Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Just Look
CNY ^ | October 24, 2008 | Edward Cardinal Egan

Posted on 10/24/2008 10:27:30 AM PDT by NYer

The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that has been within its mother for 20 weeks. Please do me the favor of looking at it carefully.

photo

Have you any doubt that it is a human being?

If you do not have any such doubt, have you any doubt that it is an innocent human being?

If you have no doubt about this either, have you any doubt that the authorities in a civilized society are duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if anyone were to wish to kill it?

If your answer to this last query is negative, that is, if you have no doubt that the authorities in a civilized society would be duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if someone were to wish to kill it, I would suggest—even insist—that there is not a lot more to be said about the issue of abortion in our society. It is wrong, and it cannot—must not—be tolerated.

But you might protest that all of this is too easy. Why, you might inquire, have I not delved into the opinion of philosophers and theologians about the matter? And even worse: Why have I not raised the usual questions about what a "human being" is, what a "person" is, what it means to be "living," and such? People who write books and articles about abortion always concern themselves with these kinds of things. Even the justices of the Supreme Court who gave us "Roe v. Wade" address them. Why do I neglect philosophers and theologians? Why do I not get into defining "human being," defining "person," defining "living," and the rest? Because, I respond, I am sound of mind and endowed with a fine set of eyes, into which I do not believe it is well to cast sand. I looked at the photograph, and I have no doubt about what I saw and what are the duties of a civilized society if what I saw is in danger of being killed by someone who wishes to kill it or, if you prefer, someone who "chooses" to kill it. In brief: I looked, and I know what I saw.

But what about the being that has been in its mother for only 15 weeks or only 10? Have you photographs of that too? Yes, I do. However, I hardly think it necessary to show them. For if we agree that the being in the photograph printed on this page is an innocent human being, you have no choice but to admit that it may not be legitimately killed even before 20 weeks unless you can indicate with scientific proof the point in the development of the being before which it was other than an innocent human being and, therefore, available to be legitimately killed. Nor have Aristotle, Aquinas or even the most brilliant embryologists of our era or any other era been able to do so. If there is a time when something less than a human being in a mother morphs into a human being, it is not a time that anyone has ever been able to identify, though many have made guesses. However, guesses are of no help. A man with a shotgun who decides to shoot a being that he believes may be a human being is properly hauled before a judge. And hopefully, the judge in question knows what a "human being" is and what the implications of someone's wishing to kill it are. The word "incarceration" comes to mind.

However, we must not stop here. The matter becomes even clearer and simpler if you obtain from the National Geographic Society two extraordinary DVDs. One is entitled "In the Womb" and illustrates in color and in motion the development of one innocent human being within its mother. The other is entitled "In the Womb—Multiples" and in color and motion shows the development of two innocent human beings—twin boys—within their mother. If you have ever allowed yourself to wonder, for example, what "living" means, these two DVDs will be a great help. The one innocent human being squirms about, waves its arms, sucks its thumb, smiles broadly and even yawns; and the two innocent human beings do all of that and more: They fight each other. One gives his brother a kick, and the other responds with a sock to the jaw. If you can convince yourself that these beings are something other than living and innocent human beings, something, for example, such as "mere clusters of tissues," you have a problem far more basic than merely not appreciating the wrongness of abortion. And that problem is—forgive me—self-deceit in a most extreme form.

Adolf Hitler convinced himself and his subjects that Jews and homosexuals were other than human beings. Joseph Stalin did the same as regards Cossacks and Russian aristocrats. And this despite the fact that Hitler and his subjects had seen both Jews and homosexuals with their own eyes, and Stalin and his subjects had seen both Cossacks and Russian aristocrats with theirs. Happily, there are few today who would hesitate to condemn in the roundest terms the self-deceit of Hitler, Stalin or even their subjects to the extent that the subjects could have done something to end the madness and protect living, innocent human beings.

It is high time to stop pretending that we do not know what this nation of ours is allowing—and approving—with the killing each year of more than 1,600,000 innocent human beings within their mothers. We know full well that to kill what is clearly seen to be an innocent human being or what cannot be proved to be other than an innocent human being is as wrong as wrong gets. Nor can we honorably cover our shame (1) by appealing to the thoughts of Aristotle or Aquinas on the subject, inasmuch as we are all well aware that their understanding of matters embryological was hopelessly mistaken, (2) by suggesting that "killing" and "choosing to kill" are somehow distinct ethically, morally or criminally, (3) by feigning ignorance of the meaning of "human being," "person," "living," and such, (4) by maintaining that among the acts covered by the right to privacy is the act of killing an innocent human being, and (5) by claiming that the being within the mother is "part" of the mother, so as to sustain the oft-repeated slogan that a mother may kill or authorize the killing of the being within her "because she is free to do as she wishes with her own body."

One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in the "Dred Scott Case" in the 19th century, and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the 20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it intensifies it.

