Confronting MAID: Is it Autonomy?
by Ms. Boomer-ang
Referring to Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) as an individual’s autonomous action can divert discussions to when autonomy is desirable and away from whether MAID really gives the patient/victim autonomy.
MAID requires the cooperation of other people. Autonomy implies self-initiation. But how many fatal prescriptions are first suggested or initiated by the patient/victim’s family, friends, medical staff, social workers, caregivers, insurance companies, or Artificial Intelligence? How often are people who have not requested or agreed to MAID presented with a fatal prescription, with at least some of the necessary signatures, possibly including one made electronically on their behalf? Euthanasia policy scholar Wesley J. Smith has noted, “Studies show families rather than patients generally decide when the time has come for euthanasia.”1 When must an individual take active steps to avoid MAID?
Many terms that are used to degrade staying alive in certain conditions relate to the effect on other people. Concepts like “undignified” (implying shameful and disgraceful), “irresponsible, “selfish,” “immature,” “burdensome,” “occupying organs that could benefit someone else,” and “squandering heirs’ money” can pertain to responsibility. Is not submitting to death-hastening out of a sense of responsibility or duty the opposite of autonomy?
Unassisted suicide is an autonomous action. So is foregoing medical attention for months or years until one dies naturally. But actively speeding death is as interventionist as extraordinary efforts to prolong life. If the majority of non-sudden deaths are hastened, it will be living until one’s body dies naturally that will be the autonomous action.
Claims that laws against MAID laws are examples of government intrusion into personal lives can divert the discussion into the appropriateness of any government intrusion. Actually, the discussion should be about what intrusion by the government or equivalent is appropriate for.
Are not most of the people whom anti-MAID laws interfere with those who want an individual dead? Such laws protect the individual from these people, as well as from care facilities and insurers who find it more profitable and efficient to have them dead.
Don’t laws allowing MAID give free rein to these people to pressure, bully, and shame the individual into accepting death-hastening? Don’t they allow care facilities, caregivers, and insurers to set policies of killing, expelling, and/or overcharging anybody with certain conditions in certain circumstances? That these are private entities doesn’t make their policies any less intrusive or any less strict than government laws.
And in places where medical facilities are part of government services or heavily supported by the government, the facility’s deciding to kill a person is government intrusion to cause death.
Don’t pro-MAID laws give justification to claim that to live until one’s body dies naturally, or to stay alive in certain conditions, is unpatriotic, sinful, obscene, cowardly, the equivalent of not paying taxes, or “just not done”? That to want to stay alive in certain conditions is a clinical sign of “irrationality”?
Will many people, from policymakers to caregivers to the general public, think the only alternates to quick MAID are “slow” death-hastening, like terminal sedation and medication mini-overdoses? Will even many who reject quick MAID feel anything that smells of life-maintenance is “wrong” or “looks bad”?
Doesn’t the availability of MAID change people’s conception of what is appropriate and possible?
NOTES
1Wesley J. Smith, Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder. Times Books (Random House), 1997, p. 103
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For more of our posts on euthanasia, see:
Figuring out Euthanasia: What Does it Really Mean?
Euthanasia by Poverty: Stories from Canada
How Euthanasia and Poverty Threaten the Disabled
What’s Cruel for the Incarcerated is Cruel for the Terminally Ill
Assisted Suicide as the Next Roe v. Wade: Time to Pay Attention
Assisted Suicide is Inequality, Just Like All Legal Violence
Claims About Third-Trimester Abortions
by Sarah Terzo
Abortion supporters often say that abortionists only do third-trimester abortions when there’s a serious risk to the pregnant person’s life or health.
One example is from pro-abortion politician Pete Buttigieg. In an interview, he was asked, “Just to be clear, you’re saying that you would be okay with a woman well into the third trimester deciding to abort her pregnancy?”
At first, Buttigieg tried to evade the question, saying, “Look, these hypotheticals are usually set up in order to provoke a strong emotional response —”
The interviewer cut him off with the claim that 6,000 abortions a year happen in the third trimester. I’ve seen this statistic before, but I haven’t been able to find its source.
Buttigieg responded by pointing out that this makes up just 1% of all abortions, and the crowd applauded.
He then said that these cases involve wanted babies whose mothers have already named and bought cribs for them. Third-trimester abortions, he claimed, are only done for families that:
get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice.
And the bottom line is, as horrible as that choice is . . . that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.
Again, this led to applause from the crowd.
However, this is not true.
Why Third-Trimester Abortions Aren’t Done to Save the Mother’s Life
In this video, a former abortionist explains how third-trimester abortions are done.
The abortionist injects poison into the preborn baby to kill him or her before inducing labor or otherwise removing the child intact. To get a live birth, the steps would be exactly the same, except the injection wouldn’t be done. The doctor could dilate the cervix and remove the baby or induce labor. This would result in a living child rather than a dead one.
To turn a third-trimester abortion into a delivery, all the doctor has to do is not give the injection. The direct act of killing the baby in the womb is what separates a third-trimester abortion from a birth.
In a third-trimester abortion, the abortionist slowly dilates the cervix over the course of three days. A woman whose life is in danger would have to endure three extra days of being pregnant. In contrast, a doctor could end the pregnancy immediately with a cesarean section, resulting in a living child. Or he or she could induce labor.
A quote from a 1998 article in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association referring to pregnancies in the third trimester states:
Except in extraordinary circumstances, maternal health factors which demand termination of the pregnancy can be accommodated without sacrifice of the fetus, and the near certainty of the independent viability of the fetus argues for ending a pregnancy by appropriate delivery.1 (emphasis added)
Studies Reveal the Reasons Third-Trimester Abortions Are Done
Two studies reveal why late-term abortions are done.
The first study was done by pro-abortion researchers Diana Greene Foster (who later worked on the infamous Turnaway Study) and Katrina Kimport. The study concerned the reasons people seek abortions after 20 weeks and included women who aborted in the third trimester of pregnancy.
The authors state:
[D]ata suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment . . .
They gave a breakdown of the following reasons (some women chose more than one):
- 45% didn’t know they were pregnant.
- 40% had trouble deciding whether to have an abortion.
- 20% disagreed with the father of the baby about whether to have the abortion.
- 38% didn’t know where to go for the abortion.
- 27% had difficulty getting to the abortion facility.
- 65% had difficulty raising money for the abortion and related costs.
- 41% had difficulty getting insurance coverage to pay for the abortion.
One example was a woman who had an abortion at 28 weeks while her boyfriend was in jail. She waited until he was incarcerated because she wanted to keep the abortion a secret from him.
A more recent study (2022) focused just on third-trimester abortions. It found that the reasons given for third-trimester abortions were the same as those given for earlier abortions.
Again, there was no pro-life bias. The pro-abortion group ANSIRH (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health) funded the study. ANSIRH describes itself as “Providing the evidence you need to advance reproductive well-being.”
It says of the study’s results:
The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester.
The study gives no detailed breakdown of women’s reasons or any concrete numbers. It found that people have abortions in the third trimester for one or more of the following reasons:
- They didn’t know they were pregnant earlier.
- They had difficulty arranging an abortion.
- The baby had a health problem or disability.
None of the women in the study aborted for any reason related to their own health. They were all physically healthy and in no danger from pregnancy.
The study mentioned four cases where the baby had a disability. This was 14.3% of the total. However, the study wasn’t clear whether these were the only cases.
