Pro-Life Humanists

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Smart People Disagree With Me

Posted by on May 4, 2018 in Potpourri | 2 comments

If you're an activist who only sees people as stupid or evil if they disagree with you, you're doing it wrong

Stupid. Moron. Evil… Spend a few minutes observing any side of a heated debate and you’ll be led to believe that only idiotic and cruel people hold the opposing view:

Pro-lifers are misogynists who hate sex and women’s freedoms. Pro-choicers are evil murderers who hate babies. Circumcisers don’t love their sons, intactivists can’t mind their own business, and virtually everyone on a Mommy blog is a terrible parent! Believe in God? You’re a fool! Atheist? You’re a fool! Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is an idiot, right?

It’s an easy thought pattern to fall into. After all, if I regard myself as a thoughtful, intelligent and decent human being, it seems to follow that the person who supports that which I vehemently oppose cannot possibly have a mind and heart like mine.  If I tell them the facts and they still disagree, the problem must be with either their intellect or with them as a person.

In truth, human beings are a LOT more complicated than that! We are all the products of a lifetime of information and experiences, all of which that have formed our current understanding of ourselves and of the world around us. As such, we’re biased to automatically reject new or contradictory facts that come our way. We enter a state of psychological discomfort, commonly known as cognitive dissonance, when we’re confronted with new information that doesn’t line up with our current convictions. Unwilling to accept that our reasoning might in fact be flawed, we’re  inclined to return to a state of mental comfort by rejecting the new information as being the one that is flawed. So someone who disagrees with my facts doesn’t need to be stupid or evil in order to disagree with me. He or she need only be a human being who is comfortably convinced of their current understanding.

More to the point, viewing my ideological opponents as evil or stupid ignores the fact that we can all point to at least one example of something we once believed but no longer do. As far as we know, we had been wrong back then. We weren’t evil or stupid.  We had merely lacked the facts, were blind to our flawed logic or bad reasoning, or we had had emotional reasons to resist a change of mind or behaviour at that time. As I explored in How Not To Change Someone’s Mind, most of us did not change our mind by being accused of evil intent or of having low intellect!

I have met brilliant scientists and philosophers who are Christian while I myself am atheist. I think they’re wrong on a lot of their facts, reasoning, and conclusions, but I don’t think they’re stupid for coming to different conclusions through their own reasoning. Similarly, I have met kind hearted people who genuinely believe that fetuses aren’t human beings and that abortion is therefore the kindest thing one can offer a struggling pregnant woman who lacks the resources to parent. I think they’re wrong on all counts, but in most cases, I really don’t think they are selfish people who hate babies.

This may shock many of my prolife friends, but given the opportunity, I would love to have lunch with Cecile Richards, director of Planned Parenthood! I’d love to know who she is as a person. What’s her favourite kind of music? Does she enjoy camping? Board games? What was her childhood like? Yes, I think she’s dead wrong on abortion. But human beings are more than the sum of our ideologies!

If we’re ever going to find common ground on this generation’s most divisive issues, we’ll need to stop seeing one another as enemies, and start admitting that smart and decent people disagree with us. While many people follow the crowd and haven’t reasoned their way to their conclusions, many more have interesting and thoughtful reasons for disagreeing us. Let’s give one another the benefit of the doubt. Most of us aren’t morons or sociopaths!

Perhaps we’re all a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Either way, I’m sure we all have at least something to gain in genuinely trying to understand one another’s strongest arguments.

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Dear Pro-Choicers: Why Are You So Angry?

Dear Pro-Choicers: Why Are You So Angry?

Posted by on Aug 29, 2014 in Potpourri | 21 comments

Abortion Victim Photography displayed in Hamilton, Ontario
I don’t think I’ve ever been cursed at quite so many times in a four-hour period as I was today. I lost count of the number of times I was called vile and vulgar names, flipped the bird, or F-bombed. I’m sure yelling obscenities to strangers – even strangers you disagree with – isn’t normal behaviour for you, the pro-choice individuals who walked past our abortion display, so I can’t help but wonder why our opposition to abortion stirs up such emotion in you.

I was on the streets of Hamilton, Ontario today as part of a training course with the Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform – an organization that uses abortion victim photography as a tool to educate the public about the human rights violation that is abortion. We use the images because they convey a terrible truth that cannot be rightly understood with words alone, and because victim imagery has been a proven tool of success in social reform movements across the centuries. Even more importantly, we use such imagery because when people see the violently dismembered bodies of the youngest members of our species, many of them change their minds about abortion – and their children’s lives are saved.

But many of you are angry when you pass by our signs, and I fail to understand why.  After all: you’re pro-choice. The violence depicted in our pictures is the aftermath of one of the choices you support – so why does its reality upset you? Abortion takes a developing human fetus and tears him or her limb from limb. If you’re sure that’s a perfectly fine thing to do, why are you angry with us for showing others what that choice looks like? Surely it’s not merely that we disagree with you on this issue – you don’t curse at everyone who holds views different from yours, do you?  I suspect it’s not really the bloodiness that bothers you either – how often have you cursed at the grocery clerk for having bloody animal parts on display in the meat department?

One of the angry individuals who approached me yesterday complained that children might see the images. I explained to him that while we’re not targeting children, we must prioritize the lives of preborn children over the feelings of born children. “Women are walking past these signs,” I told him, “who are pregnant and considering whether or not to do this to their preborn child.” A woman standing nearby said quietly: “Yes, and I’m one of them“. We were able to counsel her to leave an abusive environment for her sake and that of her child, and with our support she’ll be breaking the cycle of violence by giving her child life. Yell at us all you want; she and her child and the countless others we’ve saved are worth your abuse – and those pictures won’t go away until abortion does!

The next time you’re tempted to curse and shout obscenities to someone holding the image of a preborn victim of abortion, please ask yourself why that image bothers you so much. If these images are too disgusting and awful to look at and to accept as the reality of choice, then perhaps the procedure these pictures expose is too disgusting and awful to continue supporting.

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Giving Downs a Hand Up – Down Syndrome Kids Can Achieve Great Things!

Giving Downs a Hand Up – Down Syndrome Kids Can Achieve Great Things!

Posted by on Jul 31, 2014 in Book & Media Reviews, Potpourri |

*** NOTE: Please get your $5 ebook copy of
Real Families, Real Stories: Celebrating Life With Down Syndrome By Stephanie Sumulong
TONIGHT, as every copy sold before the end of July 2014 will be matched by a generous donor, for distribution to families who have just received a Down Syndrome diagnosis.***

———

Lauren Potter, actress in TV show 'Glee'

Lauren Potter, actress in TV show ‘Glee’

Young adult Jessie Huggett is a member of Propeller Dance, a troupe of contemporary dancers in Ottawa Canada that has been voted “Best Dance Show” of 2009 and 2005 by the Ottawa Xpress Newspaper. She’s also a senior member of the Dandelion Dance Company, has been a “20 Under 20” National Youth Award Finalist, and was the 2005 recipient of the Jane Cameron Award (an award named after an Alberta Canada artist, born with Down Syndrome in 1949, whose colourful tapestries, remarkable paintings and poetry were commissioned by Prime Ministers and national magazines.)

On prime-time television, California-born actress Lauren Potter has been wooing audiences in her roles as Becky Jackson on the hit television series Glee.  She’s one of a number of actresses to hit big screen and television, including Jamie Brewer, Andrea Friedman, Paula Sage, and actors Chris Burke, Stephane Ginnsz, Tommy Jessop, Pablo Pineda, among others.

American sculptor Judith Scott, born in 1943, is another individual you may have encountered if you’re a patron of the visual arts.  She’s an internationally renowned American fiber artist who worked at the Creative Art Center in Oakland, California.

What do all these individuals have in common?  If you haven’t already guessed from the topic of this post, every individual named above has Down Sydrome (in fact, Judith Scott was born a deaf mute as well!).  Down Syndrome is a condition caused by an extra chromosome in one’s DNA, and is so horribly misunderstood that 90% of Down diagnoses end in abortion.  A number that shockingly, some abortion advocates don’t find high enough!

It’s not merely in the arts that many individuals with Downs have achieved great things.  In 2013 Dr. Karen Gaffney became the first living person with Down syndrome to receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Portland, for her long-standing humanitarian work in raising awareness about the capabilities of people who have Down syndrome.  She is an accomplished sports figure, public speaker, and advocate.

Also in 2013, Megan McCormack became the first person with Down Syndrome to graduate with honors from a technical college in United States. She earned her degree in education and was at the top of her class at Bluegrass Community Technical College in Kentucky.  She even recently got her driver’s license!

Again in 2013 Angela Bachiller became the first person with Down Syndrome to be elected as a councilwoman. She works at the Ayuntamiento (municipality) of Valladolid, Spain, and is expected to continue her political career.