Do me a favor. Look at the photograph again. Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of "legalized" abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; catholic; moralabsolutes; prolife
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last
To: NYer

Beautiful, powerful and should be shown to every woman considering her “choice.”


21 posted on 10/24/2008 11:06:23 AM PDT by fullchroma
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYer

Love the pic. I want to send it along. Just curious how it was taken. Is it inside the womb? what’s the blue background? How did they take the pic? If you have any additional info, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.


22 posted on 10/24/2008 11:17:42 AM PDT by Huck (Teddy Roosevelt vs. Che Guevera)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYer
Such clarity of insight, so ... so ... so commonsensical! ...

"If there is a time when something less than a human being in a mother morphs into a human being, it is not a time that anyone has ever been able to identify, though many have made guesses. However, guesses are of no help." ... The fundamental point is, from conception onward, there is a distinct human ORGANISM, not an organ or mere tissue mass, a distinct human organism So long as that ORGANISM is alive and growing he or she (and yes, even within the first day or two following conception, the sex of the organism can be discerned) is an ORGANISM not a mere mass of cells. I'm an organism, you are an organism. Even the abortionist is an organism, and we know the aborticution ends the lifetime of an organism who has been at least one distinct human organism since conception.

23 posted on 10/24/2008 11:19:08 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Winged Hussar

One of the things that bothers me about that image is the disinformation in it: when Obama said ‘it’s above my pay grade’, he was referring to when a BABY RECEIVES HUMAN RIGHTS. What he tried to misdirect to was not what Rick Warren asked the lying Marxist squirrel. Warren asked when a BABY receives human rights. Obama had a work history in Illinois of removing human rights from already born alive infants, working to protect the abortion technique called induced labor abortion, where the abortionists causes premature birth, then kilels the separated from the mother’s body INFANT via neglecting any medical attention for the struggling to breathe child, so the struggling preemie suffocates, eventually. Obama had shown he is more than willing to remove human rights from born alive human children in order to prevent any erosion to Roe v Wade, a SCOTUS decision related EXCLUSIVELY to killing alive unborn childrne int heir mother’s wombs while still dependant upon her for life support. Obama is more than willing, eager in fact—if it empowers his political capital—to remove human rights from children no longer dependent upon the mother for life support. Barack Obama is a ghoul of the first order, not just a typical lying democrat.


24 posted on 10/24/2008 11:26:22 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: MHGinTN

I think you’re right; I remembered it as Obama’s answer to when life begins. Either way, though, the image of him throwing live babies in a dumpster pretty much represents where he stands.


25 posted on 10/24/2008 11:59:53 AM PDT by Winged Hussar (http://moveonpleasemoveon.blogspot.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Huck
Just curious how it was taken. Is it inside the womb? what’s the blue background? How did they take the pic? If you have any additional info, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

Here is a link to the source of the photograph. I'm sure you will find the answers to your questions there.

Life Issues Institute

26 posted on 10/24/2008 12:25:14 PM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: NYer

I spent a time being brainwashed in my youth.

I was working as a secretary on a busy medical floor in one of the local hospitals.

We admitted a woman in labor , they knew her baby had died.

Labor and delivery was busting at the seams and they couldn’t take another patient.

One of the delivery nurses came up and they delivered her son in the room.

They brought me the baby to wash and wrap in a little blue blanket for photographs.

20 week baby was every bit as perfect and the one in the picture..So perfect, so beautiful, so tiny and so lifeless.

I knew my error , my willing “buy in” into the deception.

Abortion is from Satan..


27 posted on 10/24/2008 1:44:48 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (TAZ:Untamed, Unpredictable, Uninhibited.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYer

!


28 posted on 10/24/2008 2:09:03 PM PDT by rdb3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3WtJYgy1Q << Hear this. Feel this.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TASMANIANRED
Abortion is from Satan..

That says it all!

29 posted on 10/24/2008 4:59:56 PM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: OPS4

Was there a Zenit article on that?


30 posted on 10/25/2008 1:34:48 AM PDT by Salvation ( †With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: OPS4

Was there a Zenit article on that?


31 posted on 10/25/2008 1:34:59 AM PDT by Salvation ( †With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: OPS4; Salvation
Over the last 10 days, The Pope called the democratic Party of the United States, The Party of Death!

The pope did nothing of the sort. I believe you are referring to this article.

Vatican official attacks U.S. Democrats as “party of death”

The 'official' is St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke who now serves at the Vatican. He does not speak for the pope.

32 posted on 10/25/2008 7:53:50 AM PDT by NYer ("Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: NYer

And what is the hair splitting over what I posted and you posted. I stand by my post.


33 posted on 10/25/2008 8:27:08 AM PDT by OPS4 (Ops4 God Bless America!Jesus is Lord!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: NYer; 185JHP; 230FMJ; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


34 posted on 10/27/2008 2:52:11 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NYer
Pinged from Terri Dailies


35 posted on 10/27/2008 3:05:17 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson