is little more than removing a aggressive growth, threatening some aspect of the mother’s life. We can rationalize it that way.
I posted a picture of an aborted baby today, not realizing it would be a source of stress for those who would experience the photo. (I took it down because it offended a friend who lost a child, and the photo reminded her of that tragedy.) I posted it precisely because I do not understand “birth and babies” as the line goes from “Gone With The Wind”.
I’m a single guy, I never got a woman pregnant, I never fathered children. I posted it because unconsciously, most people, pro-life or not - but especially if you buy the pro-choice bull shit - mostpeople are in denial. We convince ourselves it’s just tissue. It’s not a baby. It’s a growth that needs to be surgically removed. It has to be evacuated for the health of the mother. Or, it has to be removed because it is deformed, or it’s going to be retarded. Get rid of it! Ick! Who wants to give birth to a tard or crippled or deformed kid?
Even pro-life people forget that we need to be reminded of what it is that is butchered; what is killed, is a viable human being - even when it looks like ET. Over and over, we need to be reminded. Otherwise, we can easily slip into the same, cold, calculating apathy of the surgeon and health care worker. We simplyend up talking ideologies, political concepts, religious or non-religious convictions. It’s all too intellectualized, too cerebral, disconnected from the reality.
An aborted foetus - A BABY - needs to be seen in order to understand the crime. Otherwise most people, who may, or may not be as pro-life as ourselves, will continue to believe these ‘things’ are just tissue, a growth that needed to be evacuated - no matter the reason.
I’m Roman Catholic and strongly pro-life, but I still have a part of me that wants to rationalize the abortion thing, convincing myself it (the foetus) is just tissue, or at best, undeveloped embryo. That temptation occurs when I listen to newscasts or any other sympathetic presentation in media for the pro-choice side of things.
It happens. Human nature revolts against suffering - our nature will do anything to avoid it, to protect ourselves from it, even deny it. I believe that’s why so may churches have pretty crucifixes; Jesus with a nice body, relaxed and sweet upon the cross - no wounds, no blood. Sometimes we substitute a resurrected Christ, depicted clothed and glorious - no suffering. We just can’t tolerate reality.
We can’t handle the truth.
