The following is not something I came up with. These are not my words. Not my thoughts. But ever since I first read them, I couldn’t get them out of my head. I needed to share them. The following covers a very tense topic. It is one I do not take lightly. I won’t say anymore until after you have read it, other than the topic is about abortion. I hope you read with an open mind.
THE DEER, THE FIRE, THE VIOLINIST, THE CAR CRASH.
THE DEER:
If you were hunting deer and you were about to shoot a deer and the deer turned to you and suddenly shouted “HEY! DON’T SHOOT! I’M A PARENT! I GOT THREE KIDS AND A SPOUSE WHO LOVES ME!!”
Would you shoot the deer?
If the answer is no then that’s probably because the deer just became a PERSON to you. Not human, but a person.
If you’re vegan and hunting hypotheticals don’t work for you, just change it to gardening and eating a carrot. That carrot starts talking to you, you’re probably not going to eat it. Same thing applies.
Principle learned? Persons matter to us. Having the chromosomes of a human being is not required or even relevant in most cases.
THE FIRE:
If you’re in a fertility clinic and it catches fire, the roof is about to collapse in the next 2 minutes, and you can save either a 13 year old boy who has passed out from smoke inhalation OR you can push out a rolling shelf of 1,000+ fertilized embryos from the clinic—-which do you save?
I’ve never heard of someone choosing the embryos.
Because we all value a real person over a potential person. They’re both technically “human.”
But the person matters more.
If someone digs in and says that a fetus is more than an embryo, ask them if it was a rolling shelf of fetuses growing in artificial wombs and they had just had conversation before the fire with the 13 year old boy about baseball and what kind of books they liked to read— who they would be inclined to save?
Principle learned? Actual persons are more important than potential people.
THE VIOLINIST:
If you woke up and you had been kidnapped by a fanatical group of music lovers and hooked up, via a series of medical tubes in a medical bed to the world’s greatest violinist who is in a coma…
And the music lovers tell you that IF you stay in the bed, hooked up to the violinist for 3 years, that he will probably wake up and go back to being the world’s greatest violinist again…
And that you are the only person in the world who is the right medical match for the violinist and that no one else can take your place,
Do you have the right to pull out the tubes and leave the bed, thereby “killing” the violinist?
Most people say yes. Because our own physical autonomy does actually supersede another human being and even another “person’s” right to life.
Principle learned? One person’s physical bodily autonomy is actually more important than another’s right to life.
Now to drive that point home…
THE CAR CRASH
If a drunk driver crashed their car into an innocent family of five, killing the family and themselves, and at the hospital the medical team finds out that the drunk driver checked “No” on their organ donation registration, do we have the right to use the dead drunk driver’s organs anyways to save people’s lives?
If you answered “No” but you still think that abortion is wrong, Congratulations! You just gave more bodily autonomy to the dead body of a murderer than you would to a woman!
This is why we don’t have forced organ donation. Even for the dead. We certainly don’t require people to donate kidneys, eyes, parts of their liver, bone marrow, or even just blood.
Because we value physical autonomy and consent over the lives of other people.
Principle learned? Physical autonomy is almost sacrosanct and held more universally valuable in our society over other people’s lives, except in the case of women and pregnancy.
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The topic of abortion is deeply personal. I understand that. It is one that can quickly get off track and emotional. That is normal. There are so many things that affect the discussion. When I first read the above story, I felt I finally had a way to express my beliefs, my thoughts on the topic. I felt maybe it was a way to discuss this emotional topic from a more neutral ground. Maybe it wont work how I hope. But it was something I had to share.
I believe a woman has the right to choose. I always have. I respect your beliefs if they are opposite than mine. I only ask that you re-read the story above. Really consider the different scenarios. Maybe it will strike up a new conversation. Maybe it will open a new path. Maybe it won’t change your mind but at least, maybe, you will understand more about the other side of the discussion.
