The website headline says this: “IVF baby lost in horror car smash”. And the subtitle reads as follows: “An unborn baby girl has been killed and her mother’s dream of starting a family through IVF shattered in a horror car crash.”
Indeed, it is the lead story of the Herald Sun website, and the title link there is stronger yet: “Lost IVF angel”. The article begins with these words:
“The 33-year-old woman is a well-regarded teacher who recently moved back to Victoria from interstate to raise her baby, which she conceived through IVF, the Herald Sun has been told. But her life has been thrown into turmoil by the senseless smash in East Bentleigh that killed her 34-week-old unborn daughter, who becomes the state’s 290th road fatality for 2009. ‘We have lost a little one who didn’t have a chance because of someone’s silly actions,’ said the baby’s grandfather, John, who has been staying by his heartbroken daughter in hospital. ‘It’s too traumatic. It’s a horrible thing. She was my granddaughter,’ he added.”
This is certainly a tragic case, and our prayers go to the grieving family. But I am curious about one thing. Here we have talk of an angel, a daughter, a granddaughter, and a baby girl. But haven’t we been told for decades now that there are no such things? Is this not simply a clump of cells? A handful of tissue? The property of the mother? A woman’s right to choose?
Now I happen to fully agree with the way the newspaper has described this lost baby girl. She is indeed a daughter and granddaughter. But why are they normally described in non-human terms, especially by the pro-abortion lobby. Such babies are still fair game for the late-term abortions.
Indeed, the late term abortionists can with full legal backing kill a baby at this age. So why is there not an outcry when he does this? Why is he not regarded as a child killer? Why can he make a huge profit in performing D&X abortions on the unborn child late in the third trimester?
But the pro-abortionist might reply: “Yes, but this was an older foetus”. Well, yes, she had only another month or so to go before birth. But if a “foetus” can be called a baby girl and a daughter at 34 weeks gestation, then why not at 33? Why not at 32? Or 31? Or 30?
Indeed, why draw such arbitrary lines to begin with? Why do 34 weeks make an unborn baby human and precious? Why not earlier? The truth is, from the moment of conception, all the genetic information is already there in the new life found in the mother.
From day one we have a completely unique and brand new individual. All that is needed is the nutrition and shelter of the mother’s womb for the baby to grow and develop. The baby does not take on new properties or features. They already exist in nascent form in the young embryo.
So if we are to rightly grieve over the loss of life when a 34-week baby dies, then let us be consistent, and grieve throughout the entire nine-month period. And if we are to be consistent here, then we must seriously consider why we “civilised societies” allow babies to be killed at any stage of pregnancy, even right up to birth.
Indeed, in other cases involving car accidents in which an unborn baby has been killed, courts in both the US and Australia have recognised the humanity and personhood of the baby, even at ages younger than 34 weeks. So our laws are quite schizophrenic at this point, and some clarification is urgently needed.
As mentioned, this is a tragic case. All cases of unborn babies dying are grievous and to be avoided. But considering that 100,000 unborn babies are killed every year in Australia in our abortion mills, why not apply some concern here as well? Are not all unborn babies of intrinsic worth and value? Or only those killed in car crashes?
I agree totally with your comments on the unborn baby. I had a debate with someone on this matter once and I asked “Could you tell me if there some sort of “click” when a baby in the womb suddenly is a human being? If that were the case, the baby wouldn’t look any different the moment before or after the magic “click”. The Left are decidedly illogical regarding this situation. As usual, with them it’s always a matter of convenience. My favourite American commentator Ann Coulter delivered a proverbial black eye, on the subject of abortion, to one of those scatty women on the American TV show The View, when Ann appeared as a guest. They were discussing the pros and cons of waterboarding terrorists to obtain information. The scatty one said to Ann “You are in favour of waterboarding, but you wouldn’t like to be waterboarded”. Ann’s quick brain swung into action and she replied “Well you are in favour of abortion, but you wouldn’t want to be aborted” BULLSEYE.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Now that’s a very good article. In the USA a pregnant woman was murdered and her murderer was also charged for the murder of her unborn child. This was in a secular culture that allows the killing of millions of the unborn for just about any reason and denies that this practice is murder. The pro-choicers are masters of double speak. You can’t have that sort of inconsistency in a rational ethics. If you read Humanist journals they brag about how their ethics is rational. But they are not troubled by inconsistencies. Furthermore, a rational ethic would require that you take a hardnosed honest look at the consequences of the ethic. They do not do that either.