One woman was homeless. The abortion facility took her money, killed her baby, and sent her back to the streets with no intervention or help. She was still homeless, and now has a late-term abortion on her conscience.
Another woman discovered her pregnancy early but “took no immediate action toward obtaining an abortion.”
This woman had been sexually assaulted in the past, though that wasn’t the cause of her pregnancy. Kimport claims the emotional trauma of the past assault was the reason she didn’t arrange an abortion until the third trimester.
One woman couldn’t afford an abortion and started prenatal care. Then, her (now) ex-boyfriend got a work bonus, and she had an abortion in her third trimester.
All the women in the study aborted because they didn’t feel they could cope with a baby or simply didn’t want the child. While their reasons may have seemed serious to them, they weren’t any different from the reasons people seek earlier abortions.
Statements from Doctors who Specialize in Third-Trimester Abortions
Further evidence comes from third-trimester abortionists themselves.
Abortionist Warren Hern, who specializes in third-trimester abortions, gave the following interview:
Interviewer: Do you ever get any women in their second half of the second trimester or in the third trimester that say they have no medical problems, they just don’t want the baby? They change their mind? Would you do it?
Hern: Well, of course, if a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, there’s no justification for forcing her to continue the pregnancy.
Interviewer: Okay, has that happened?
Hern: That happens all the time.
Hern has repeatedly said that because women can die from pregnancy complications, every pregnancy threatens their lives and, therefore, abortion is always medically justified.
Shelley Sella is another abortionist who does third-trimester abortions. In an article in the Irish Times, a reporter who interviewed her says:
The women Sella treats fall into two categories: those who discover foetal abnormalities; and those with healthy, viable babies whose maternal circumstances mean they could not cope with the baby.
She gives the example of one mother of three whose husband was killed in a car accident while she was in her third trimester. She didn’t feel she could raise her children and the new baby alone, so she had an abortion. Now, besides grieving for her husband, she has to deal with the loss of his nearly full-term baby.
A healthy, 16-year-old girl, also in the third trimester, chose abortion even though her parents, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s parents wanted her to have the baby. Sella killed the healthy, viable child.
When asked about whether adoption would’ve been appropriate in this case, Sella stated that adoption “causes lifelong trauma and psychological problems.”
Another third-trimester abortionist, Susan Robinson, said of her patients:
Women whose fetuses have terrible abnormalities are a lot easier for people to understand. The husband and wife want to spare their baby whatever suffering that baby would have.
Then there’s the group of women who didn’t know they were pregnant. They were told they were not pregnant for one reason or another and they are just as desperate.
Some people really don’t discover their pregnancies until the third trimester. In a previous article, I quoted abortionist Susan Poppema, who described a woman who came to her abortion facility nine months pregnant and in active labor. The woman had come for a routine exam and didn’t know she was pregnant.
Advertising Third-Trimester Abortions
Some abortion facilities openly advertise third-trimester abortions on their websites. These facilities welcome pregnant people from all around the United States who want to abort in the third trimester.
Here are some examples:
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For more of our posts on the reality of abortion, see:
Christmas Carols
Solstice: December 21
Christmas: December 25
Hanukkah: this year, sundown December 25 – sundown January 2
Kwanzaa: December 26 – January 1
New Year: January 1
1500s: A Haunting Song
The Coventry Carol, 1534
Traditional
With a haunting melody, it’s about Herod’s massacre of babies. See our holiday issues on the Massacre of the Innocents.
O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
“Bye bye, lully, lullay”?
Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay.
That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
“Bye bye, lully, lullay.”
1800s: Traditional Carols
O Holy Night, 1843 / 1855
Written in French by Placide Chapeau / Translated into English by John Sullivan Dwight
Dwight added this third verse, which made it popular among abolitionists of the time:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is Peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
There’s also a story which may or may not be true but at least has made the rounds. In the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, on Christmas Eve the French troops sang this uplifting song (French version, of course) across the trenches during a truce in hostilities.
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, 1849
Written by Massachusetts pastor Edmund Sears
The poem was written with violent revolutions in Europe and the recent war between the United States and Mexico in mind, accounting for anti-war sentiment throughout. This was most explicit in Verse 3:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, 1864
Written on Christmas day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Edward K Hermann gives the full story with a performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Longfellow had suffered personal tragedy, but this was also written with the U.S. Civil War raging and uppermost on his mind.
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet their songs repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on Earth, ” I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men
Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will to men
1900s: Modern Takes
Do You Hear What I Hear?, 1962
Words by Noël Regney, music by Gloria Shayne, husband and wife
“Pray for peace people everywhere”
This carol was written at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was a response to the dangers of nuclear annihilation. There were double meanings throughout. ““A star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite” could be the Star of Bethlehem, but authors were thinking of a nuclear missile as well.
From The Atlantic:
“In the studio, the producer was listening to the radio to see if we had been obliterated,” Regney once explained. “En route to my home, I saw two mothers with their babies in strollers. The little angels were looking at each other and smiling.” This inspired the first line of the song: “Said the night wind to the little lamb . . .”
Happy Xmas (War is Over), 1969
by John Lennon
In the middle of the American war in Vietnam and the movement to stop it, along with the Civil Rights movement, Lennon wrote a song that’s explicit about opposing war and racism. As with much of good poetry, it applies to other historical periods as well and so remains commonly sung today. Verse 2:
And so this is Christmas (War is over)
For weak and for strong (If you want it)
The rich and the poor ones (War is over)
The road is so long (Now)
And so happy Christmas (War is over)
For black and for white (If you want it)
For yellow and red ones (War is over)
Let’s stop all the fight (Now)
Christmas In the Trenches, written before 1984
Written by John McCutcheon
McCutcheon was inspired to write this about the 1914 Christmas Truce, when soldiers up and down the line of trenches in Europe took Christmas a little more seriously than their superiors did. A good version with story: Christmas in the Trenches (1984). McCutcheon clearly wrote it well before then, since he refers to reactions from men who experienced the Truce when he sang the song in concert.
Also on the same topic:
Pipes of Peace with Paul McCartney.
Celtic Thunder offers Christmas 1915. They have the wrong year, but the art still has the spirit of it.
A movie dramatization: Joyeux Noel
And our own blog post on it: The Christmas Truce of 1914
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This is a list of holiday editions of our weekly e-newsletter, Peace & Life Connections.
In 2023, we covered Kwanzaa.
In 2022, the topic was the Christmas Truce of 1914, when World War I soldiers up and down the line treated each other as friends rather than enemies for the holidays. (Also the same content in a 2022 post.)
In 2021, there was a somber topic, but one appropriate to the season: the Massacre of the Innocents, and its role in quotations and art that oppose massive violence of all kinds. (Also the same content in a 2021 post.)
In 2020, given what was most on people’s minds at the time, we covered Pandemics Related to Christmas. (Also the same content in a 2020 post.)
In 2019, we showed Christmas as a Nonviolent Alternative to Imperialism.
In 2018, we detailed Strong Women against Violence – Connected to the Holidays.
In 2017, we covered Interfaith Peace in the Womb.
In 2016, we discussed how “The Magi were Zoroastrians” and detailed how good the Zoroastrians were on consistent-life issues. The ancient roots of the consistent life ethic run deep!
In 2015, we had a list of good holiday movies with consistent-life themes – check it out for what you might want to see this season. We also had information on Muslim nonviolent perspectives.
