Michael J. Embryo

I was reminded of this YouTube video that made the rounds after Michael J. Fox’s infamous election advertisement when I read this post by the Anchoress. She writes, ”Here we are in the 21st century – persumably time has moved forward, and yet with the ascendancy of the Democrats, we are immediately treated to the presence of George McGovern and the withdrawal mentality of Haight-Ashbury people who never wanted to commit to anything beyond keeping up with a trend and finding that elusive “self-fulfillment.” So she wasn’t surprised in the least to hear, for the first time in decades, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” song on the radio.

I am woman watch me grow
…
But I’m still an embryo
With a long long way to go

Erhmmm…that got a little dicey-with-irony after a while. All those embryonic women talking about their futures, their boundless potentialities all while simultaneously calling for routine elimination of human embryos – excuse me, “products of conception” who were regarded as mere “clump of cells” whose destruction was compared to having a tooth pulled, and whose potentialities were considered quite irrelevent if they were to get in the way of a “real, living” woman’s opportunities.

Funny, sad, and true. Of course, abortion is no longer good enough. As she notes, even some churches now approve of infant euthanasia – the ultimate in late term abortions. Nobody predicted that, nobody. /sarcasm

And of course she points out the leap of imagination that proponents of killing the imperfect never seem to make:

As we watch this seemingly inexorable march toward the elimination of imperfect or sickly people for the good of humankind, I wonder, sometimes, if the Michael J Fox’s of the world realize that they are advocating the sorts of people and policies that will one day tell him that if he really cared about being a good citizen in the world, he’d take himself out.

There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG along these lines. David Ogden Stiers played Dr. Timcin in the “Half a Life” episode. His character falls in love with Troi’s annoying mother (Majel Barrett), which is unfortunate because he’s expected to commit suicide at age 60 in order to make room for and not be a burden to the next generation. He considers rebelling, but eventually complies. It’s expected. It’s tradition. It’s required. And it’s where we’re going, as modern societies. In the Helsinki Complaints Choir video I linked to below, one of the complaints is that old people are sedated so that they don’t complain, and certainly euthanasia is making great strides in public acceptance.

In Clinton: Do the rest of us a favor and just die already, wouldya? I linked to an old Anchoress quote which I think bears repeating.

The Anchoress » Jeff Jacoby, Terri, my living will, and a terrible eclipse
“my wishes are changed, and that is due to both Terri and my brother, S. Before S, I would have said, “just let me go – no life support of any kind – ” Now, I am not so certain. Now, I think…why deprive my family of the opportunity to love? Why deprive myself of the chance to be loved and to love them back? I am too grateful for those extra weeks with S, that no one, not the doctors, not the nurses, not the chaplains believed we would have. Those weeks were so precious, and I learned so much – so very much – about love, and about how as long as love exists, as long as someone is being loved and trying to love back, no matter how feebly…you are in the midst of a Holy Mystery.

If God is love, and that love is alive – in life, no matter how compromised…then it seems to reason that if life is destroyed, or ended too soon, then it is a kind of eclipse of love, an eclipse of God. I look at Terri Schiavo and I see S. I see Christ. I see the brain-injured people I used to work with, and I see Christ. I see something “there.” If I am wrong, I am wrong. But I might be right.”

The value of a life is much greater than so-called “quality of life” and what is good, is not always easy.