By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
October 12, 1999
Two stories hit the news in the past couple of days. One involved Princeton Professor Peter Singer, who claims to be "guiding a new generation through the moral intricacies of bioethics, in his book Practical Ethics. Even the title of Singer’s book suggests the level of his confusion. The word ethics, in my favorite dictionary definition, is simply what ought to be, what is just, good and reasonable. Practical is an adjective which generally means an action that is ordinarily done. And what is it that Singer thinks the American culture ought to practically to about defective children? He says parents ought to be permitted to kill their imperfectly formed children within 30 days of birth. He says infants under one month of age have no human consciousness.
Of course, it would logically follow that ANYONE who has no "human consciousness" by his new definition ought to also be subject to the same fate. So, not only should parents be able to kill their defective infants, using that logic or "practical ethics" when one’s parent becomes defective, having no "human consciousness," perhaps as the result of Alzheimer’s disease, adult children ought also to be permitted to kill their aged parents.
Undoubtedly that will happen sometime in the future also. It’s a natural progression of the pro-abortion argument. One would have thought that the millions of people who died as a result of Adolf Hitler thinking along this line would have been sufficient to get us through the 20th century without it cropping up again at Princeton University, no less. But, apparently it wasn’t.
At this point, of course, more unborn children around the world have been killed through the simple expedient of declaring them non-persons than were killed by Nazi Germany AND the USSR. It was through the Dred Scott decision of 1857 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which stated that Negroes were not "persons," that permitted the notion that it was "OK" to own black slaves. After all, they weren’t people. A majority on the 1857 Supreme Court would have fully understood Singer’s Practical Ethics. It was the same kind of "Practical Ethics," i.e. ethics totally disconnected from any notion of a Creator, which permitted their decision to declare Dred Scott "not a person within the meaning of the Constitution."
That decision was finally reversed by a bloody civil war and a constitutional amendment.
The other strange logic which surfaced this week involved a pregnant 12 year old girl in England who wanted to have her baby and not abort it, in spite of extreme pressure on her by pro-abortion teachers and social workers. After the girl’s unemployed father approached Scotland’s Monsignor Tom Connelly and asked for financial assistance to allow the girl, who is now six months pregnant, to have the baby, pro-abortion forces attacked the Catholic Church.
"Offering advice like this to someone so young ignores the long-term difficulties that somebody in this position may have, of depression, disrupted education, significant health problems," says Anne Marie McKay of Family Planning in Scotland.
Dr Geoff Scobie, a senior psychology lecturer at Glasgow University, said that many young mothers were simply not mature enough to cope with the demands of childbirth.
He said: "A 12-year-old can not function as an independent person and she can not look after the child herself."
Really now? She apparently functioned sufficiently as an independent person to find the time and opportunity to have sex with a classmate of the same age, who was also functioning as an independent person.
"The physical and psychological demands for a single parent are great as it is, but for a 12-year-old they are devastating. These girls have to be able to live out their own childhood before they take on the heavy responsibility of child-rearing. In many cases, the pressure can lead to long-term psychological harm," Scobie said. That makes me wonder exactly when Dr. Scobie thinks childhood ends. In many religions the age of 12 is the age selected for ceremonies that mark the end of "childhood" - and the beginning of responsibility - the Bar Mitzvah and the Baptist Church age for baptism come to mind. Some churches put the age of accountability younger than 12. In earlier generations in America, for example, the age of accountability to be able to marry without parental consent was 16. Both of my brothers went into the armed forces during World War II at the age of 17 and I married shortly after World War II at age 17. Today young people in their twenties are still at home, still considered "too young" to be able to make it on their own.
This situation in Scotland has led to a truly vicious attack on the Roman Catholic Church. The Church operates a Pro-Life Initiative to provide an alternative program for young women who do not want an abortion, but do not have the money to have the baby. The girl’s unemployed parents, who live in England, contacted the Monsignor Connelly in Scotland asking for help. The general consensus of the pro-abortionists is that it was WRONG for the Monsignor to GIVE the family any help.