In 2014, we offered a quotation from a lesser-known Christmas novella of Charles Dickens and cited the treatment of abortion in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
In 2013, we shared several quotations reflecting on Christmas.
In 2012, we had a couple of quotes showing the pro-life aspects of two prominent Christmas tales: A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge, and the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. We also quote from John Dear about Jesus as peacemaker and Rand Paul about the 1914 spontaneous Christmas Truce; he then related it to the culture of life.
In 2011, we covered the materialism-reducing “Advent Conspiracy” and offered two pieces of children’s art: a 1939 anti-war cartoon called “Peace on Earth,” and the anti-war origins of “Horton Hears a Who,” whose tagline – “a person’s a person, no matter how small” – is irresistible to pro-lifers.
In 2010, we showed “It’s a Wonderful Movement” by using the theme of what would happen if the peace movement and the pro-life movement hadn’t arisen. We also had quotes from Scrooge (against respect for life) and a Martin Luther King Christmas sermon.
Abortion and the Christian Bible: A Consistent-Life Perspective
by Fr. Jim Hewes
Biblical Foundations on the Sanctity of Life
While the Bible may not explicitly address every modern issue, its teachings provide a framework that values life at all stages. There’s a difference between something that is unbiblical (contrary to biblical teachings) and something non-biblical (not found specifically in the bible).
For example, Jesus never directly mentions abortion. Jesus also never speaks specifically about nuclear deterrence or stem cell research. But Jesus offers a clear framework of compassion for understanding the sanctity of life.
There are key biblical passages which demonstrate that God has complete dominion over human life. Then there is the overarching principle that children are a blessing (“Children are a gift from the Lord. Babies are a reward.” Psalm 127) – counter-cultural for the time.
Jesus also pays special attention to those who are unwanted, rejected, despised, insignificant, on the margin, the least of our brothers and sisters, as the pre-born are so often treated today.
Problematic Passages and the Value of Life
One of the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is problematic if not scandalous if taken literally, without further biblical understanding including Tradition.
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to his father or mother, and will not listen to them even though they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders at the gate[a] of his home city, where they shall say to the elders of the city, “This son of ours is a stubborn and rebellious fellow who will not listen to us; he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all his fellow citizens shall stone him to death. Thus, shall you purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.
While some biblical passages, can be troubling if interpreted literally, they must be read in the context of Jesus’s teachings. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus elevates the commandment “You shall not kill” by teaching that even harboring anger toward another can be spiritually harmful (Matthew 5:21-22). His message underscores a profound respect for every life.
Another example is in Exodus (21”22-25):
When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges. But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Some argue that this passage implies unborn life is of lesser value. However, the Bible’s overall message emphasizes the sanctity of all human life. The Israelites wrote this text before today’s scientific understanding of human development. While they lacked the tools of modern biology, their reverence for life is clear. It wasn’t written to be a textbook in embryology or perinatology, so at that time one could not fully know who the pre-born exactly was, where today we have a “window to the womb” with ultrasound.
Whether the Bible is prescriptive or not on abortion, it’s descriptive about the value of life, including condemning strongly the cultural practice of child sacrifice. The Bible is the word of God, but in the words of humans. It is neither exclusive nor limited, but there are numerous passages in the Bible about the value of life within the womb and the reverence for that life.
The Value of Life in the Womb
The Bible contains verses that reflect God’s intimate involvement in the creation of human life, especially in the womb. For instance:
- the prophet Isaiah declared, “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb, he named me” (Isaiah 49:1).
- In Jeremiah, God affirms, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5).
- Psalm 139 further captures the depth of God’s role in human creation: “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14).
In the New Testament, when Elizabeth hears Mary (who is pregnant) Elizabeth responds: “the infant leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41), illustrating the presence of life and joy even before birth. Similarly, Jesus, the Word made flesh, and experienced every stage of human development, affirming the continuity and value of human life from the very beginning.
This continues after Jesus in the writings such as of St. Paul: “But when [God], who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased” (Galatians 1:15)
Jesus’s Teachings on Life and Value
Jesus is the clearest and fullest revelation of who God is and who we are. The very Word of God, Jesus, was made flesh within the womb of Mary and from that moment he was fully human, experienced every stage of human development; first as a zygote, then as an embryo, and a fetus.
At no point would one ever hold that the Word of God made flesh was not a person in any part of his pre-natal existence. God affirms that there’s present a person in His only Son before and after birth, as well as affirms every one of us also in our same journey within and outside our mothers’ womb.
There isn’t any passage in the entire Bible that makes a distinction between an embryo and a fetus, or if the pre-born child is viable or not. It’s an unbroken chain, where all are loved and valued by God.
While Jesus doesn’t specifically discuss abortion, he presents a clear framework for understanding the value and the sanctity of human life. Jesus frequently speaks on the importance of caring for those who are marginalized or vulnerable, showing special compassion for “the least of our brothers and sisters.” This respect for life extends to the vulnerable unborn, who are also equally deserving of protection.
Jesus also promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the Christian community, even on issues not directly addressed in Scripture: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (John 16:12-13). This assurance helps Christians navigate contemporary ethical questions, including abortion, through the principles established in Scripture, and Tradition.
It is this all-powerful God who has created the entire universe becomes a tiny, helpless, vulnerable pre-born person within Mary’s womb. So, human beings, at whatever stage of development, are always image bearers of God their creator, which is not earned or achieved, but a gift of God.
Abortion, on the other hand, is an act of violence that intentionally and directly disrupts the chain of existence that God has planned for everyone. This is why the psalmist states: “I kept from violence because of your Word.” (Psalm 17:4)
For “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching and for showing people what is wrong in their lives. It is useful for correcting faults and teaching how to live right. Using the Scriptures, the person who serves God will be ready and will have everything he needs to do every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
The importance of biblical influence is reflected in Pew Research, where 2/3 of adults with children and 62% of adults without children who read scripture at least once a week would make abortion illegal in all or most cases.
So, these Bible passages remind us that when we openly and prayerfully encounter the world through the lens of the Word of God and speak the divine truth, we will really know about the value of each precious life, created in the image and likeness of God.
Early Christian Views on Abortion
The second generation of Christians definitely could be counted on to faithfully preserve and follow what their parents were taught directly by the apostles, including on the issue of abortion, developed in the Roman culture. Romans practiced widely both abortion and infanticide, treating children like disposable property. The early Christian Community strongly condemned both acts of violence.
In The Didache, an early Christian text, it is clearly stated: “You should not kill the fetus by abortion or destroy the infant already born.” This reflects the early church’s unwavering stance on the sanctity of life. This was directly opposite to society’s view at this time, which saw this life as property of the parents (which many still do today). An overwhelming number of other early Church theologians carefully examined the methods, motives, and morality surrounding abortion. They unanimously described all abortions as a heinous sin,
Conclusion: A Call to Protect Life
There’s a consistent theme, a pattern of meaning over and over in the entire Bible, a trajectory or thrust in the Bible as a whole, about a God who values and loves each human life, both outside and within the womb. We don’t need to be fully formed to be loved by God. As we reflect on these teachings, let us reaffirm the Bible’s enduring call to respect and protect every life, both born and unborn, made in the image and likeness of God, truly God’s daughters and sons.
