A few years ago, there was a little boy
in a bubble in France. As everybody is probably aware,
a "boy in a bubble" is a child who is born without
any immunity to germs. His body cannot fight bacteria,
so he is put in a sterile environment, a "bubble"
of plastic, for life.
A boy in a bubble cannot live as long as
other people. He is imprisoned for his entire very short
lifetime.
Scientists did find a way to get this child
out of that bubble. But it involved using fetal tissues.
France had a law against using fetal tissues
for medical purposes. So it was a question of using fetal
tissues to save the life of a child whom everybody could
see and sympathize with, or just throwing the tissues
away as the law required.
The only alternative was to let the child
die as a matter of principle. This choice was real, and
it had to be made.
In the real world, how many people are going
to side with the fetal tissues against the little boy?
So the child is now alive and free.
According to strict pro-life doctrine, the
boy's life has to be expendable. In this view, the destruction
of a sixteen-cell fetus is exactly the same as partial
birth abortion, where a live child is painfully killed.
It is cruel for humans to have to make make
this kind of choice. Possibly such power should not be
in human hands. But it is, and it will grow.
In the next century the moral choices we
will be faced with will be much, much worse. We must either
go Amish or find a way to deal with them.
Most people have no problem when the fetal
tissue to be used would be thrown away anyway. But what
if the little boy's life depended on PRODUCING a fetus
to use to save the child's life?
This is indeed a slippery slope. Once you
abandon the absolute pro-life position, you are in very
deep water.
As for me, I could never tell the boy's
parents that their son would have to die for my principles.
I can only balance the life of a real, CONSCIOUS
person (unborn children are conscious) against the life
of another real, conscious person. This is called the
Golden Rule, and it came from the mouth of Christ.
It is one thing to talk about an abortion
for the mother's convenience. But here the pro-life movement
wants to prohibit the only way to save a living child's
life. THAT IS NOT PRO-LIFE.
And let me return to the big point here:
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CHOICES WILL BE MUCH,
MUCH HARDER THAN THIS.
And let me be absolutely frank. The extreme
pro-lifers are perfectly right about one thing: This IS
a slippery slope.
Only by adopting the extreme pro-life position
can you insist that God protects you from having to make
any life-and death, twenty-first century choices.
What I want to know is how other people
like me, who must answer to their personal consciences,
are going to approach the new century.
Could you say no?
Be sure, because soon you may have to.
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