Dr Scobie believes it is inappropriate for the Catholic Church to offer help because it cannot give impartial advice. He said: "If another body was offering help to the 12-year-old with no strings attached then perhaps that would be acceptable. That would allow her to make her own decision. However, the Roman Catholic Church has a very entrenched position and they can’t possibly say they are allowing children to make up their own mind."
"By providing the resources, they are making sure that the girl doesn’t break their perspective on abortion. It seems to me that inevitably they are bringing moral pressure on the girl, which can be very damaging."
Are we supposed to believe that Dr. Scobie does NOT have an entrenched position? The girl and the boy who are in this mess, along with their parents, should be making the decision without the added trauma of busybody teachers, social workers, abortion vendors and Dr. Scobie. Scobie and the other pro-abortionists are obviously bringing immoral pressure on the girl. Why can’t the Catholic Church bring moral pressure on her? That’s what churches do - they exert a little "moral pressure" every Sunday to encourage their flocks to live moral lives.
ABC news announced the story by reporting that "Abortion-rights groups call it bribery" for the Catholic Church to help the family. While ABC reported that "The church has not said how much money it will give the girl," a Glascow newspaper reported that Roseann Reddy, who works for the Church’s Pro-Life Initiative, said the money would go towards providing baby clothes and other basic materials. That doesn’t sound like much of a bribe to me - especially since the girl and her parents ASKED for help.
Jane Roe, of the Abortion Law Reform Association, says that "principles have taken precedence over common sense." In her opinion, Cardinal Connelly’s assistance "encourages a 12-year-old to consider that it is all right to have a child, that it is emotionally the best thing for her.
"Young girls," she says, "have a very rosy view of what a baby means and it is incredible that they cannot get the reality put clearly. There is absolutely no chance that a girl of 12 can understand. Of course a girl of 12 will be determined to have her child. Children of that age are determined to do a lot of silly things. They should be helped to understand what this is going to mean for the rest of their lives. They are losing their childhood and the Catholic Church is putting religious principle before their welfare."
That has to be one of the stupidest, most condescending statements ever made in the abortion debate. Note that Roe didn’t indicate it was not all right to have SEX at age 12 - only that it was not all right to have a CHILD at age 12. In fact, the big issue among abortion advocates and suppliers here and at the United Nations is "Reproductive Rights for Minors" which is a demand that minor children have a basically unfettered right to sexual intercourse, and, should pregnancy occur, the right to unilaterally obtain an abortion without parental knowledge. In fact, we are learning from the harsh criticism of Monsignor Connelly, the minor child not only has the RIGHT to an abortion in their view, but actually should not be allowed to have the baby even if she WANTS to.
What is occurring here is that the abortion advocates fail to understand basic human nature. You can’t tell young people that they have the "right" to ignore their parents teachings, and they have the "right" to sex, and they have a "right" to some vague thing known as "reproductive rights", and they have a "right" to an abortion without telling their parents - but, if they decide to have the baby, they don’t have the "right" to make that decision because they are "losing their childhood" or they are "too young" to know what’s best for them.
Once a girl, whatever her age, decides to become sexually active, she has already arbitrarily ended her childhood. Having babies is considered an adult role in every culture on earth - until the modern era. The abortion rights lobby has spent the last 30 years convincing America that sex is a play thing for the children and the irresponsible and when pregnancy happens abortion is the solution to all problems. What they are facing with the 12 year old is a child who cannot be easily managed. She has taken their statements at face value and has concluded she has "rights" to decide for herself. And what she decided does not fit in with the abortion lobby’s anti-population, anti-family agenda, so you have the international media reporting totally ridiculous statements from pro-abortionists who are now facing young people who have taken their statements about "rights" seriously.
I rather suspect that this won’t be the last young woman who decides to ignore the abortion lobbyists and go her own way. The abortion lobby just need to get used to living with the situation THEY created.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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