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For more of our posts from a Christian perspective, see:
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian:
Fratelli Tutti – Consistent-Life Excerpts
December 28: The Day of the Massacre of the Innocents
For more of our posts from additional religious perspectives, see:
Why the Interfaith Approach is Important
Abortion and War are the Karma for Killing Animals (Hinduism)
Breaking Stereotypes in Fearful Times (Islam)
The Consistent Life Ethic and Traditional Tantra (Hinduism)
Ancient Roots of the Consistent Life Ethic: Greece
The Movie “Wicked”: Making a Real Person of the Witch of the West
by Rachel MacNair
Act 1 of Wicked is now out in theaters, but instead of a 15-minute intermission as happens in the Broadway play, we get a year of intermission. Act 2 comes out November 21, 2025.
The play is a musical based on the book by Gregory Maguire. The movie is mainly based on the play, but fleshes out the story more (as can be seen by taking more than double the time), mainly by adding back in content from the book.
It’s a prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900. That was explicitly stated to be for children, but there’s been some thought of political allegory of the 1890s. Baum was also the son-in-law of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a prominent activist in the women’s movement of the time, and for those who know this, it shows.
As a side note, Gage had the common attitude of feminists of the time period on feticide. For a short quotation: “But the crime of abortion is not one in which the guilt lies solely or chiefly with the woman . . . Husbands do not consult with their wives upon this subject of deepest and most vital interest.”
There have been numerous film adaptations (and at least one other prequel). The most famous is the 1939 version starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, which also serves as inspiration for the Maguire book. And it offers an illustration of war mentality that Wicked counters.
War Hysteria
I delve in greater depth on this in a post comparing the psychology of war hysteria to post-Dobbs reaction, and also a bit in our newsletter on the carnival atmosphere with the killing of Osama bin Laden. It comes from the theory of Lawrence LeShan, in his book The Psychology of War: Comprehending Its Mystique and Its Madness.
In a nutshell: we have the ordinary world we normally operate in, in which good and evil have shades of gray, people can have a variety of views, we can talk things out, etc. Then there’s a more fairy-tale world, sort of a cartoon mentality, which LeShan calls “mythic mode.” There’s good and there’s evil, you’re on one side or the other, evil can’t be negotiated with, etc.
One of the best instances in well-known stories to illustrate the difference is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz movie of 1939. That there are two different modes of mind is starkly shown: the real world in Kansas is in black and white, and the fantasy world of Oz is in color. In Kansas, the villain is Miss Gulch. In Oz, it’s the unnamed Witch of the West. They’re psychologically connected, played by the same actress.
Dorothy’s house drops on the Witch of the East, who’s been designated as evil, and it’s therefore OK to dance and sing about her demise. When Dorothy later splashes water on the Witch of the West, who’s also been designated as evil (even by herself), and that kills her, that’s time for another celebration.
But what if Dorothy had killed Miss Gulch?
There’s the difference. Miss Gulch may have been nasty, but she lived in the real world. We can cheer when Auntie Em tells her off, because that fits the offense. But with killing, the story could never be a children’s tale. Dorothy would be far too sinister.
That’s the difference between killing in war with a war mindset over killing in ordinary life.
Changing What “Wicked” Means
Wicked gives the future witch of the west a name: Elphaba. That’s a take-off on L. Frank Baum. It gives a bit on her birth and childhood, but Act 1 mainly follows her through the college where she meets Glinda. They dislike each other at first, but then they become friends. Yes, friends.
Her motivations become clear. Elphaba is a real person. Having her be killed becomes something the audience doesn’t want to see.
Gregory Maguire based his imagination on the politics of the time, that being the 1990s – a century later than the original book. He also moves the focus away from Dorothy and focuses instead on the life story of the Witch of the West.
The 1990s was the time of the first American war in Iraq, which Maguire opposed. There’s a line in the second act of the play when Elphaba is asking Glinda about the death of her sister, whether it was an accident, and Glinda refers to it as “regime change.” The audience of the time roared at what was then the well-known euphemism for that particular war.
But further: Elphaba stands up for the marginalized – in this case, the talking animals who are being oppressed by the government. A talking goat had been a professor at the school, and was fired and arrested. A talking bear had been who raised Elphaba when she was otherwise rejected by her parents. A lion cub was held in a cage – and she freed him. Her anger, which helped her magic, was justified anger.
At the end, she was designated as “wicked” to the population by the oppressive government entities she had stood up to.
Bigotry
The anti-racist message was also clear in this movie. Elphaba is constantly put down for the color of her skin – that color being green. Standing up for herself when people are bigoted against her is part of what makes her an admirable character.
The play and movie don’t portray this, but the Maguire book turns this lethal. Due to her green skin, there’s a threat of infanticide against her by the midwives when she’s born.
At the end of Act 1, she realizes that the Wizard she had admired so and wanted so badly to work with was actually a charlatan. He was the one responsible for oppressing the talking animals. She needed to get her flying broomstick in order and get out of there.
Conclusion
A lot of my work has dealt with being a peace advocate among people who don’t want to hear it. It’s also involved being a pro-lifer who’s poking at the bubble that many peace activists inhabit on this issue. As a consistent lifer, I’ve had to face intense hostility in a variety of ways in a variety of venues. Having the charge of being “wicked” hurled, when what was actually happening was standing up for the marginalized, is something I can relate to.
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The quotation from Matilda Joslyn Gage is on page 57 of ProLife Feminism: Yesterday and Today, as are many full articles from pro-life feminists of yesteryear. (“Is Woman Her Own? The Revolution, April 9, 1868)
For some more of our posts on movie reviews, see:
Jasmine, Aladdin, and the Power of Nonviolence
Justice Littered with Injustice: Viewing Just Mercy in a Charged Moment
Movies with Racism Themes: “Gosnell” and “The Hate U Give”
The Darkest Hour: “Glorifying” War?
The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook
A More Hopeful Path: Working for Peace in a World at War
by John Whitehead
The following is adapted from remarks given November 9th, 2024, at the quarterly peace vigil in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Consistent Life Network.
We are here today to witness for peace and for the protection of human life. We are here today to oppose the greatest threat to peace and human life in our world, the threat from nuclear weapons.
As we reach the end of 2024, the threat of nuclear weapons being used in war is a very real and pressing possibility. Today, wars are raging in our world, wars that might turn nuclear weapons’ threat into a terrible reality. The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with no clear end in sight. The Gaza war and larger conflicts within the Middle East also grind on, again with no end in sight.
Because the Ukraine war puts Russia into conflict with the United States, the Ukraine war has the potential to flare up into a direct war between these two nuclear-armed nations. Such a direct war between Russia and the United States might well not stop before it leads to global nuclear war.
The violence from the Gaza war has already spread across the Middle East, leading to more violence in Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. The Gaza war has the potential to flare up into a direct conflict between Israel and Iran or even between the United States and Iran.
Even if a regional war doesn’t break out, current tensions between the Israel and the United States on one hand and Iran on the other are likely to spur Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, adding yet another nuclear-armed nation to our world.
We need to turn away from this terrible, and terribly dangerous, path that the United States and other nations are currently on. Amid the bleak world situation are some signs of hope for a turn away from this self-destructive path.
Work is underway in the world to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons. One crucial effort is the Back from the Brink campaign.
