Thursday, February 01, 2007

The priority of the paradigm

Funny, but sad.
"But you can't take away a woman's right to choose to have an abortion!" came a fiery protest from the front row of a classroom of sixth-form students. The young woman was obviously strongly opposed to my (pro-life) opinion and shouted out her objection. But I wanted to challenge her, gently, to find out why she believed this so passionately. So I made up an imaginary situation ...

I said, "Suppose a human egg is fertilised in a test-tube. Now when that happens today, in IVF fertility treatment, one of the many newly formed embryos is then placed in the womb of the mother. But imagine that the embryo is placed in an artificial womb, a machine rather than a woman.

"Who will dicede then," I asked, "whether that baby will be released from the machine and allowed to live or if it will be killed? Whose choice would it be?"

There was silence for a moment. I presumed the students were weighing up if it should be the decision of the father, the mother or both. Then, to the great astonishment of everyone, the young lady in the front row angrily called out, "It's the machine's choice of course!"
This was taken from a pro-life pamphlet from SPUC Evangelicals. 2007 marks the 40th anniverary of the British law change that enabled people to legally have abortions.
Who can sound the depths of sorrow
In the Father heart of God
For the children we've rejected
For the lives so deeply scarred?
And each light that we've extinguished
Has brought darkness to our land
Upon our nation, upon our nation
Have mercy, Lord
(Graham Kendrick)