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10: Woe to him who says to his father, 'What have you begotten?' or to his mother, 'What have you brought to birth?'
11: This is what the Lord says -- the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?
On December 9, 1996, a grand jury in Wilmington, Delaware, handed up first degree murder indictments against Brian C. Peterson, Jr. and Amy Grossberg for allegedly fracturing the skull of their 6 pound, 2 ounce newborn baby boy and throwing his body into the trash. Their baby was apparently born alive. Then what about babies who are three fourths born alive before being killed by "partial-birth" abortion? Or what about Tiller’s victims who are already old enough to be born alive when he kills them? Or if it's right for Tiller to kill a disabled nine month unborn baby at his clinic, why would it be wrong to kill a younger, more seriously disabled newborn at Via Cristi Hospital? Which, of course, brings us to the problem of first trimester abortions which are most often performed on babies older than six weeks, which is the point at which brain wave activity is reported to be measurable – the same brain wave activity which bio-ethically entitles an ill or injured adult to continued medical care.
In AMA Prism, May, 1973, Nobel laureate James Watson said ". . . if a child was not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice . . . the doctor could allow the child to die . . . ." Beverly Harrison, professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary agrees. In Policy Review, Spring, 1985, she said "I do not want to be construed as condemning women who, under certain circumstances, quietly put their infants to death."
What is the difference between a newborn baby and an unborn baby who is old enough to be a newborn? Morally, the comparison involves a distinction without a difference. As a practical matter, the utilitarian views of Mr. Watson and Ms. Harrison aren't where we're headed, they're where we are. Fifteen or twenty years ago they seemed alarmist; today, almost banal.
This is all likely to get much worse. One of the darker consequences of the current effort to map the human genome (the genetic content of the body) will be withering pressure to test unborn children for genetic predispositions to certain "disabilities." And what is a "disability?" What if, for instance, as is argued by homosexual advocacy groups, there is a genetic component to homosexuality? How many parents will want their unborn babies tested for the operative gene? How many parents of children testing "positive" for a genetic inclination toward homosexuality will be as homophobic as George Tillers patients are phobic about Downs? Suppose most decide that homosexuality is more embarrassing to parents and more painful to offspring than cases involving retardation? Instead of watching lesbians "come out" on television sitcoms, future generations may only be able to see them on the History Channel. Such dire predictions may seem a bit excessive until one considers a study which has already determined that more than one in ten mothers would abort a child susceptible to obesity. And what about baldness? In China and India, fetuses are aborted for the "defect" of being female. Who will decide which conditions qualify a class of persons as "desirable," or merely "acceptable" or as the new "untouchables?" The technology required to breed the true "master race" may finally be at hand. But who will be the "master?"
On Wednesday, April 30, 1997, USA Today reported that the city of Brandenburg, Germany, dedicated a memorial to 9,000 physically disabled, mentally retarded and other "undesirables" deemed "inferior" and "unworthy" by the Thousand Year Reich. They were, as the world grows weary of being reminded, systematically executed in the Nazis' euthanasia program. The former prison building in which the victims were held will now house their memorial. I believe that similar memorials will one day be established in the buildings now occupied by abortionists like George Tiller. Some may be offended by that notion but there are still, no doubt, some citizens of Brandenburg who are offended by the idea of a memorial to their complicity.
George Tiller is, of course, not the problem. He is only a symptom. The community is the problem; those who take their children to be killed by him and those who make the killing possible by their silence.
This abomination is allowed to continue because there is much confusion among people of good will as to the circumstances under which early abortions should be legal. But George Tiller's hubris has stripped us of any excuse for confusion over the killing of near newborns. Those who defend his "infanticide" for fear of losing their "choice" are taking hedonism to new and sickening depths. I fear them. I fear the new Dark Age they herald.
This trend seems both ironic and primitive in an age when perinatalogists can treat fetuses in utero for ailments such as severe combined immunodeficiency, chronic granulomatous disease, four variants of mucopolysaccharidoses, lipidosis, Tay-Sachs disease and three types of severe congenital anemia, including sickle cell anemia. More therapies for more conditions are under current study and still more are discoverable. Tiller’s way may seem less taxing but it has terrible hidden costs we don’t yet fully fathom.
In January of 1998 a crisis pregnancy center called Choices Medical Clinic will open at 538 S. Bleckley St., Wichita, KS, 67218; the address next door to George Tiller’s abortion clinic. It will be run by pro-life volunteer physicians, nurses and med-techs. They will be lead by a hospital administrator who resigned at Via Christi Hospital to take a job for which there is, as yet, hardly any money to pay his salary. Pray for them. You can make money killing babies but you have to raise it to save them.
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