Back from the Brink is a grassroots campaign to reduce the danger of nuclear war through a series of crucial measures. One measure is taking nuclear weapons off the high level of alert that allows nuclear weapons to be used at a moment’s notice. Another measure is making it impossible for nuclear weapons to be used only by the decision of a single human being, the president of the United States. A third measure is cancelling current US government plans to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion dollars on building new nuclear weapons.
The Back from the Brink campaign has received important support from the Congress of the United States. In 2023, members of Congress introduced House Resolution 77, which calls on the United States to embrace the measures advocated by the Back from the Brink Campaign. The introduction of House Resolution is a rare hopeful sign for peace, and we should support efforts to adopt the resolution. Back from the Brink has valuable resources for advocacy on behalf of House Resolution 77.
Efforts specifically targeted at reducing the threat from nuclear weapons are vitally important. As important as those efforts are, though, and as enormous as the task of reducing the nuclear threat is, I think we are called to an even bigger task right now in 2024. This larger task is closely intertwined with efforts to reduce the nuclear threat. This larger task is to make peace in our world.
Vigil November 9, 2024
If we want to end the nuclear threat hanging over us, we need to end the wars that currently threaten to spiral into nuclear catastrophe. We need to seek peace in the Ukraine and Gaza wars. We need to replace foolish and destructive efforts to resolve these conflicts by some kind of supposed military victory with efforts to de-escalate the conflicts, to stop the fighting, and to bring aid to the innumerable people harmed by these conflicts.
Ending these wars will help reduce the nuclear threat, while also protecting the lives of many people currently being killed in these wars.
The tasks before us are immense, and I appreciate how daunting they must appear. We should not lose hope, though, and I think the example of history gives us reason to hope.
Our vigil today falls on a significant date: November 9th. November 9th is a significant date because it reminds us both of how great the nuclear danger can be and how quickly that danger can be diminished.
Roughly forty years ago, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union could not have been colder: hostility and suspicion were high, the nuclear arms race was escalating, and tensions were at a fever pitch. The leaders of the Soviet Union were convinced then that the United States was poised to launch a nuclear attack against them.
Those fears of a US nuclear attack could have ended the world 41 years ago today, on November 9, 1983, when an American-led military exercise was mistaken by the Soviets as the possible beginning of a nuclear attack. Nuclear war through misunderstanding could have broken out then; the world could have ended on that November 9th.
Of course, the world did not end then. The crisis passed without war breaking out. A couple years later Mikhail Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet Union, and the United States and Soviet Union began to de-escalate tensions and restrain the arms race.
Within a few more years, the Cold War was effectively over. The end of the Cold War was marked by the nonviolent fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9th, 1989: 35 years ago today, and only six years after the superpowers stood on the brink of nuclear war.
The lesson is clear: the world can change. We are not doomed to destroy ourselves, however bleak the current situation may seem. A better, more hopeful path forward is possible.
Strengthened by this knowledge, let’s work to end the nuclear threat, by reducing nuclear weapons, by changing the policies that dramatically increase the danger from these weapons, and above all by making peace in our world.
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For more of our many posts from John Whitehead on nuclear war, see:
Apocalypse Imagined: The Urgent Message of Nuclear War: A Scenario
Are We Finally Waking Up? Signs of New Awareness of the Nuclear Threat.
Presidential Election 2024: Consistent Life Perspectives
We offer three different takes on last Tuesday’s elections. As usual, we don’t necessarily endorse everything said in our blog, since we encourage individual writers to express a variety of views. This is especially so when analyzing elections.
Carol Crossed
Peter Sonski is who I early-voted for at the Susan B Anthony House. Sonski is with the American Solidarity Party. Some say I “threw my vote away” and I guess I did.
Susan B. Anthony voted too, illegally in 1872, before the 19th Amendment passed. Because of the Republicans’ opposition to slavery, she voted for “the party of Lincoln.” While to my knowledge the term was not in parlance, she could have been called a “single-issue voter.” She was accused of being too singular in her support for “enslaved persons,” and to that she responded that she was for “human rights” – making the case that slaves were humans, like women were. Some retorted that slave owners were humans too and therefore had rights. Therein was the 19th-century struggle to define rights which continues today.
Carol Crossed
Today again we are asked to evaluate people’s rights. Are all rights equal, and what makes them unequal? The difference is some are civil rights and some are human rights. Susan made it clear that one’s humanity or one’s sex or one’s race fit into the category of a human right. They were not chosen and could not be violated by someone’s choice, whether that choice was to own a slave, to own a woman or to own another human being to misuse for your own purposes. Hence as civilization progressed, slavery, rape, and abortion were considered crimes against humanity, and laws prohibiting them were established or strengthened all within the same 8-10 year period.
Paradoxically, the crime of abortion is morphing into a “right” to the point that the State is called upon to give it legal recognition and make it available through the free services of health-care personnel.
Human rights are therefore not explicitly denied, but rather expanded to cover violent actions against human beings: instead of protecting human persons against violence, here human rights have evolved to include protecting actions against a person’s dignity or against a person’s life.
Its not surprising that the Democratic Party has dropped from its platform opposition to the death penalty. Using violence as a right to solve a problem normalizes despair and elevates irresponsibility to a right.
I couldn’t vote for Trump because I believe he’s a narcissist, an illness that makes a person’s actions unpredictable and wholly dependent upon one’s own self-absorption. I see Trump as dangerous in the short term and Harris as dangerous in the long term. As I see it, there is no “better of two evils” in this election.
Lisa Stiller
As I watched the returns coming in, and as I kept staring at the New York Times website as their election meter stayed in the red zone for much of the evening, a feeling of dread set in. My fears were being realized. A return to the Trump era of enabling hate, emulating fascist and authoritarian leaders, and cutting programs and funding that help our most marginalized people was, for me, unthinkable.
Yes, neither candidate was a consistent life candidate. Both had a lot of flaws. But saving what’s left of our democracy and preserving some sort of decency in our national conversation was also important enough to be a large factor in deciding which of the lesser of two evils should become president.
And Kamala Harris blew it. Instead of her being the candidate that would save us from a descent into a repressive government that will again enable hate and violence, turn its back on the poor, and enact a horrendous immigration policy, she basically ran a campaign centered on abortion. A campaign focused on the right to take life, rather than a campaign focused on those things that give life and help people thrive.
She started her campaign with an abortion tour. “Protect Our Freedoms” was simply a euphemism for abortion echoed by Harris and her supporters throughout her campaign. Democrats saw their attack on the Dobbs decision succeeded in 2022, so they thought they would do it again.
Meanwhile, they neglected to listen to what people were saying: concerns about economy and democracy topped the list. But Harris and her surrogates kept saying how great the economy had become under Biden’s American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan Infrastructure Act. While she loudly sounded the alarm over another Trump presidency, Heather Cox Richardson led the rose-colored glasses parade. But too many people were being seriously negatively impacted by inflation, including soaring rents, health insurance costs, food prices, and utility costs. Harris turned her back on that until too late.
Harris was too busy “preserving our freedoms.” Abortion was front and center of her campaign. She didn’t link abortion to the other issues it’s so closely tied to: lack of resources, fear of not being able to afford a child, lack of emotional and financial support. Abortion for Harris and the Democrats is a freestanding issue: a right, a freedom, an entitlement. The Democrats have held abortion as the cornerstone of their campaign efforts for years, without a thought to the fact it isn’t a choice most women make lightly, without a thought addressing the economic factors that lead to having an abortion.
