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Pro-life or pro-choice?
Franklin Johnston
Friday, November 06, 2009
We need no law to ban abortion!
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| Franklin Johnston |
Abortion is a tragedy, for the father-to-be, expectant mother and all concerned. There is also anguish in the removal of a womb, ovary, testicle; surgery which kills human life as sperm, ovum and at times even the patient. These life forms have no advocates - as yet! The morbid, insensitive interest of activists violates privacy and personal belief.
Those pro-choice say a woman should make her decision. The pro-life say women should have no choice. A Don Anderson and Mustard Seed (DAMS) poll may also find that Jamaicans do not believe in wet dreams, menstruation, womb and testicle removal as they destroy life, yet it happens every day. We should be wary of men who ask the state to dictate what we may or may not do with our bodies. One day you may need a permit to get a tattoo, lip- or ear-piercing or be circumcised. We "take sleep and mark death"!
Reproductive wisdom
Post-slavery, every one still wants to control us. Back then, a man decided which woman was bred by whom, when to abort; which man should have an erection or his manhood snipped. Abrahamic faiths have a thing about women, sex and sex organs. Eastern faiths meditate, contemplate God and transcend the body; but Christians' focus is the body! Men harbour eons of latent envy and anger towards the womb and the vagina and try to control the one thing they can't do - reproduce. It is your godly duty to resist this heinous move to hijack the only thing rich or poor alike control - your own body! We are a fragile, flaky democracy; we vote to hang people and we destroy many human life forms in operations. Activists now want a law to exempt one life form and ignore others destroyed as the detritus of many surgeries. Consider these points:
. Our human rights are crucial. Take away a woman's right to decide what happens to her body tissue and what's next? Blood and organ donation might cease and our blood bank and society may suffer. Will activists back a law to compel tissue donation?
. The threat to faiths as Rasta, Jew, Witnesses, SDA and Muslim is patent. One day will they compel you to give a kidney or take pandemic vaccines cultured in pig serum?
. It is immoral for DAMS to leverage its practical good works and lobby for a gateway law on abortion. Jesus' word fell on both fertile and rocky soil. Was he bothered? No! His bold-faced followers are so unlike the Messiah!
. A life form in the womb is no child, hence the terms expectant mother, mother-to-be and father-to-be. Eggs in menstruation and sperm at masturbation are viable human life forms which die daily without a poll or a prayer. But, what really is life?
The life principle
Life is spirit and science, and death is part of it. Your body is God's temple. It is sacred space, not a community centre, and what you and God do in his temple is nobody's business! But your body is also a complex of undemocratic physical systems wired for self-preservation. When the heart stops, everything stops. When the sphincter locks the anus, the brain heats, eyes ache, heart pounds and the body suffers. Body parts do not consult or have team meetings and Mr Brain can't dictate to Mr Anus as each does his own thing. Care may prolong function, not always! Now, consider these:
. Our world is full of life forms; human and others, all move inexorably towards death.
. Life began before humans and does not depend on humans for its continuance.
. Life is risk, it has no guarantees! Life is predatory and life forms feed on other life forms and man has a fail-safe, as he can eat his own type to save his species. No life form eats inorganic matter (rocks). Even pacifists and vegetarians must kill to live. A plant may not "moo" but your body kills it to use its nutrients. What then is our life cycle?
. A man's sperm is alive, as is a woman's egg. If the sperm can't catch the egg or if it and/or the egg is infertile, both die. But if it catches the egg, they unite and live.
. If this union doesn't attach to the womb or attaches outside, it and the expectant mother may die. If the mother-to-be ingests, is exposed to noxious stuff, the union (foetus) may die (mom too), or have defects of body and brain. Then the mother-to-be and/or the child-to-be may die in delivery. The reality is, at every stage, egg to adult, the life force may be extinguished by virus, heredity, the devil, God, intended or unintended forces, the self-defence impulse and immune system of the body or system failure. Sperm, egg and foetus - give them any cute name you wish - are God's unborn human life forms and it is folly to set one above another. The life principle is "kill and be killed". It's not a mantra for terror. You kill to live and must be open to being killed to satisfy another life form. God wired our immune system and nature to survive - fight or flight - and thus we create weapons and vaccines to overawe or overcome our foes, be they men or viruses.
The solution
Man's great flaw is failure to learn from history. When our mother faith faced a comparable spiritual challenge, it lobbied the state, as DAMS now. Pilate told them, "Deal with it, it's not a state matter," and exasperated he asked, "What do you want me to do?" They answered, "Crucify him!" Some 2,000 years later, they reaped the whirlwind from the Nazi Reichstag. "The same knife that stick sheep, stick goat." We ask the state to rule on issues of faith at our own risk. People of God need no law pro or con abortion. Jamaica has a regimen for womb, ovary and testicle removal that we can extend. In God's name, don't pressure Cabinet to take away our discretion over our body or its parts. The day they requisition your kidney or send for your cojones - if you still have any - who you gonna call? Our men and women, their priests, doctors and families make responsible choices daily about hysterectomy, vasectomy, sterilisation, prostate and testicle removal and we can trust them with abortion. The state should provide advice, clinical services and facilitate a woman's or family's decision. Activists are all free and may they truly understand that His word, not Parliament, is "the power of God unto salvation". Selah!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
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