Hong found abandoned baby in remote industrial area bushes
On June 24th, 2014, CNN reported that a Houston, Texas jogger named Hong Nguyen found an abandoned baby in the bushes of an unpopulated industrial area. Baby Genesis had already been missing six hours, after the vehicle in which she’d been riding was carjacked from a local gas station, but was thankfully found mostly unharmed and crying in her carseat.
Hong Nguyen called 911 and postponed her jogging plans in order to remain with the baby until help arrived and care of the child could be passed on to someone else. Hong wasn’t the girl’s mother, yet Genesis was a vulnerable and dependent 8 month-old, and for the time-being this stranger was the only person around for miles who could care for her and ensure her ongoing survival.
Now let’s suppose that rather than staying with the baby, Hong had instead decided to exercise her autonomy and freedom, and had gone on with her jogging. Would anyone think that she had done the right thing? Hong could’ve argued that the fact that she was the only person around who could care for the child put an unfair burden on her alone. She could’ve pointed out that she hadn’t chosen to become a nanny or a babysitter and she’d never consented to have this baby put in a position of dependence upon her. Would anyone applaud her choice to jog away?
I suspect that most people would be horrified and quick to point out that it’s precisely because there was no one else to keep Genesis alive that Hong was obligated toward her. The fact that Genesis was so very vulnerable and utterly dependent was the very reason why she was entitled to care and protection.
How peculiar then that abortion takes these very ideals and turns them upside down. The fact that the preborn can’t surive on their own is used to discount their right to keep living, and to jettison their lives. The fact that no one else can care for that particular child is used as a reason to justify abandoning ongoing care for that developing prenatal being.
What is it that nullifies the obligation in one case while not in the other? Is it perhaps the personal and intimate demands of pregnancy, in that a pregnant woman must use her own body to keep the child in question alive? If Hong were a nursing mother and help had been delayed long enough that Genesis was in danger of dehydration, would she have been justified in letting Genesis die in order to not have to use her own body to sustain a child she’d never planned on feeding?
Yes it’s true that Hong had a choice, and so does any parent of a dependent child – pregnant women included. But just because one can choose to abandon an unexpected and uninvited child doesn’t mean one is justified in doing so. And if this is true of one’s duty toward a dependent and vulnerable stranger, how much more ought it be true of the parent of a biological offspring, who in most cases is directly responsible for their offspring being in a position of dependence upon them in the first place?
It’s time to reject might-makes-right thinking. Young and vulnerable humans have a right to be fed, sheltered, and protected by their parents according to their specific developmental needs – precisely because of their dependency and vulnerability. “Genesis” means “beginnings”, and as we consider the story of baby Genesis and the care of a stranger, let’s not forget our own vulnerable beginnings in life. No human should be violently decapitated and dismembered simply because they can’t yet fend for themselves or survive on their own.
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Recommended pro-life reading: the essay DeFacto Guardian, which goes into depth on the above ideas.
People with a conscience feel an obligation that wipes out the entire concept of choice.