Lisa Stiller
Most polls had the economy and inflation as the number one concern of Americans. Biden didn’t put our economy on the track they celebrated. Ordinary Americans are struggling with soaring costs — .housing, food, utilities, basic necessities. The Democrats failed to address it head-on. Instead they embraced abortion.
What for me is so sad is that once upon a time, the Democrats did hold up economic well-being and addressing poverty as priority.
Harris actually had some good ideas when she did talk about the economy, too late in her campaign. And a determined purpose to bring about a ceasefire in the Middle East, and stand behind Ukraine and seek peace. And fairly and humanely deal with immigration.
But these weren’t her focus. She didn’t address them much until too late.
A lot of people had moved on from casting their votes as a response to the Dobbs decision. They wanted a better life.
Harris failed us. And we are doomed to 4 years that aren’t very pro-life in so many ways.
Just some ramblings late at night when I was way too upset to sleep.
Rachel MacNair
There are many ideas about why Harris lost this election. I’ll cover what I see through my consistent-life lens.
War
Under Biden-Harris, we now have serious carnage in Ukraine and Gaza. The carnage of war is also in other hotspots now and was during Trump’s first term, but those two major wars were on voters’ minds.
Trump’s rhetoric was more anti-war than Harris’s. This doesn’t mean it was suitable for us peace activists. It was more from the view of military professionals and their families who believe in “peace through strength.” They regard being prepared for war as a way of preventing it through deterrence. That’s not my take on it, but it’s still an antipathy to wars happening.
Early on, Trump’s supporters were disgusted with the war in Iraq. Many of them had fought in it, and felt (rightly) that their political leaders had let them down. It was a failure by elites.
Discussing this, Democrat Pete Buttigieg said this in The New York Times:
Certainly, I think the complicity of the Democratic Party in the run-up to the Iraq war continues to be something that really helped set America onto the political trajectory that we’re on right now . . . The Democrats everywhere who were skeptical of the idea of the Iraq War were still kind of pretending to be OK with it, because they thought they had to be.
The war in Gaza was also explicitly one that distressed many voters who refused to vote for either candidate.
When it comes to actual wars happening now, Harris’s rhetoric was more belligerent. That didn’t get noticed much by the press because these were conventional pro-war thoughts.
This is an interesting take in The Washington Post: The right way for Trump to play peacemaker.
Rachel MacNair
Abortion
At the very least, it’s clear that Harris emphasized abortion more than polls show people indicated an interest in. She could have been talking about topics they were more interested in.
But I think there’s more to it. Her extremism was great enough to attack pregnancy help centers. Her extremism asserted that conscientious objection to participating in abortions shouldn’t be allowed.
There are millions of people who voted for pro-abortion measures who also voted for Trump. That means their commitment to abortion wasn’t total. It’s easy to vote for something when you’re voting anyway, and many of them were taken in by the rhetoric that women suffering miscarriages weren’t getting medical care.
In other words, they were voting against what was presented to them as an extreme that’s more extreme than what’s actually happening. That didn’t mean they supported the other extreme – even though that’s what they voted for. I live in Missouri, so I kept seeing the pitch for our pro-abortion measure: “Missouri’s abortion ban goes too far.” They never delineated how far Amendment 3 went in the other direction.
I think there’s a discomfort with Harris’s rhetoric that so totally ignores and discounts killed babies. Many won’t articulate that to pollsters, and I don’t think they’re articulating that to themselves, either. Therefore, I can’t document this idea, and could rightly be accused of wishful thinking. But I’ll maintain it all the same: I think, poetically speaking, that the ghosts of all those children are haunting the public discourse now, behind the scenes.
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For more of our recent posts on election politics, see:
Summary of Results: Peace & Life Referendums 2024 (for far more detail, see our project website: Peace and Life Referendums)
Oh My, How the Election Conundrum Has Changed (2024) / Rachel MacNair
Abortion on the Ballot / Lisa Stiller
Slavery: Removing the Exception
What History Shows: The Consistent Life Ethic Works for Pro-life Referendums
How Consistent-life Advocacy Would Benefit from Ranked-Choice Voting
Summary of Results: Peace & Life Referendums 2024
compiled by Rachel MacNair
For details on the referendums and explanations of why consistent-lifers have an interest in them, see:
Peace and Life Referendums
Good News
West Virginia passed a state constitutional amendment to protect patients from assisted suicide. However, it was a squeaker — 50.4%.
Joining the trend for states with state constitutions that abolish slavery – to remove the exception for those convicted of a crime: Nevada.
Minimum wage increases and paid sick leave together passed in Alaska and Missouri. Paid sick leave alone passed in Nebraska.
Updating official language to be less dehumanizing passed by huge margins in Nevada and North Dakota. We’re concerned about this because practices of dehumanizing can be lethal, and even when they’re less than lethal, they can be one of the root causes leading to violence against the targeted population. We’ve put this under “discriminatory practices” on our website. That’s our issue of opposing racism, but also expands to other marginalized groups – women, those with disabilities, etc.
On abortion state constitutional amendments to enshrine it as a “right”:
- It was defeated in Florida, but only because it required 60% for a constitutional change and only got 57%..
- In South Dakota, it was defeated decisively, with 61% voting it down.
- In Nebraska, it was defeated, and the alternative measure that prohibits after the first trimester with the normal caveats (which is current state law) was passed.
Bad News
State constitutional amendments that overturn some form of abortion ban: Arizona and Missouri. For Arizona, it was a decisive defeat. It was much closer in Missouri. Since Missouri only had one abortion facility left at the time Dobbs came down, and since it has the example of neighboring Nebraska with its alternative amendment passing, and since the main pitch of the side for the amendment was “Missouri’s abortion ban goes too far,” without reference to how far that amendment went, it seems likely that Missourians will come up with another ballot measure for 2026.
Amendments that put the “right” to abortion in the constitution, but legal status was already secure in state law: Maryland, Montana, New York, Nevada. And Colorado passed abortion funding.
Arizona passed harsher rules on immigrants, who are often fleeing war or similar horrific violence
California turned down a minimum wage increase, but that was to put it up to $18 per hour, which is far higher than other proposals. Current minimum wage is $16, which is also higher than most of the country.
South Dakota trounced a move to change the language in its state constitution to be gender-neutral rather than masculine when not merely masculine is meant.
Overall Commentary by Our Issues
Euthanasia isn’t often on the ballot, and when it is, it’s usually to allow it where it’s currently not allowed under the euphemisms of “assisted suicide” or “medical aid in dying.” Fortunately, there were none of those on the ballot this year. There was a measure that took the opposite tack, protecting patients from it. This was framing the point well, and in West Virginia it did pass. But only by a small margin.
The death penalty wasn’t on the ballot anywhere this year.
War is rarely on the ballot, to the point that when we put measures under the war category, they can seem more ambiguous. Harsher treatment of immigrants could clearly go under either poverty or racism as well. We put it under war because so many immigrants are refugees are fleeing war, including gang war. But in Arizona, the measure passed.
Poverty is mainly addressed in referendums with minimum wage raises. Also, we’re especially enamored of paid sick leave because of the long-standing link of family and medical leave to a more humane workplace that fosters fewer pressures to abort, as Henry Hyde explained eloquently. These generally do well on the ballot, and all but one (California) passed this year.
