Friday, August 15, 2008

A Defense of the Voiceless

"Is there a thing of which it is said,"See, this is new"? It has been there ages before us" - Ecclesiastes 1:10

I fail to understand why people in this day and age cannot understand that it is a crime to kill unborn children. It is one of the biggest crimes to take away a person's life, while this is understood by many (except a few crazy fanatics who justify other atrocities too in the name of God) I find it most disappointing that many people still think it is alright to kill unborn children. A child is a human person just like you and me; just because technology has advanced to the extent that it is possible to artificially concieve life in a test tube, it is no less a human being than anyone of us; single-celled may be at one time, but having the potential to become one of us.

Life begins at conception, and not at 20 weeks or 26 weeks or at term or at delivery, neither is it in the capacity of any government, organisation, society or individual to claim a point in time during gestation as the origin of 'life' or 'being'. Zygote, embryo, fetus etc are medical terms used to describe one thing which is 'the unborn child'. To say 'Zygote is single-celled therefore is not a human person', or 'Embryo is not yet a child' are pointless arguments which selfish people put forward to justify abortion which is same as murder.

The argument that children detected with birth defects need not be born is one of the most selfish and mean ways of handling the situation. So Helen Keller, Beethoven and a host of other known and unknown geniuses with apparent and unapparent congenital defects, disabilities etc should not have been born? As human beings we are blessed with Will and Intellect to overcome difficult situations and to find solutions when there are none. We are called to learn and discover ways of living with children born with disorders, and pursue the ways of alleviating their problems; Killing is not only a selfish, evil and wicked alternative to Life, but it also amounts to cowardice in the face of adversity, it is another face of Savagery.

What we all strive for is a better World, a world with fewer diseases, more vaccines for more diseases, with new advances in Surgery, Anesthesia, Radio diagnosis, Neonatology, Immunology, Pharmacology, Biotechnology etc not to be used as a means to kill but to reduce Neonatal Mortality, Infant Mortality, Maternal Mortality and to raise the Average Life Expectancy, Physical Quality of Life etc to preserve and prolong life. We should work towards a World where every human life conceived should be nurtured and welcomed. This World is not a inheritance from our ancestors but a lease from our descendants. We did not choose our ancestors, but we are grateful to them for the gift of life, the same way we cannot deny a child's right to be born, once it is conceived. To deny that is simply Inhuman.