Out of Focus?

The Columbus Dispatch today ran a story about the Personhood initiative's arrival in the land of the Buckeyes. The article also referenced other recent Ohio efforts against abortion, such as the Heartbeat Bill.

What leaped off of my screen, though, was the first comment following the piece:

It's unfortunate with 9% unemployment, children and adults starving in the street, people losing their homes, crime rates increasing, and corporations buying our politicians, these people are fighting to make abortion illegal. We have freedom of religion in this country, but they want to impose their religious ideology on us, in this secular nation. People can't find jobs, and children go without food. The most important thing on their mind is making abortion illegal. Jesus would be appalled at these people. Don't believe me? Read the Holy Bible. Jesus never spoke about abortion. But he did speak a lot about helping the poor and the homeless.

- Toni Goodman

Here's an experiment. What if, instead of using the word "abortion" in the above, we were to replace it with its definition?

Here's a simple definition of abortion: killing young humans. (Note: This definition says nothing of the morality of abortion. It merely clarifies that which we are referencing. If someone has scientific evidence to the contrary of this definition, I'd be interested in seeing it.)

Let's take a second look, then, at that comment:

It's unfortunate with 9% unemployment, children and adults starving in the street, people losing their homes, crime rates increasing, and corporations buying our politicians, these people are fighting to make killing young humans illegal. We have freedom of religion in this country, but they want to impose their religious ideology on us, in this secular nation. People can't find jobs, and children go without food. The most important thing on their mind is making killing young humans illegal. Jesus would be appalled at these people. Don't believe me? Read the Holy Bible. Jesus never spoke about killing young humans. But he did speak a lot about helping the poor and the homeless.

Does this strike anyone else as odd? The only way Goodman could stand by these assertions is by believing the preborn are not human. But what has led her to that belief? Certainly it is not scientific evidence (the preborn have unique human DNA, are offspring from living human beings, etc.).

It must only be her own prejudice--against the very young.

Who, then, is truly out of focus?

Spring Break 2012 Plans?

Do you ever wonder what role you might have played in the Civil Rights era?

Here's a role you can play in today's battle for human rights. Join the Justice Ride.

Yue Yue Exposes My Ageism

This morning, after settling into my comfy office chair and firing up my laptop, I found myself stunned by the video below. Be warned. What you are about to see is truly terrifying.

Watching the clip, I couldn't help but be reminded of the tragic tale of Hugo Tale Yax, the homeless hero neglected by New Yorkers last year as he lay dying.

My first response: sheer horror. To watch a toddler's body crushed beneath large vans is terrifying, but to watch unconcerned citizens stroll by idly causes an even deeper dread of disbelief.

I wanted to believe this was a hoax. I even checked Snopes.com to be sure. I didn't want to believe man has lost so much of his mannishness that he would treat the plight of a dying child with such cavalier coolness.

But then I remembered: business as usual will continue in America today even though 3,000+ children like Yue Yue are crying out for help. This is not new.

And this led to my second response: Why did I find myself cringing more and seeking more to hide my eyes from the video of Yue Yue than I do from the images of children dying from abortion? Is it because those images have become normal to me? Indeed, the mode of her tragedy, brutal though it was, is no more barbaric than the method in which preborn children die (being torn limb from limb).

Perhaps I, too, am guilty of the ageism of our day. Perhaps I, too, cringe more with the death of a born child than a preborn one because I can more easily relate to the former. But why should my ability to relate to a human have any bearing upon her value?

Put simply: it doesn't. Our subjective emotions are wholly separate from the objective matter of one's humanity.

What is more terrifying about Yue Yue's story is that we actually watch the people walking by---though she is dying before their eyes. And this led to my third response: If people can walk by and do nothing when children are dying in front of their eyes, will they ever intervene for those dying behind closed doors?

If Yue Yue's tale is any indication, the answer is no. And that is why we must bring the victims out into the light and challenge people to defend them.

Some argue that it is wrong to do this. I would simply refer them to a comment posted on a shorter version of the Youtube video by user thersten: "[T]hey shouldn't censor this. The world needs to see what is wrong with society before we can change it."

Exactly.

Tidying Up the Nursery

It's nearing 7:00 a.m., and I've finally given up on the notion of returning to dreamland--a vain pursuit begun nearly two hours ago when I stirred awake for some unknown reason. Now I find myself in the soon-to-be nursery accompanied by a Turtle Twilight casting green constellations on the ceiling and other sundry baby paraphernalia.

It is truly hard for me to believe that at any moment a newborn will be occupying this room. A third little person will come into our home not as a guest, but as a permanent member of the family.

From this perspective of fatherhood--knowing my baby only via ultrasound images, doppler heartbeats, reading to him/her, and feeling him/her roll around with my hand as I did moments ago before leaving the bed--it can seem tempting to idealize my baby. I'm not only speaking of imagining this tot to be the most adorable, most intelligent (as most parents are wont to do), but I mean thinking that somehow the beautiful little face we're about to see will be free from the sinful tendencies of his/her father.

I've been around babies. I've been around toddlers. I've spent time with adolescents and a lot of teens. I know very well intellectually that the evidence of a fallen nature is seen soon and that no one is exempt.

But, when I think about my baby, I want to think that somehow it will be different. Surely this little boy or girl won't repeat the mistakes of his/her father. Surely the little fingers that will wrap around ours could never be capable of harm.

Yet it is clear that as far as humankind has gone, the curse has followed him. Wherever there is man, there is sin; thus I don't truly expect our child to be sinless. And I don't want to set up unfair expectations that he or she cannot fulfill. But there is a tendency to idealize that which we do not yet see clearly.

When I remind myself of this, however, I also know that as far as the curse is found, the cure is available. Little Drayer will not be a perfect human, but he or she will be offered the same solution to the human condition to which Aubrie and I cling.

And, as frustrating as it already is for me to consider, I know that we will not be able to force him or her to claim that prize. But we can--and should--raise our children in the knowledge of the truth.

And we can also enjoy their toys, like the Turtle Twilight.