John Snowden
I have given up using the words “pro-choice”. All these people who describe themselves as pro-choice and simply pro-abortion. Abortionists do not give their clients (I don’t use the word patient, which is inaccurate) any choice. They don’t show their clients what the baby looks like on a scan. This was proved with the disgraceful behaviour of politicians in Victoria bringing in legislation that gave doctors and hospital no choice if someone asks for a referral or procedure. NO choice at all. Their troglodytical bedfellows in Queensland are scheming to introduce a slaugterhouse bill similar to that which operates in Victoria. The Queensland Government is so unpopular, even with Labor voters, we are hoping they will be tossed before the slaughter begins.Meanwhile, the solution is for doctors and hospitals, where they do not perform abortions to refuse to obey the laws. Bishops should stand up for the unborn and speak out, being pepared to go to jail to defy these troglodytes The politicians would back down.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld.
Bill
What these close relations are conceiving, I believe, are the unborn child’s future life, personality and close relationship with them.
It seems to me to be an intuitive recognition of Don Marquis’ argument that abortion is morally wrong for the same reason that murdering an adult is wrong – it deprives individuals of their future life experience. Most unborn children have a reasonable potential of surviving into adulthood and attaining a full life so they should be allowed to do so.
Damien Spillane
I too, totally agree with you, Bill. Our grand-daughter was born prematurely at 32 weeks. I held her in my arms and she held my little finger. Her hand/fingers couldn’t reach all the way around. She is now fifteen years old, has just completed an excellent year at high school and has become a very competent sportswoman. I thank God that her parents chose to allow the pregnancy to proceed. I cannot believe that anyone would want to kill the unborn for any reason.
Brian Hof
The only consistency in the secular view on unborn babies is this: If the *mother* decides that she wants the baby, then it is a child with every right of protection and regard as a human being. Where if the mother decides she does NOT want the baby, then anybody can kill it without consequence.
That seems to be the common thread here.
Nathan Schellinger
Dear Bill, Thank you for speaking up for the unborn. Yes we are a schizophrenic society when it comes to unborn Australians. Kevin Rudd in his New Year message said climate change was the most important issue facing Australians. I say killing a 100,000 of its citizens annually is a far bigger issue and I am going to write and tell him so.
Patricia Halligan
A lot depends on your point of view: “pro choice” is pro choice for the mother, not for the baby.
For the person whose life is most impacted by any change in circumstances – the unborn baby – “No choice” would be a more accurate term.
Leon Brooks
Yes exactly Patricia. You might like to tell Rudd that even if the climate change propagandists are right maybe a couple of Australians will die in about one hundred years from now, whereas about 100,000 young Australians are dying each and every year right now! How can the man claim to be a Christian and yet be so morally confused?
Ewan McDonald
Hi Bill,
From the warnings on cigarette packets, one would conclude that the Australian Government believes that babies are babies before they are born. ‘Smoking harms unborn babies’ the packets cry rather than ‘Smoking harms a piece of completely non-essential tissue’. Very strange how the government never says abortion harms unborn babies then.
Dear Bill, Thankyou to Ewan for responding to my comments. I did email Mr Rudd but I don’t expect my letter will be selected to be posted on the Labour party’s list of comments. Only those favourable to Labour party policies get posted by the look of it. Such hypocrites! A happy new year to all.
Patricia Halligan
Thankyou for pointing that out, Mansel. Didn’t know that one.
John Snowden
The fact that a woman is not permitted to see let alone take home her aborted child in a jar as she might a tooth or her appendix, testifies to the humanity of the unborn at every stage or age.
You cant just go round burying bodies in your back yard like the skittled cat nor keep it in a jar on the mantle piece like a captured bug.
All over the world there are WW11 holocaust memorial museums attesting to the atrocities commited against humanity.
How do you suppose it would be received if we did the same in recognition of the ongoing holocaust against the truly innocent and truly defenceless people here in this country?