Racism, expanded to “Discriminatory Practices” to include additional marginalized groups, included one trend that we’ve had before and will hopefully cover again: finally abolishing all slavery by removing the exception for those convicted of a crime. This passed handily in Nevada this year. Another common trend is to update language for people with disabilities, and that passed handily in Nevada and North Dakota.
As for the biggy, abortion, results are mixed. Though the media is likely to talk about how most of the “reproductive rights” measures passed, we can see that they mainly passed in places where pro-abortion sentiment is strong and their passage will cause no immediate difference whatsoever in the law. For those places with some sort of ban (that is, protection for children) in place, that ban remains in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. That will by iffy in Florida since a majority did vote for it but not a large enough majority. But results were strong in Nebraska and even stronger in South Dakota.
Human Rights: Making Exceptions “With Cause”
by Ms. Boomer-ang
In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, animals take over a farm and paint on a wall “an unalterable law by which all animals” there “must live forever.” This law was a list of commandments, one of which was: “No animal shall kill any other animal.” But eventually the leaders began having other animals executed. And one day, the commandment against killing other animals was noticed to have at its end two extra words, “without cause.”
Likewise, many of those who proclaim commitments to human rights, protections, and respect for everybody for all time, in practice come up with “sufficient causes” to reduce or deny these rights for at least some people at least some time. Some even appear willing to give up some rights in order to wipe out other rights efficiently.
Examples and observations follow:
Torture and Guilt
The US Constitution, the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Geneva Convention, and other standards prohibit cruel punishments and torture, require humane conditions for prisoners, and require presumption of innocence until proven guilty. No exceptions.
But early this century, US agencies held alleged terrorists and alleged terrorist enablers in inhumane conditions and tortured them, without a trial.
Some of the torture centers lay in formerly Communist countries , even though during the Cold War, Americans had been told that one bad thing about Communist countries is that they had terrible prisons and tortured people.
The US also rendered people to openly brutal countries for torture.
Some support torture as a way of getting information or a confession. But people undergoing torture often make up false information or confess falsely. These do not bring investigators closer to the truth. And what about the presumption of innocence until proven guilty?
Several American officials claimed that the Geneva Convention did not apply, because the suspects were “enemy combatants.” What about that label is exceptional? In violent fights, all sides are combatants, and all call their adversaries “enemies.”
Could we see it coming? From 1984 to 2000, the US Army ran the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, which trained Latin Americans how to torture people in their own countries. (Though the curriculum did also include some lessons on human rights.) Did some North American mouths water? From Fort Benning to Abu Ghraib, is not the line logical?
Elections
Every country has a right to hold elections without outside interference. But the US and other countries have been trying to influence each other’s elections for over a century.
In 1970, presidential advisor Henry Kissinger claimed, “[We don’t] need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves!”
And what if the election still does not go as powerful outsiders want? For Chile in 1973, it was a violent coup.
Right to Bear Children
The western media has acknowledged forced abortions, infanticide, and other violence during China’s one-child regime. But Singapore, Vietnam, and sometimes India have also imposed family-size limits and declared them sufficient cause for reducing human rights for “excessive” children, mothers who carry them to term, and families who do not disown the mother. Punishments and discrimination include fines, surcharges, dismissal from jobs, and denying children admission to schools. In about 1990, I heard somebody who had lived in Asia report that in Indonesia when government officials call on homes, the family hides their children except the first two.
Meanwhile in the US, when I was in undergraduate college in the mid-1970s:
- In a Political Science class, the professor asked whether it was okay for a government use undemocratic techniques and to violate human rights to bring about development. The student who answered said, “Yes, because there are too many people.”
- About nine months after Indira Gandhi had left office, another fellow student, the daughter of a European Catholic and Asian Indian Buddhist, who lived in northwestern Europe, told me that Gandhi’s successor was a fascist because he had canceled some family-size restrictions that Gandhi had imposed. Calling such restrictions necessary, her voice suggested self-righteous contempt for bearing more than a certain number of live children.
Minorities and Unworthiness
Sometimes membership in certain groups is considered sufficient cause to deny equal rights. Race, ethnic group, religion, economic status, age, family member behavior, presumed “wantedness” before birth, abilities, and health can define these groups, depending on the country and community. A previous blog post goes into this.
Observed Attitudes
Many “causes” used to justify human rights violations include:
- Rights for “us,” not necessarily for “them.”
In college, a Political Science major told me that some “less developed” countries “aren’t ready for democracy.” She didn’t specify what qualified a place as ready for democracy.
- Rules for “them,” not necessarily for “us.”
Illustrated by the US torturing people in formerly Communist countries.
In addition, Mr. Kissinger “time and again displayed contempt for the idea that the powerful can and should be constrained by democratic safeguards.”
- Those who made the standards didn’t have this case in mind. Illustrated by the “enemy combatant” claim.
- Something like this has never happened before, so rules made ‘before’ don’t apply.
- Since the rules were made, morals, ethics, and lifestyles have changed.
- New technology, scientific discoveries, and medical practices make any standards made ‘before’ obsolete.
- The standards don’t take into account the inherent “rights” and “duties” that have been “recognized” after they were made.
- Some standards, like the UDHR (adopted 1948), were reactions to Naziism and World War II. Now enough time has passed for us to leave their shadow.
- Getting rid of a right or protection by simply declaring it an arcane reactionary “religious” practice. This flips the right, in the eyes of the “educated,” into an “oppression.” This has happened to the right to live from conception to natural death.
- Reversing definitions. Claiming the right to oppress another and convincing the world that being oppressed is the other’s “right.”
When officials and experts tell you that it is your “right” and “best interest” to die, that if you stay alive beyond a certain point you will lose your “dignity,” and that to want to stay alive in your condition is “irrational,” they really mean “it is the majority’s human right to live in a world unpolluted by burdensome you.”
Another example is the young woman’s calling someone “fascist” for tolerating large families.
- Willingness to give up other human rights in order to practice the “right” to violate certain other rights.
Illustrated by the two examples of college students accepting population control.
Actually, rejecting “human rights” as a goal, in order to keep abortion, recognizes that living from conception to natural death is a human right. More likely, they will redefine “human rights” to include sentencing dependents to death. In that case, it will be for people (like me) who object to this change to come up with a new term for what we now call “human rights.”
These attitudes are what human rights activists are up against. They are challenges to confront.
Defining and Redefining Human Rights
Over the ages, there have been many definitions of rights, protections, duties, and responsibilities. This can be the subject of many essays.
The violation of some human rights can make the violation of others less unattractive, but the presence or absence one human right does not guarantee the presence or absence of others. For one thing, democracy — the people having a major say in making the rules — is not a synonym for freedom or human rights. People can democratically vote to kill people for belonging to a certain ethnic group or having a certain disability. For another example, one can maintain free speech while waging a campaign to kill these people. In this case, we can say, write, and broadcast that the killing is wrong, without being arrested, as long as we are willing to be told, “You make logical points, but you lost!”
Are commitments to human rights for everybody for all time meaningless, because of how they are modified as circumstances and morals change? Are “rules” protecting human rights as meaningless as Animal Farm’s law against killing other animals became when they added “without cause”?
