A Sharp Commentary:

Who Would Have Thought It; Pro Life In Your Face in 2008

Until about a year ago, I was beginning to think that bringing up the subject of abortion was a faux pas equivalent to singing the Star Spangled Banner like Rosanne Barr.

Here I am writing about abortion again, for the fifth time within over a year in a Southern Californian public forum.  For decades, it seemed that this abortion subject was the one thing no one was supposed to touch in any serious way, that you were simply supposed to say you were “pro-choice” or “pro life” like you were talking about rain or sunshine.  We had come to believe that abortion was simply there, like the weather.

But this scenery has changed suddenly.  Today we find everyone talking very personally and animatedly talking about this subject.  Even the presidential candidates are seriously checking in on their abortion positions, with a gravity that has been unheard of in any presidential race in memory.

Something apparently has really scared us about the subject of abortion, and I think it might have something to do with our hunting instincts.  Remember that a hunter can’t just shoot at anything that moves, because it might be a human being that is moving.  Surely the hunter has to be 100 percent certain that the living being framed in his sights is not a person before he pulls the trigger.

Our national problem with abortion is that after decades of debating, we have come no closer to proving that the living target of Roe vs. Wade is NOT a person.

So now we are fearful like a hunter who has been shooting at living things that are surely moving, but when he thinks more carefully about it, he realizes he never made sure what he was shooting.  Now he needs to talk about what the heck is going on.

It seems that back in pre-Copernicus times, we thought the earth was the center of everything that went on.  In humanist times, people acted like their brains were the in the middle of all these things.  But today we have found that the brain is just another organ that does our transmission, and that our higher intelligence comes from that mysterious writing in amino acid – our DNA – that made our brain and maintains it.

So when I teach someone whose brain has been damaged because of lack of pre-natal caring – a crack baby grown up, for example – I remember some scientists are now saying that a person has 250 billion miles of DNA strands rolled up inside him or her, and incalculable intelligence ruling his or her life. But when the brain is injured, it is sort of like locking up the Kingdom of God within us.  I know that student was and still is a person, even if all his or her intelligence is operating without us.

However, in the crack house where this person grew in the womb, he or she was obviously not considered enough of a person to be protected from the drugs being indulged in the home.  That is why today there are so many institutions being devoted to caring for people who at one critical time – in their pre-natal stages – were not considered people and now we are paying for that.

This past February 26, a local daily newspaper published my commentary titled “The Unborn Need a New Hallmark Holiday.”  My argument was America needs a holiday that wouldn’t require businesses to close but would focus on educating the nation on the humanity of the unborn. Within only a couple of weeks, I saw this article being referenced in issue-related websites throughout the country.  It has also been reprinted in full in the pro-life website in New York, Righttoliferoch.org.  Then a group named the American Life League established a website petition at Dayofthepreborn.com for President Bush to designate March 25, 2008 as “The Day of the Preborn.”

I doubt that my original article had much if anything to do with putting all of this momentum into play.  In any case, when I wrote the original article, I wasn’t thinking about where to go next if indeed President Bush were to designate a day of contemplation for the unborn American.  The prickly reaction to these developments from the so-called pro-choice faction leads me to believe that any more education about the pre-born is only going to make abortion even less popular – and the abortion rate continues to drop with every new educational website and pregnancy care center that opens.

But I believe that the pro-choice culture is a living thing as well, and like all living things, it will express whatever it can to survive.  These days, simply to maintain abortion as an official institution, the pro-abortion culture has been largely talking to the most uniformed, uneducated and youngest women to keep some kind of clientele going to abortion clinics.  This campaign among abortion champions to find future generations of an abortion market is sort of like the tobacco companies making appealing ads to the youngest, least educated and least informed among a cigarette market.

In any case, certainly the so-called pro-choice politicians and culture should start thinking about offering an explanation to the women of America.  If the institution of pro choice is what it says it is, where is even one instance where they have facilitated the choice of life?  And if they are actually working in the interest of women rather than to simply keep their sub-culture going, why are they now so angry and argumentative against pregnancy care centers offering pregnant women counseling on how to care and pay for a living child?

The answers could some out in the wash if we had a day for the unborn devoted to discussion and thought on the subject.  Unfortunately, however, the last thing that pro-choice politicians want these days is for anyone to talk or think about abortion.  With them, it is still the best thing we can do to abort any babies without thinking about them.

In fact there are still enough pro-choice politicians around that simply introducing a motion supporting a “Day for the Pre-born” in any state assembly or senate would promise to bring a great deal out in the wash.  Certainly such a debate would show which side has nothing to hide.  It isn’t even important now whether such a motion would pass or fail in any legislature.  Simply having such a dialogue would be a benchmark of our growing maturity to deal correctly with this subject.

I realize that not everyone who reads a website shares a common representative, but for those in the Santa Clarita Valley who would like our Assemblyman Cameron Smyth to look seriously into this March 25 “Preborn Day,” the easiest way is to click back to the Beacon home page, click “Assemblyman Smythe” under “Links,” click “Contact,” and finally click, “Send me your concern.”

Believe me, even a cave man can do this.

Chris Sharp

Chris Sharp is an Educator and a prize-winning professional writer. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.  Used with permission of the author and publisher. http://www.westranchbeacon.com

RARTL Updated July, 2007