Karen Siegmann
Bill
Thanks for again stating the truth. There is no point at which science suggests there is any change in status of the developing child from the moment of conception to birth. No matter what the nomenclature, the life is a baby, growing and developing but always a baby. The media has been in denial because it is afraid of the truth. It does not now how to handle the truth becuase many anti-lifers would find it an “inconvenient truth” – to coin a phrase.
The laws need to catch up with science. The moral consequences of that would challenge many but at least human life would be treated at law with the dignity with which all human life deserves. And God’s will on earth would be closer to being done. Let us pray it will and try to persuade those prpared to open their hearts to the word.
David Grace
I suspect, Bill, that this is different because of money/possession: parents of an IVF foetus have often paid money for the implanatation (or someone has paid on their behalf), and they regard it as “mine”, a possession like their house, car, second home, career, etc. Accidental pregnancies are just regarded as a nuisance (by some), limiting their future sexual pleasure. It’s materialism, again, in one of its many forms.
John Thomas, UK
Just a small point. What I don’t understand is that many of the pro-life commentators including some here, still call the baby a fetus. Isn’t that dancing to the pro-abortion tune the same as the christian who dances to the atheist tune by calling mankind (which is in scripture) humankind, which is not?
Roger Marks
Roger, you’re right that such as I use “foetus” not “baby”, here, but this is to distinguish between an as-yet-unborn and a recently-born human without having to write “an as-yet-unborn and a recently-born human” all the time, which looks awkward and even precious – but you’re so right that we should not dance to their tune: some thoroughly pro-life people use “pro-choice”, which is eumphemistic, and quite wrong: it’s “pro-death”; call a thing what it is (also atheists use the euphemism “naturalism” which is a warm, cuddly version of the real thing – materialism).
John Thomas, UK
Thanks Bill, you are right. We heard on TV that they had included unborn babies in the Christmas toll.
Another situation is in x-ray rooms, where they have posters warning pregnant mothers to say so if they are going to have an x-ray. I know of a poster that had an illustration of a baby praying in his mother’s womb, saying, ‘Please Mum, let them know I am here!’
David Clay, Melbourne
Hi John (Thomas),
The terms “unborn baby” or simply “the unborn” are non-awkward alternatives to the connotation loaded word “fetus”.
The clinical term “fetus” is preferred by baby-murderers because they seek to distance their acts from the moral realm. I agree with Roger that we should not play along with this strategy.
I also suggest “pro-murder” is a better and more correct description than “pro-death”.
Mansel Rogerson
Hi Bill,
Inspired by your article I wrote a letter to VicRoads asking whether unborn babies are counted as part of the Victorian road toll. Apparently babies are counted if they are over 20 weeks gestation or weigh at least 400g.
I’ve sent this answer to Victorian Bernie Finn MP and Peter Kavanagh MLC (two of the speakers at the March for the Babies rally). Hopefully it will lead to some embarrassing questions for the Victorian Government as to why one of their departments includes the death of the unborn in casualty statistics, whilst another legalises their killing right up until birth solely for convenience.
Well done Mansel. Keep us posted on the outcome of all this.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch contributor
That’s a clever move, Mansel. The query will probably provoke more double-think. You get double-think in hospitals where on one floor a small fortune is being spent to keep an ailing premature baby alive and where on another floor a perfectly healthy baby is being aborted. It’s all decided by who subjectively wants what. We will see similar anomalies if euthanasia is legalised.
John Snowden
What about the case of Joshua Woodward, who is alleged to have caused the death of his unborn 13-week old baby in LA. His bail was set at $2million USD. Is it murder when the father does it, and OK if the mother does it? Let’s really get onto this with the pro-death administrators.
Ian Brearley
I agree totally with your comments on the unborn baby. I had a debate with someone on this matter once and I asked “Could you tell me if there some sort of “click” when a baby in the womb suddenly is a human being? If that were the case, the baby wouldn’t look any different the moment before or after the magic “click”. The Left are decidedly illogical regarding this situation. As usual, with them it’s always a matter of convenience. My favourite American commentator Ann Coulter delivered a proverbial black eye, on the subject of abortion, to one of those scatty women on the American TV show The View, when Ann appeared as a guest. They were discussing the pros and cons of waterboarding terrorists to obtain information. The scatty one said to Ann “You are in favour of waterboarding, but you wouldn’t like to be waterboarded”. Ann’s quick brain swung into action and she replied “Well you are in favour of abortion, but you wouldn’t want to be aborted” BULLSEYE.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Now that’s a very good article. In the USA a pregnant woman was murdered and her murderer was also charged for the murder of her unborn child. This was in a secular culture that allows the killing of millions of the unborn for just about any reason and denies that this practice is murder. The pro-choicers are masters of double speak. You can’t have that sort of inconsistency in a rational ethics. If you read Humanist journals they brag about how their ethics is rational. But they are not troubled by inconsistencies. Furthermore, a rational ethic would require that you take a hardnosed honest look at the consequences of the ethic. They do not do that either.
John Snowden
I have given up using the words “pro-choice”. All these people who describe themselves as pro-choice and simply pro-abortion. Abortionists do not give their clients (I don’t use the word patient, which is inaccurate) any choice. They don’t show their clients what the baby looks like on a scan. This was proved with the disgraceful behaviour of politicians in Victoria bringing in legislation that gave doctors and hospital no choice if someone asks for a referral or procedure. NO choice at all. Their troglodytical bedfellows in Queensland are scheming to introduce a slaugterhouse bill similar to that which operates in Victoria. The Queensland Government is so unpopular, even with Labor voters, we are hoping they will be tossed before the slaughter begins.Meanwhile, the solution is for doctors and hospitals, where they do not perform abortions to refuse to obey the laws. Bishops should stand up for the unborn and speak out, being pepared to go to jail to defy these troglodytes The politicians would back down.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld.
Bill
What these close relations are conceiving, I believe, are the unborn child’s future life, personality and close relationship with them.
It seems to me to be an intuitive recognition of Don Marquis’ argument that abortion is morally wrong for the same reason that murdering an adult is wrong – it deprives individuals of their future life experience. Most unborn children have a reasonable potential of surviving into adulthood and attaining a full life so they should be allowed to do so.
Damien Spillane
I too, totally agree with you, Bill. Our grand-daughter was born prematurely at 32 weeks. I held her in my arms and she held my little finger. Her hand/fingers couldn’t reach all the way around. She is now fifteen years old, has just completed an excellent year at high school and has become a very competent sportswoman. I thank God that her parents chose to allow the pregnancy to proceed. I cannot believe that anyone would want to kill the unborn for any reason.
Brian Hof
The only consistency in the secular view on unborn babies is this: If the *mother* decides that she wants the baby, then it is a child with every right of protection and regard as a human being. Where if the mother decides she does NOT want the baby, then anybody can kill it without consequence.
That seems to be the common thread here.
Nathan Schellinger
Dear Bill, Thank you for speaking up for the unborn. Yes we are a schizophrenic society when it comes to unborn Australians. Kevin Rudd in his New Year message said climate change was the most important issue facing Australians. I say killing a 100,000 of its citizens annually is a far bigger issue and I am going to write and tell him so.
Patricia Halligan
A lot depends on your point of view: “pro choice” is pro choice for the mother, not for the baby.
For the person whose life is most impacted by any change in circumstances – the unborn baby – “No choice” would be a more accurate term.
Leon Brooks
Yes exactly Patricia. You might like to tell Rudd that even if the climate change propagandists are right maybe a couple of Australians will die in about one hundred years from now, whereas about 100,000 young Australians are dying each and every year right now! How can the man claim to be a Christian and yet be so morally confused?
Ewan McDonald
Hi Bill,
From the warnings on cigarette packets, one would conclude that the Australian Government believes that babies are babies before they are born. ‘Smoking harms unborn babies’ the packets cry rather than ‘Smoking harms a piece of completely non-essential tissue’. Very strange how the government never says abortion harms unborn babies then.
http://www.quit.org.au/article.asp?ContentID=7163
http://www.quitnow.info.au/internet/quitnow/publishing.nsf/Content/warnings-b-babies
Mansel Rogerson
Dear Bill, Thankyou to Ewan for responding to my comments. I did email Mr Rudd but I don’t expect my letter will be selected to be posted on the Labour party’s list of comments. Only those favourable to Labour party policies get posted by the look of it. Such hypocrites! A happy new year to all.
Patricia Halligan
Thankyou for pointing that out, Mansel. Didn’t know that one.
John Snowden
The fact that a woman is not permitted to see let alone take home her aborted child in a jar as she might a tooth or her appendix, testifies to the humanity of the unborn at every stage or age.
