(P) I got a little caught up in the Missouri vote last year regarding stem cell research, which you may have noticed if you've perused my archives or visit regularly. Among other things, I became acquainted with the Vitae Foundation, and wrote this post in particular about an ad that I found most distasteful.
Well, Vitae is back! They are running an anti abortion ad with the tagline think about it. This time, unlike the tasteless anti stem cell ad, you can see the ad on their website. Like the stem cell ad, they're running it during a major sporting event (opening day for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals).
It is quite interesting. It is in a classroom, with a black teacher asking a class of all black students what they want to be when they grow up. You see a child want to play professional basketball and fade away (a boy of course) and another child want to be an actress (a girl this time) and similarly fade away. The teacher/narrator explains that abortion has killed more of us than anything else.
Wow.
Not only is it offensive for what the backers of the Vitae Foundation support regarding public policy, opposing things that would actually help black children in this country like Headstart, universal daycare, more spending on public schools, universal healthcare (in particular better prenatal and neonatal care), improved mass transit, better access to family planning and contraceptives, ending the drug war, and so forth, but more topically to the focus of the ad, it raises a number of interesting areas of discussion which conservatives usually assail liberals for raising.
Basically, the ad suggests we should look to the effects of aborting fetuses. That is perhaps the strongest argument in support of keeping abortion legal, something that pro-choice people supposedly unfairly include in the argument. It's important to note that the ad doesn't say anything about the beginning of life or a soul being created or anything like that; only the future potential of what these fetuses could become is what's suggested. This is very important for the moral position they are staking out, as I'll get to later. Now that the cat is out of the bag from such an interestingly supported organization (among other people, the Iran-contra traitor Oliver North is offered on the website as one of many VIPs supporting the organization), let's delve into the consequences. The first place to start, perhaps, is the rather interesting correlation between the Roe v Wade decision in the 1970s and the dramatic drop in crime a generation later in the 1990s.
But that's just the beginning. We know from all over the world that as countries get richer, family size decreases. Across cultures, families recognize the value of planning for and limiting the number of their offspring. If you want to reduce the number of abortions among blacks, you should support a variety of policy options that make black communities better off, healthier, and improve access to sex education, condoms, birth control, and so forth. Vitae seems to want blacks to take responsibility for abortions while being in league with the very political thought that makes policies which impoverish and imprison and disenfranchise blacks all over the country, not to mention people who push for ridiculous programs like abstinence only education.
Perhaps most intriguingly for me, this touches on one of the major big picture moral problems we face, the massive explosion of the sheer number of people on the planet. To vastly summarize, basically there are enormous environmental, poverty, and destabilization issues related to the unprecedented increase in the global population. This is one of those moral positions where there is absolutely no middle ground with the way Vitae has staked out their position. Either it is ok to limit potential humans, or it is not. As they suggest, think about it. Every time a woman of child bearing age passes an unfertilized egg (or a fertilized one, called a miscarriage), a future potential human is destroyed, wasted, squandered, murdered, whatever word you want to use for the death of that egg, a living cell with the potential to create a new human being. Now, I don't think that China's approach to solving the very serious problem of overpopulation is the way to go. But not because it acknowledges a role for abortion, but rather because it forces the choice upon families. Rather, families should make those choices. But, it is important that China at least recognizes the issue and is doing something. I am curious what Vitae's solution for China would be. Is their ideal to have billions more people crowd into the massive cities on China's east coast? Or would they suggest to the Chinese to just stop having sex?
This was a fabulous way to cap a wonderful birthday week. Yay for excitement.
Now we just need the Cards to score a few more runs. Oh, and have you checked the standings? The Royals are tied for first right now. And they're on ESPN tomorrow!
While I'm at work.
3 comments:
I thought Chinese infanticide specifically targeted females.
Also, check this out.
www.jimbob.info
Yeah, that's one of the big problems. That's partly why I don't think government bans like the Chinese have are good; there are too many unintended consequences, like Chinese families disproportionately making their one child a boy.
Hey, they use Macs! Thanks for the link.
And yeah, if that's how you see children being the heritage of the Lord, then I applaud them. That's following through yourself.
When the members and supporters of Vitae have 17 children apiece, I'll rethink my cynicism. In fact, that's my point. The moral ground that Vitae is staking out suggests a moral imperative to have 17 kids. If you follow their implication, it's immoral to be able to have children and not be pregnant. Yet, the Vitae folks by and large don't live that way. That's what's so fascinating.
Post a Comment