.

Dear George,

.

Thanks for that link to the “Crux” article of the Boston Globe Catholic Media.

It does, indeed present “a less emotionally loaded (or should I say “a more balanced”) analysis” than that which appeared in the men’s magazine “heavy.com” on which Peter based his “Fetal tissue sting” article this month.

I am a little surprised that Peter takes the “heavy.com” article on its face value without question. I see that the magazine was created in 1999, a good 20 years after “Heavy Metal”, the American version of the French science fiction and horror magazine, “Metal Hurlant” which first appeared in Paris in 1975.

Bloomberg describes the American “heavy.com” online magazine as follows :

" Heavy.com is an online information and entertainment destination for men that offers information in the areas of comedy, entertainment, news, and action videos; and Heavy Men’s Network, a distribution network reaching men worldwide …" :

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=718452

According to Wikipedia, the slogan (or purpose) of “heavy.com” is :

" Videos, humour and other time-wasting tools " :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy.com

I find it odd, to say the least, that Peter should consider “heavy.com” as a valid source of information for such a controversial subject as the procurement of tissue from aborted foetuses for medical research.

Particularly since popular men’s magazines such as “heavy.com” are renowned, world-wide, for their not-so-subtly misogynous content :

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Heavy.com

.

Sells wrote: “There are circumstances in which abortion should be condoned. But most abortions are done out of convenience.”

I feel that the above statements by Sells demonstrates his lack of compassion for women who find it necessary to get an abortion and his desire or need to denigrate those women.

The desire to become a mother is a strong drive in most women I have been close enough to discuss the matter with. I have seen many mothers with little children. They hug, kiss, look at with delight and otherwise show how happy they are to have a child. I think very few women get abortions for their own convenience. Of course their desperate need may come across to Sells as mere convenience.

I feel that most women who get an abortion have a great need to get that abortion, and that Sells’ statement has no factual basis. A women needing an abortion is entitled to sympathy and should not be denigrated.

Sells also wrote: “The resort to a woman's right is a weak argument. Rights are inventions that sometimes stand for justice but at other times are just excuses for doing what we want.”

This is more denigration of women. Rights are rights, and a woman desperately needing an abortion may be to Sells just doing what she wants. The right of a woman to have control over her body is a tremendously strong right. She shouldn’t be doing what she wants? She should be doing what Sells wants?

A pregnant woman will have to carry the foetus in her body. She will have to go through labor if the pregnancy comes to term. Her family or the father will not be doing it for her. She will probably have to raise her offspring if there is one. She should have the right to decide whether she wants to continue her pregnancy.

Sells may have let his ideology override his compassion. His ideology exalts the foetus over the pregnant woman.

Banjo,
I don't get your difficulty with the website I used. There were many reports of this event. I chose to use the one with a complete transcript.

Davidf,
I found about the sting from an article in First Things and I experienced a deep feeling of sorrow and disgust that drove me to write the article. I have compassion for the women who have to give up their child but I have more compassion for the child.
I have never heard a pregnant woman talk of her "foetus" they always talk about their baby. The old term for pregnancy is to "be with child." The medical language is always used when abortion is being discussed because it distances us from the reality.

George,
Your desire for a less emotional response is puzzling. It smacks of the division of the human person between heart and mind that is quite artificial. Emotion is thought to displace reason. However emotion often prompts us to realise something that reason will not tell us. Your church would be disturbed by the opinions in the link that justify abortion and tissue use in a quite utilitarian fashion. It goes against the precept that every person is a child of God and can not be used for another's ends. Once we get over the artificial distinction between foetus and child this will all become clear.

DavidF :

I don’t think there is such a thing as a drive to have children. There is a drive to have sex and sex leads to children unless some action takes place to stop this from having. I think there is a very strong social pressure on women to have children which is a different thing. Once a child is born it is natural for a mother to nurture and care for it and this is where the maternal instinct kicks in. If there was a drive to have children then you would think that nearly all women would have it.

We do not need to make excuses for a woman’s right to have an abortion. We only make excuses if we think something is wrong and abortion is not wrong unless it can be proven beyond all doubt that it is taking a life and no one can do that. If a woman wants to a have an abortion for any reason then she is free to do so. Anti-abortionists try to induce guilt where none should apply. When Sells says that women have an abortion for convenience it is a judgemental stance with no foundation. The implication is that she should go ahead with the pregnancy and any other choice is selfish.

This is where Christians have a big problem. Doing anything for oneself is considered selfish. If they want to live their lives according to such principles which deny a person the right to choose in their own favour about anything then such is their right. They do not do so gracefully and willing but with deep resentment that other people are not constrained in the same way. They want everyone else to have to suffer what they have freely imposed upon themselves and one way of doing this is to use guilt ridden language. Non-Christians should not be seduced by this manipulation and fall into the trap of justifying what is not necessary to justify.

Phanto,
Human rights date all the way back to John Locke. Are are obviously and invention of the times. I wrote this in an article on OLO.http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15228

The language of human rights has come to dominate our world because we cannot any longer talk about truth. This is another way of saying that we can no longer, in the public square, talk about God. Such talk is forbidden because Christianity has become a private matter to do solely with the salvation of the individual believer. It is not a subject for public discussion. Religious people are free to believe what they want as long as they do not attempt to proselytise. This ignores the fact that the search for truth is at the centre of the practice of theology. Christians do not or should not reduce faith to utilitarianism in the hope that belief will provide some benefit. They should be concerned about what is true, a major topic in the gospels, especially the gospel according to John. The eclipse of the understanding of God as truth is the reason we find talk about truth difficult if not impossible.

Dear phanto,

We agree that there is a drive to have sex. There is also a drive to be a mother. Whether this drive arises from women internalising the values of society or whether it is something innate I can’t say. My oldest granddaughter does not want to bear a child. She is heterosexual but wants to adopt a child. She has drives to have sex and to have a child. Apparently to her those drives are separate. She is completely irreligious.

I agree that we need not make excuses for a woman’s right to have an abortion. However, I feel that Sells’ statement that most abortions are a matter of convenience is just a self-serving statement that denigrates women. His attitude seems to be, “All hail the foetus. The pregnant woman who doesn’t want to continue a pregnancy is a wicked creature who doesn’t want to perform the function that God has assigned her.”

There is another tradition. Rabbi Hillel said:

"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"

One should care not only for others but also for oneself. Hillel lived not long before Jesus and Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. It is reasonable to assume that, if Jesus was not pure myth, that was also his attitude.