You cant just go round burying bodies in your back yard like the skittled cat nor keep it in a jar on the mantle piece like a captured bug.
All over the world there are WW11 holocaust memorial museums attesting to the atrocities commited against humanity.
How do you suppose it would be received if we did the same in recognition of the ongoing holocaust against the truly innocent and truly defenceless people here in this country?
Karen Siegmann
Bill
Thanks for again stating the truth. There is no point at which science suggests there is any change in status of the developing child from the moment of conception to birth. No matter what the nomenclature, the life is a baby, growing and developing but always a baby. The media has been in denial because it is afraid of the truth. It does not now how to handle the truth becuase many anti-lifers would find it an “inconvenient truth” – to coin a phrase.
The laws need to catch up with science. The moral consequences of that would challenge many but at least human life would be treated at law with the dignity with which all human life deserves. And God’s will on earth would be closer to being done. Let us pray it will and try to persuade those prpared to open their hearts to the word.
David Grace
I suspect, Bill, that this is different because of money/possession: parents of an IVF foetus have often paid money for the implanatation (or someone has paid on their behalf), and they regard it as “mine”, a possession like their house, car, second home, career, etc. Accidental pregnancies are just regarded as a nuisance (by some), limiting their future sexual pleasure. It’s materialism, again, in one of its many forms.
John Thomas, UK
Just a small point. What I don’t understand is that many of the pro-life commentators including some here, still call the baby a fetus. Isn’t that dancing to the pro-abortion tune the same as the christian who dances to the atheist tune by calling mankind (which is in scripture) humankind, which is not?
Roger Marks
Roger, you’re right that such as I use “foetus” not “baby”, here, but this is to distinguish between an as-yet-unborn and a recently-born human without having to write “an as-yet-unborn and a recently-born human” all the time, which looks awkward and even precious – but you’re so right that we should not dance to their tune: some thoroughly pro-life people use “pro-choice”, which is eumphemistic, and quite wrong: it’s “pro-death”; call a thing what it is (also atheists use the euphemism “naturalism” which is a warm, cuddly version of the real thing – materialism).
John Thomas, UK
Thanks Bill, you are right. We heard on TV that they had included unborn babies in the Christmas toll.
Another situation is in x-ray rooms, where they have posters warning pregnant mothers to say so if they are going to have an x-ray. I know of a poster that had an illustration of a baby praying in his mother’s womb, saying, ‘Please Mum, let them know I am here!’
David Clay, Melbourne
Hi John (Thomas),
The terms “unborn baby” or simply “the unborn” are non-awkward alternatives to the connotation loaded word “fetus”.
The clinical term “fetus” is preferred by baby-murderers because they seek to distance their acts from the moral realm. I agree with Roger that we should not play along with this strategy.
I also suggest “pro-murder” is a better and more correct description than “pro-death”.
Mansel Rogerson
Hi Bill,
Inspired by your article I wrote a letter to VicRoads asking whether unborn babies are counted as part of the Victorian road toll. Apparently babies are counted if they are over 20 weeks gestation or weigh at least 400g.
I’ve sent this answer to Victorian Bernie Finn MP and Peter Kavanagh MLC (two of the speakers at the March for the Babies rally). Hopefully it will lead to some embarrassing questions for the Victorian Government as to why one of their departments includes the death of the unborn in casualty statistics, whilst another legalises their killing right up until birth solely for convenience.
http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubStatbook.nsf/f932b66241ecf1b7ca256e92000e23be/BB2C8223617EB6A8CA2574EA001C130A/$FILE/08-58a.pdf
Mansel Rogerson
Well done Mansel. Keep us posted on the outcome of all this.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch contributor
That’s a clever move, Mansel. The query will probably provoke more double-think. You get double-think in hospitals where on one floor a small fortune is being spent to keep an ailing premature baby alive and where on another floor a perfectly healthy baby is being aborted. It’s all decided by who subjectively wants what. We will see similar anomalies if euthanasia is legalised.
John Snowden
What about the case of Joshua Woodward, who is alleged to have caused the death of his unborn 13-week old baby in LA. His bail was set at $2million USD. Is it murder when the father does it, and OK if the mother does it? Let’s really get onto this with the pro-death administrators.
Ian Brearley