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For more of our posts from Ms. Boomer-ang, see:
Political Homelessness is Better than a Wrong Political Home
“Shut Up and Enjoy it!”: Abortion Promoters who Sexually Pressure Women
Asking Questions about Miscarriage and Abortion
Denying Personhood to Human Beings
by Fr. Jim Hewes
Historical Examples of Dehumanization
The denial of personhood isn’t a new concept. Throughout history, certain groups of people have been denied their humanity to justify their exploitation, oppression, or even extermination.
One of the most infamous examples is the Dred Scott decision. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled black slaves weren’t considered citizens or “persons” under the law. This decision allowed for slavery and dehumanization of African Americans.
The same type of thinking has justified genocides throughout history. In the Holocaust, Jews, along with other marginalized groups, were dehumanized and labeled as “non-persons.” By stripping them of their humanity, the Nazi regime was able to justify their extermination.
The same logic applied to the Rwandan genocide. The Hutu majority dehumanized the Tutsi minority to justify mass slaughter.
In each of these cases, those in power determined certain human beings weren’t worthy of the rights and protections afforded to persons. This dehumanization allowed for their mistreatment, oppression, and, in some cases, their complete annihilation.
The same logic is applied in the abortion debate. By declaring the preborn aren’t persons, society allows for their destruction. Just as in historical examples of dehumanization, the preborn are denied their humanity based on arbitrary criteria set by those in power.
What Defines a Person?
One central controversy in the abortion debate is whether the preborn child is a person. This question isn’t just philosophical or theological—it has profound legal and moral implications. If the preborn are considered persons, they are entitled to rights and protection under the law, including the most fundamental right: the right to life. However, if they aren’t considered persons, these protections may not apply, allowing for their destruction through abortion.
Personhood has been debated for centuries, with various definitions proposed by philosophers, theologians, and legal scholars, based on such traits as:
- consciousness,
- sentience,
- self-awareness,
- rationality and feeling (balance also),
- self-determination,
- ability to choose,
- minimal intelligence/certain level of IQ,
- reasoning,
- has interests or desires or purpose or sense of the past (memory),
- self-motivated activity,
- communication,
- ability to change,
- connection to society and to relate others and concern for others,
- self-control,
- sense of time,
- curiosity,
- to envision a future,
- to use language,
- recognize continuity of time,
- to solve problems,
- idiosyncrasy,
- electrical activity which will develop into the heart or the brain,
- certain point of development within the womb,
- when a soul enters,
- when one feels pain,
- when viable outside the mother’s body,
These criteria measure up to certain standards of perfection or usefulness, and what follows is whether they are valued with rights when they have attained such traits.
Who decides which definition or standard is used, and at what point the human individual originates? Philosophers like Mary Ann Warren, Michael Tooley, and Peter Singer argue personhood requires certain cognitive functions. Without traits like these, a human being cannot be considered a person. They don’t qualify as persons. Therefore, they don’t have the same rights as those who have been born.
This functionalist view of personhood is deeply problematic. If personhood is determined by cognitive ability, then what happens to individuals who lose these abilities due to injury, an accident, illness, or age? For example, a person in a coma or suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease may no longer meet these criteria for personhood, but we don’t deny their humanity or their right to life. Similarly, a newborn infant doesn’t have the self-awareness or rational thought that some philosophers require for personhood. This thinking, taken to its end, can be used to justify infanticide as well as abortion.
These perspectives open the door to dehumanizing vulnerable individuals who cannot meet their arbitrary standards of cognitive ability. These views are determined by adults who are deciding from an adult perspective. Those who have power decide who is a person or who isn’t, rather than the pre-born child’s perspective of powerlessness.
Such thinking allows society to determine who is worthy of protection based on vague, arbitrary, subjective, speculative, self-serving criteria. How many criteria or traits are necessary? How do you measure them?
Inherent vs. Achieved Personhood
At the heart of the abortion debate is the question of whether personhood is something inherent or something that must be earned through development. Pro-abortion advocates often argue personhood is something achieved when certain cognitive or physical milestones are met, as if one can gain or lose personhood at different situations in one’s life, depending on what one can do rather who one is, with an inherent legacy, whether that is recognized or not.
This view implies also that personhood can be lost if these abilities are lost. It creates a dangerous precedent where certain human beings are considered more valuable or worthy of protection than others. This achievement-based view of personhood is, in essence, a form of elitism. Pre-born children become “outcasts” or inferior humans – not persons. It suggests some human beings are more important than others based on their abilities, achievements, or the stage of their development.
In contrast is the view that personhood is inherent in every human being, regardless of stage of development or abilities. From the moment of conception, a unique human life begins with its own DNA, distinct from both the mother and father. This human life will grow and develop according to her or his own nature, moving through the various stages of development from embryo to fetus to infant and beyond. At no point does this being ceased to be human, nor does he or she become something else.
If the mother wants the child, then the life in the womb is a person, but if the child isn’t wanted by the mother, then there’s no person within the womb. Perhaps later the same child within the womb becomes wanted, and thus becomes a person again.
Being a person doesn’t depend on if he or she is significant to others or not. It’s a continuous process of growth, not a transition from non-personhood to personhood. The inability to fulfill their nature at one moment doesn’t negate or destroy the nature itself.
In other words, personhood isn’t a matter of something or someone being “more of,” or “less of.” It’s not . something “you have or don’t have,” or something “too broad or too narrow.” Personhood in fact is an intrinsic reality of a human being (both actual and potential).
Why Personhood Matters in the Abortion Debate
The question of personhood isn’t just a theoretical issue. It has real-world implications, particularly in the context of the abortion debate. In the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court famously sidestepped the question of when life begins, stating the judiciary wasn’t in a position to resolve this issue. However, the Court noted that if the preborn were recognized as persons, the case for abortion would collapse. The right to life of the preborn would be protected by the Constitution.
This highlights the central importance of personhood in the abortion debate. If the preborn are considered persons, they’re entitled to the same legal protections as anyone else, including the right to life. Denying their personhood allows for their destruction through abortion, but recognizing their personhood would extend to them the rights and protections afforded to all human beings.
From a legal perspective, the burden of proof should lie on those who argue the preborn are not persons. In any case of doubt, it would be prudent that the benefit of doubt should be given to the preborn, just as it would be in any other case involving human rights. Just as we wouldn’t take the life of a person in a coma or a newborn infant simply because they cannot currently exercise certain functions, we shouldn’t take the life of preborn children because they haven’t yet reached a certain stage of development.(for in-depth legal writings see Robert P. George, Joshua Craddock, and John Finnis or view (Rallyforpersonhood.com).
Conclusion
The debate over personhood is central to the abortion controversy. Denying the personhood of the preborn is a dangerous and dehumanizing philosophy. It has been used throughout history to justify mistreatment and destruction of vulnerable groups.
Recognizing the personhood of the preborn is a matter of justice. Every human being, regardless of their stage of development or abilities, deserves the right to life and the protection of the law. In a society that values human rights, the most vulnerable among us—the preborn—should be no exception. This sentiment is clearly summarized by Dr Seuss which simply states: (“Horton Hears a Who”)
Because after all,
a person’s a person
no matter how small.
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Fr. Jim Hewes
For more of our posts from Fr. Jim Hewes, see:’
Death Penalty and other Killing: The Destructive Effect on Us
A Personal Reflection on a Just War
Consistent Life History: Being Across the Board
Reflections from My Decades of Consistent Life Experience
The Consistent Life Ethic: My Christian Perspective
Abortion and Other Issues of Life: Connecting the Dots