Year AD 2000 – Picture of the Century
This question “Why do Christians want to control women’s bodies” shows how willing people are to deceive themselves when they don’t want to accept the truth and instead would prefer to believe a lie. (cf 2 Thess 2.12). Before I get to this question concerning a woman’s body, let me ask three questions that will help put things in context:
1. Is murder contingent on a person’s location? For example, if you murder someone outside their house, is it still murder if you unjustifiably with “malice aforethought” (Num 35.20-21) kill them inside their house?
2. Is murder contingent on the dependence or independence of a person health-wise? For example, if it is murder when you intentionally, without justification kill someone who is not dependent on medical machines like oxygen suppliers or dialysis machines; is it still murder if you kill someone dependent on oxygen generators or dialysis machines or the like?
3. Is murder contingent on a person’s dependence on another person for their well being? For example, if you murder someone who is fully independent and needs no assistance to live, is it still murder if you unjustifiably “with malice aforethought” kill someone dependent on a nurse or other person to provide needed support for life?
Recall your answers to these. Write them down. We’ll come back to this.
Before we get to the featured image above, let me clearly delineate what this question is about. Why is this question being asked? This question is all about the Christian’s strong rejection of, and refusal to support, abortion. People who refuse to accept the morality that God has given us—that sex belongs only within the confines of marriage—use this false accusation because they don’t want to deal with that truth.
Before I leave the topic, let me define marriage since the supreme court has confused many people about what it is. Marriage is the God-initiated and blessed (Gen 1.28) union between a man and a woman that is recognized by society. (Due to the refusal to accept what a woman is, it is not being pedantic to define it: a woman is an adult human female. A (human) female is a human who has two X chromosomes, is designed to produced eggs, bear children and has female genitalia. (So all the men pretending to be women and stealing athletic prizes from them are not woman.)
It’s unfortunate one must take time to define basic biological terms like “woman” and “female” these days. Now, as I was saying, those who do not want to accept God’s morality, which allows sexual intercourse only within the bounds of marriage as defined by God, want to carry on the “free sex” philosophy of the 60s and have sex whenever and with whomever they want without the benefit and blessings of marriage. They disregard the fact that the divine purpose of sexual intercourse is reproduction. So after the purpose of sex is fulfilled—a child is conceived—but the act has been performed outside of marriage with a partner to whom they have no commitment, the woman is faced with a dilemma. What to do with this child whom she never intended to conceive? And many men (most?) are content to go their way and leave the woman alone with their child that the new mother is now carrying.
What should the woman do when faced with this situation? She’s facing being a single mother, raising a child alone, which is a prescription for poverty for most. If the child is a boy he will grow up with no father to teach him what it means to be a man. If the child is a girl, she will grow up without the affirmation of a father she so desperately needs to provide the self-worth required to say no to the many males who will try to take advantage of her. Many secular people would encourage the mother of the unborn child to get an abortion so she is not “burdened” with an unwanted child. Christians would tell her: no! Don’t kill your baby. If you don’t want the baby, deliver the baby then give it up for adoption. But don’t kill the baby. This, then is called “controlling the woman’s body.”
But some object to Christians characterizing abortion as “murder.” So we return to the three questions asked at the beginning. What were your answers? If you answered yes to all three you are affirming:
1. Murder is not contingent on location. Thus, if a human is in the womb, that has no bearing on whether unjustly killing the child is murder or not.
2. Murder is not contingent on the person being independent of another person for their health. Thus, if a human is dependent on the mother’s umbilical cord for life and sustenance, that has no bearing on whether or not killing the person in the womb is murder or not.
3. Murder is not contingent on whether a person requires assistance to live or not. So, if a person is required to live in a certain place for assistance —inside a hospital, nursing home or inside a womb—if you unjustifiably kill that person it is still murder.
Clearly those who claim that Christians use “murder” when describing abortion really have no basis to do so, other than to justify their sinful life. They want to have immoral sex and pretend there are no consequences. When sex produces what sex is intended to produce—a child—they still want to pretend there are no consequences by getting rid of the “problem” by killing the child.
So, in short, arguments based on the baby’s viability are nonsense and unjustifiable. Just because you need assistance to live does not give another person license to kill you. (This goes for euthanasia, too, by the way.)
Now, as to the claim that Christians want to control a woman’s body: Again, that is untrue. It’s not the case that Christians want to control a woman’s body. We want women not to destroy another person’s body even if that person resides inside the mother’s womb. If you answered yes to question number 1, you’ve already agreed that where a person lives does not justify murder. Whether in a home or out, inside a womb or out, if you unjustifiably kill another person, it’s murder.
Finally, to address the laughable claim that the baby’s body is a part of the woman’s body, we turn to the featured picture. It shows a baby in the womb reaching out to grasp the surgeon’s hand as the physician operated on the baby in the womb. Below is the write-up from the year 2000, which Dr. Dobson called the picture of the year or decade. I considered it the picture of the century—2000 being the last year of the 20th century. For, as you can see, even one year shy of a quarter century later, I still have a graphic memory of this picture. This image burned deep enough into my memory for me to find it and share it again for this article. (I shared it in 2000 when Dr. Dobson first wrote about it.) The following is a portion of that newsletter he posted. You can read the entire newsletter archived here. [1] Here are some excerpts:
| April 2000,
“What you are witnessing should be designated ‘Picture of the Year,’ or, perhaps, ‘The Picture of the Decade.’ It won’t be. Most people will never get an opportunity to see it. The photo depicts a 21-week-old pre-born baby, who was being operated on by a surgeon named Joseph Bruner (It is his finger in the photo). The baby had been diagnosed with spina bifida, which leaves the spinal cord exposed after it fails to develop properly. Unless the gap was closed to protect his nervous system, serious brain damage would likely have occurred before birth. There was no time to lose. Unfortunately, the baby was too immature to survive outside the womb, and corrective surgery had never been performed on a baby this young. However, the parents, Julie and Alex Armas, have a deep faith. She is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta, who had heard through the Internet of Dr. Bruner’s work at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He and his team pioneered these delicate operations. Despite the fact that the procedure has not yet been endorsed in medical journals, the decision was made to attempt it on behalf of little Samuel. … This picture should be shown on every newscast and run in every newspaper in America. Every teenager should also see it. Why? Because it is an unmistakable reminder that growing in the womb of each mother is a baby. It is not a ‘blob of tissue,’ or a ‘product of conception.’ A pre-born baby is fully human from the moment of conception. What we see in the photograph expresses that understanding better than a thousand words. |
A final question regarding the picture: Is anyone really going to argue that the hand reaching out of the womb to grasp the doctor’s hand is part of the woman’s body?
I wanted to keep this article simple by just using a meme as the only evidence of the absurdity of a baby being a part of the woman’s body. As you can see, on further thought, I decided such an important and widespread topic (important and widespread enough to be number 10 in a list of more than 100 questions to Christians) needed further explanation than just the meme. Now that you have the explanation I don’t want you to miss out on the meme. So here it is. With that and the above, enough said.
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Duane Caldwell | May 26, 2029 | Printer friendly version
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Notes
1. Referenced from Dr Dobson’s article reposted (with permission) on familyschoice.com and retrieved from web.archive.org here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060328004054/http://www.familyschoice.com/archive/samuelarmas1.htm
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Image
Featured: From Dr. James Dobson April 2000 Newsletter
Michael Clancy Photography of Samuel Alexander Aramas; used with permission of SABA Press, New York, NY
