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Without life, there's no chance of love

Patricia Szott, Cheyenne, Wyo.

Published September 22, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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In the long march of vapid commonplaces in defense of a mother's right to kill her unborn child comes, in the Sept. 1 Rocky, columnist Tina Griego's belief that "a child has more than a right to life. He or she has a right to love, to security, to opportunity" ("Palin pick brings with it a boatload of assumptions").

Love, security and opportunity, though, are conditions subject to flux and change in any lifetime. If your mother and father cannot love you, it doesn't follow that no one ever will. If they can't provide you with a secure and stable home, it doesn't follow that no one - including yourself, eventually - ever can.

If your opportunities, as a newborn child, are limited by your age and the condition in life of your parents, it doesn't follow that you will never have opportunities.

There is an absolute certainty, however, that without life - that most fundamental and necessary of rights - you will never in this world have love, security or opportunity. Or anything else.

Comments

  • September 22, 2008

    6:56 a.m.

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    grandpaw writes:

    I sometimes wonder what various Christians believe happens to the aborted. Do they have a soul which goes, where? Heaven? Perhaps what happens to them isn't all that bad.

  • September 22, 2008

    7:14 a.m.

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    Michael writes:

    grandpaw - I don't think you meant it in such a way but your sentiment is scary - very scary. Transfer your thought to any other living creature on this planet, other than an unborn, human fetus, and the outcry would be deafening. Perhaps we should just kill the elderly - maybe where they go is better and not all that bad? Or how about poor people? Or blacks? Or Jews? As we did not create the life we have no right to take it, at least for purposes of convenience.

  • September 22, 2008

    8:02 a.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    Michael - actually grandpaw touches on a very thorny issue - if (using our power to imagine supernatural beings, powers, and situations) we declare that "baptizing" the unborn in utero makes them one with whatever god(s) and/or godess(es) we imagine and bound for heaven if they die in that state of oneness, then allowing them to be born, and therefore to sin, and therefore to break that oneness creates the risk that they will not go to heaven. Therefore, in the interest of attaining heaven, which is the highest interst possible, it would be a SACRAMENT to kill them in utero, thereby ASSURING their entry into heaven. Carrying to term would then be a self-indulgent SIN. Hmmmm.....

    Let's not think about that though - could make our little heads explode.

  • September 22, 2008

    9:23 a.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    NCB - take a pill dude. What if someone else's god(s) and/or goddess(es) can beat up your god(s) and/or goddess(es)??

  • September 22, 2008

    9:41 a.m.

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    grandpaw writes:

    I am pleasantly surprised by the responses so far. I kind of expected to almost be accused of eating dead babies.

    As long as there have been theologians, they have pondered over the question I raised. As long as there have been people who have pondered life and death, they have pondered over the question I raised. It is a very natural question, what happens to dead babies. There is a lot of talk about heaven and who goes and who doesn't, but there is a reluctance to talk about heaven and the aborted.

    The Catholic Church has struggled with the question of what happens to dead babies for thousands of years. For years, the Church did not think that unbaptized babies could go to heaven, but, having a heart, the Church invented Limbo for them, where they are happy but denied what the Church considers the ultimate happiness, being with God. Now:

    "VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went."

    This is wonderful. The Church has finally opened the gates of heaven to these innocents.

    I think the reluctance of pro-life people to deal with the question is that it poses somewhat of a dilemma. It is, as someone posted, scary, and that being the case it is also something to be avoided and ignored. We should just whistle when walking through that cemetery. The question plumbs too deeply into the nature of God, of heaven, of hell, of life and of death. Yet, rationally, intellectually and logically, it is an imminently pertinent question.

    It seems to be OK to imagine what will happen to babies that are not aborted, as Patricia has done, but not to imagine what happens to babies that are aborted. It seems to be OK to talk about what they are deprived of, as long as we keep places like Sudan out of the conversation, but not to talk about what might be in store for them.

  • September 22, 2008

    12:53 p.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    NCB - so your god neither has a sense of humor nor any desire/ability to forgive?

  • September 22, 2008

    1:38 p.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    NCB - whatever floats your boat.
    "it would appear you do not deserve forgivness." Forgiveness, like mercy, is supposedly especially for those who don't "deserve" it as you say. I imagine you gain some comfort from your sense of moral superiority, and that's no skin off my arse. Go for it if it makes you feel so good about yourself...

  • September 22, 2008

    1:52 p.m.

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    grandpaw writes:

    Interesting post, Pope NotChuckieB. I expect this business of judging who will go to heaven and who will go to hell must keep you pretty busy.

  • September 22, 2008

    1:58 p.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    NCB - Although I am happy to report that I am no theologian or expert on Christianity, I hear say that Christ uttered these words from the cross: "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do." Was that a mis-translation? Should that have been: "Forgive them Father but only if they acknowledge the error of their way and beg for it first?"

  • September 22, 2008

    2:58 p.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    NCB - Don't flatter yourself. You touched nothing. I am not angry and I didn't curse (not allowed on this site in any case).

    If your religion has it that I am a creature of god and that god loves me, you'd best not call me "swine." It might piss your god off if that you did that.

  • September 22, 2008

    3:12 p.m.

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    me2 writes:

    A year ago I asked where the souls of aborted babies go. I was called every vile name there is by John II and James Jones who is now Yankee.

    Think of this. Miscarriages far outnumber abortions every year. Many are silent spontaneous abortions (the mother never knew she had a fertilized egg or attached egg in her) and when that mom gets to Heaven she will have many children, not born in sin, will she have entire families? Will Goddess keep the zygotes as zygotes or let them attain some age? Will she have grandchildren from these zygotes who are allowed to actually grow up in Heaven and have real lives?

    As a person who thinks there is a Goddess but humans do not have souls, this is a wonderful area of discussion.

  • September 22, 2008

    3:43 p.m.

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    SheikYurBooty writes:

    me2 - they go to Lambeau and become Packer fans.

  • September 22, 2008

    3:45 p.m.

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    me2 writes:

    Sheik, I said Heaven, not Hell.

  • September 22, 2008

    6:48 p.m.

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    IronmanCarmichael writes:

    I don't see how the assumption that the souls of aborted fetuses go directly--do not pass Go, do not collect $200--to heaven is any less plausible than that Catholic liturgy that stains the souls of newborn babies with "Original sin." (Now that the concept of Limbo has gone into...well, limbo, the Church is rather vague as to what happens to babies who die unbaptized. Seems pretty unfair to think of them spending eternity in Purgatory.)

  • September 22, 2008

    9:06 p.m.

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    LetsThink writes:

    Sadly, few of these bloggers believe in God.