Live and let live

Berta Sullivan

The ongoing debate in the Council of Europe on whether or not abortion should become a "human" right reminded me of a piece I had written in 1996 - Frozen Hearts - when I vehemently condemned the planned destruction of thousands of embryos in the UK. Messing around with life, whatever form it is, is not only unnatural, it is unspeakably inhumane. Who has the right to destroy life and who has the right to decide who lives?

Life starts at conception and an embryo, irrelevant of size and age, is a human being. This living being has the right to life just as much as the person carrying it. If the carrier does not want it, tough luck - it should not have risked conceiving in the first place (apologies to all those who have been raped). I believe that the selfish desires of mothers-to-be become totally irrelevant when there is another life at stake.

Counter arguments that life as we know it does not begin before 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 20 weeks or whatever, depending on what country the pro-abortion activists hail from, simply do not hold any water. If there are all the ingredients to make up a living human being, it is simply a living human being.

I say everybody has the sacrosanct right to live. Better still, no one has the God-given right to decide who dies. An atrocity that leaves me totally speechless is the female infanticide practised in China and India. To quote from a case study undertaken by Gendercide Watch: "The phenomenon of female infanticide is as old as many cultures and has likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history.

"It remains a critical concern in a number of 'Third World' countries today, notably the two most populous countries on earth, China and India. In all cases, specifically female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in most parts of the world; it is arguably the most brutal and destructive manifestation of the anti-female bias that pervades 'patriarchal' societies. It is closely linked to the phenomena of sex-selective abortion, which targets female fetuses almost exclusively and neglect of girl children".

Mothers, stand up and be counted.

In Third World countries, children born with deformities are also unceremoniously disposed of. Tongue in cheek I am tempted to say that at least in China and India they only kill the girls and in other countries they only pick on the deformed ones. In other words they promote "selective abortion" while in Europe indiscriminate abortion is being proposed. Do we really want to stoop so low?

Abortion, selective or otherwise, goes against human nature. To experience the enormity of the situation I will simply ask parents: How would you like it if your children were never born or, worse still, what if they were snatched from you at birth against your wish? To all readers: Would you prefer never having experienced life? That is exactly what is happening today. Kids are indiscriminately being extracted out of wombs - broken into pieces in the process, might I add.

The ongoing controversial resolution, following the March report Access To Safe And Legal Abortion In Europe, which was approved by the Council of Europe's Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, proposes to make abortion "an unconditional right" and urges member states to "guarantee women's effective exercise of their right to abortion". To be fair, the resolution holds that "abortion must, as far as possible, be avoided". What rubbish: If abortion is an "unconditional right" then frequency simply does not factor into the equation.

If I choose to abort several times who is going to stop me? Where is the line going to be drawn? Better still, who is objectively going to design the parameters? The "female" subjects themselves? Fathers, it is your turn to stand up and be counted.

If the European Movement genuinely wants to promote equal opportunities for women and men, my appeal is: Widen your horizon, go international and focus on what is happening in China, India and Third World countries. Please leave us Europeans alone. We do not need anyone imposing such despicable "unconditional rights" upon us, Most of us have a conscience to live with.

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Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Sunday, November 22, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Lina Caruana (on 17/4/08)

As a Catholic I beleive that God 's creations have survived in continuity according to His pattern .Besides evolution or growth cannot occur unless something really exists.Finding the exact moment in time when a change occurs does not alter the nature of any of the 'ingredients' from a lay person's point of view because without them no growth can happen. Perhaps it is not this argument which makes some people pro- abortion but the self regarding issue of the reasons which make possible parents afraid or reluctant to carry their responsibilities. The scientific uncertainty may cause one to be cautious but it is also a question of jumping the gun because pro-abortionists need a good reason for their action which they are already justifying for their own purpose .If anti abortionists can be fundamentalists and environmentalists not, is there something wrong in the way people discriminate against a human being and not against nature?

Paul cassar (on 16/4/08)

dear mr busuttil - in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, there is absolutely no possibility of the child's survival and every possibility of the mother's death. The objective in this case is to save the mother's life and, in the absence of any alternative, the developing but doomed child is remove. A genuine abortion is quite different - the whole point of it is to kill a perfectly viable human being (for a plethora of reasons, the vast majority of which can be bundled together as 'the imagined inconvenience that this person's existence may cause to others'). Oh, and Mr micallef, if an entity is living and human, it is a living human entity ie a human being. One is either living or dead and either human or non-human. There are no partial or progressive states of human-ness

c. busuttil (on 16/4/08)

"If there are all the ingredients to make up a living human being, it is simply a living human being."

or in other words as I see it;

If the process (pregnancy) had to be left uninterrupted, there would be a new life - so how can we possibly call it otherwise.

On the other side of the coin, in cases of ectopic pregnancy, if the process (pregnancy) had to be left uninterrupted, both mother and child or 'cells' if you prefer will die, so termination protects the life of one, since the other has no chance.

Lina Caruana (on 16/4/08)

Well explained! The potential of a human being in an emryo cannot be disputed. Unfortunately those who want to enjoy unlimited freedom no matter how ugly and horrid the consequences are, they are ashamed to speak clearly. Instead they try to disguise the issue into the socially acceptable plea of freedom and human rights. How can the rights of one human person supersede the equal rights of another?

victor deguara (on 16/4/08)

Well said,Ms Sullivan!
I was once taught that doctors are given a warrant TO SAVE LIVES and do ALL THAT IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO PROLONG LIFE and not to terminate themby abortion!!!

James Micallef (on 16/4/08)

If there is an argument that does not hold water, it is this: "If there are all the ingredients to make up a living human being, it is simply a living human being."

We simply do not know enough about either life or consciousness to determine whether an embryo at conception (or at whatever week) qualifies as a human being. My personal conviction against abortion is grounded in doubt, i.e. if there is no certainty, better to err on the side of caution. Making an anti-abortion stand grounded in an imagined certainty where no certainty can exist is a fundamentalist stance that is counter-productive to developing a morally and ethically valid social policy on this issue.

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