It’s apparently been too long since abortion supporters had the Tim Tebow Superbowl commercial of 2010 to fuss over, but thankfully for them they’ve found something new to protest at this year’s Superbowl. A contest-finalist Doritos ad shows a late-term fetus interacting with his Doritos-eating father during an ultrasound, moving about as though trying to grab a chip from him, and diving out of the womb to chase after it when his exasperated mom throws the distracting Dorito away.
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Unfortunately, the people at NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) didn’t find the commercial nearly as funny as most of its viral audience already has. Instead they bemoaned the “anti-choice tactic of humanizing fetuses”
That’s right, folks – cause you know, fetuses are these non-human tissue blobs that are merely fodder for dismemberment. Anyone who might show them as the least bit alive is so obviously just “anti-choice”. I mean, how dare the film producer, who apparently used ultrasound footage of his own son in the digitally animated imagery, not champion the message that a woman should have the right to choose death, even for a child about to be born “any day now”?
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Unfortunately for NARAL, society is the one who’s #NotBuyingIt – and by it, I mean their mythology that human development begins at birth. While the ad’s depictions are obviously exagerated for the sake of humour, studies have long shown us that a fetus responds to his/her environment, particularly in the last trimester. They learn and respond to music and language, they become accustomed to taste, smells and the spices of their culture’s cuisine… Decades of ultrasounds have pulled open the curtains on the womb and made NARAL’s kvetching over a late trimester fetus seem absurd.
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We “anti-choicers” don’t need to “humanize the fetus”. Fetuses are already human because they are the biological product of two human parents, and because human is a species designation, not a function designation. From the time their bodies first comes into existence at fertilization, fetuses are growing, biological members of our species.
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In fact, that’s the only reason why another highlight of Superbowl’s 50th anniversary, the Superbowl Babies commercial even makes sense. The kids singing Seal’s Kiss From a Rose parody are called Superbowl Babies because they were conceived after their parents’ team won a Superbowl. They earn their title because their now grown human bodies first came into existence during or shortly after one of the past 50 Superbowls – as opposed to 9 months later.
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So, sorry-not-sorry NARAL, but the fact that fetuses aren’t conscious, sentient or ordinarily chasing after Doritos is a question of how old they are, not of what they are.
I suppose it can be argued that us anti-choicers, like this ad, sometimes make the unborn appear a little more grown-up than it actually is. But that is nothing compared to how much lessgrown-up than it actually is, not to mention how much less valuable than it actually is, some pro-choicers systematically, aggressively, and deceitfully try to make it apppear.
their mythology that human development begins at birth
Here’s a new article that should help them out:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/crispr-but-no-clear er-about-the-human-embryo/17576#sthash.RPYkvLL1.dpuf
CRISPR, but no clearer about the human embryo
Gene editing relies on an unscientific approach to embryonic life.
Javier Cuadros | Feb 9 2016
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Science is a process of knowledge in which we penetrate ever deeper into the fabric of nature and of the processes taking place in it. It is a journey through different layers of understanding. The starting point is the simple, immediate observation of individual phenomena. At this stage the “appearances” of things are noted. It is a good starting point and the only one there is.
As the observations multiply . . . it is typical that the original appearances . . . are shown to be incorrect. The reality is different and the “false appearances” prove to be due to specific conditions or viewpoint.
The Earth appears to be stationary and the Sun, Moon, planets and stars to circle around it. Observation of the movement of the planets suggested a different explanation, which was finally proved by Foucault. . . .
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All these facts were hard to prove and encountered a lot of opposition within scientific circles.
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This is why I have always been puzzled about the reluctance of scientists to apply the same program of investigation to the nature of the human embryo. Are human embryos men and women and thus entitled to the inalienable right to life and respect for their dignity and physical integrity, or are they not?
Here, many scientists (biologists and doctors) are for applying the simple criterion of appearances. No, they are not men and women, they say, because they do not look like a person. Agreed, they do not look like a developed human being. But the Earth looks like it is stationary, the continents anchored and so on. Surely scientists should be ready to explore the issue further in order to test whether the appearances tell the whole truth. Following such investigation it has been pointed out that shape does not make a human being.
It has been shown that the most fundamental element of the presence and identity of a human being is the existence of a specific DNA molecule. The embryo, with its complete DNA information, contains all the essential elements of the developed human being. All that is necessary for such development is nutrition and the appropriate environment, however specific they need to be. There is no essential change taking place with the embryo after the egg is fertilised. As far as one can see, this is the deepest level available now to define a human being from the scientific point of view.
Abortion laws allow terminations up to certain stages of embryonic development. The reason is that the embryo looks more like a person after these stages than before. There can be no other reasons because there is no other change in the embryo before and after the legal limits. Then [meaning “Moreover”], of course, a newly generated embryo is so much unlike a developed human being that the same argument applies. This is very unscientific.
I really wonder that such a superficial approach is allowed to go unchecked in this age that has seen and continues to see so much progress in the discovery of underlying layers of understanding of the fabric of the universe. I suspect that, for some scientists, the question “When does a human being begin to exist?” is not answered considering only the scientific evidence. They also include in their argument a battery of social issues.
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If NARAL seriously believed that the fetus is not a human and that this commercial ‘humanizes’ a non-human/non baby etc. they would not have then accused Doritos of “sexist tropes of dads as clueless and moms as uptight”. They are openly acknowledging that the woman is a mom and the man is a dad. Human moms are moms because they have human children, and dad’s likewise. In the very act of objecting to this commercial, NARAL has refuted its own objection, and admitted that the fetus is a human child.
Good point! 🙂
I just found this site and I am so glad I did. I was sure there must be prolife humanists out there. As a Christian I have strong objections to abortion but I have had prochoice atheists tell me my only objection is a religious one or that there are no scientific objections to abortion. I knew that couldn’t be right. Abortion is wrong. Period.
Thanks! Indeed! Fetal rights are human rights! Equal rights and non-violence are basic fundamental rights that should belong to all human beings.