As we become increasingly inclusive, many individuals with Downs are surprising us and excelling at opportunities most of their contemporaries not previously been given.  Some have become young entrepreneurs.  Others, like  Eli Reimer have made history in sports.  Eli became, in 2012, the first person with Down syndrome to reach the Base Camp of Mount Everest.  In 2013 Owen Groesser, a junior in high school with Down Syndrome managed to catch the coveted attention of the ESPN sport center after scoring two 3-point baskets with his special move.

Of course, not all individuals with Down Syndrome go on to become famous artists or do great things in society – but then again, the same is true of those of us in the population of the “normal”.   A woman I met in at the last Propeller Dance performance in Ottawa wrote a book called “Teach me, I can learn” (which I also recommend readers purchase), about her daughter Lorena who has Down Syndrome and faced discrimination in the Canadian school system.   Her book clearly showcases that life with a special needs child can be hard, but with the right support systems and love,any child can achieve a happy and productive life!    With adequate support most can go on to hold jobs, become volunteers in the community, and some, like the couple showcased in the documentary Monica and David go on to find love.    Down Syndrome is not a death sentence, nor a guarantee of a terrible life!  In fact, the stories in Real Families, Real Stories: Celebrating Life With Down Syndrome 

We stand at a crucial point in history, as the numbers of those who fight for euthanasia of the disabled are increasing alongside the the rise of disabled-rights advocates.  Advocacy groups like The International Down Syndrome Coalition often include members of the Down Syndrome community themselves, and are seeing society become increasingly inclusive of those with special needs. But with the vast majority of children diagnosed with Down Syndrome still being terminated as a life not worth living, it’s clear that human rights advocates like you and I have a long way to go!

Buy your copy of Real Families, Real Stories: Celebrating Life With Down Syndrome today for only $5 and help get this book into the hands of families who might otherwise abort their child with DS.   Parents need to know there are resources and help for them and for their children, and that if they really can’t handle the task, that there is a waiting list of couples who will adopt a child with special needs, including Down Syndrome (over 200 families currently on the DS waiting list).   Let’s help fight “chromosomalism”!  These human beings deserve human rights too!  

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Sound of Pro-Life Silence

Sound of Pro-Life Silence

Posted by on Aug 17, 2013 in Potpourri | 7 comments

Holocaust-prolife-Jewish

“Moral rescuers were people who, when asked why they risked their lives to save Jews often answered, “How else should one react when a human life is endangered?” Their concept of right and wrong was so much a part of who they were and are, that it was as if I had asked them why they breathed.”
~ Eva Fogelman, The Rescuer Self

A pro-life friend recently shared her commendation of one of our peers, who had spoken up about his pro-life views despite it going against the grain of his graduate class.  “That was really brave of you” she said.  “I don’t have the guts to say anything.  It’s just too uncomfortable for me.”   The second pro-lifer admitted that while he’s likely to display a pro-life license plate or attend a pro-life march, even he draws lines:  “I’ve learned over time that it’s ok to have different levels and types of pro-life enthusiasm.   I will go to a pro-life march and have a pro-life license tag, but I won’t put pro-life stuff on my Facebook.”  He’s had others tell him likewise that they were personally pro-life but “did not want to rock the boat.”

My dear pro-life friends: prenatal children are being dismembered every day by the thousands, and most people are either complicit or complacent about it.   Do you not think the boat could stand to be rocked a little?  How easy it is for those of us who have secured spots in the boat, to treat pro-life involvement like a hobby about which we can be enthused to varying degrees.  Were we the ones in jeopardy of being thrown out of the boat and dismembered by the sharks of abortion, my suspicion is that the situation might take on a bit more urgency for us!  Do compassion and empathy not demand that we do all we can – even to the point of making everyone sea sick – until enough people favour a change in our social course?

Speaking out against the social grain is uncomfortable.  No one likes being the odd-one out, especially when that comes with ridicule and even hate.   But when people tell me they’re too uncomfortable to speak publicly on behalf of the voiceless, I like to gently remind them that it’s probably not too comfortable for an unborn child to be dismembered and to lose his or her life either.  If we really believe the unborn are human beings, are we really justified in treating their plight and imminent deaths so casually?

When I look at youth like the five members of the White Rose, German university students who risked their lives and were executed for speaking out against the practices of the Nazis, I wonder why we can’t seem to muster up half their courage – even though our lives aren’t at risk for speaking up on behalf of the unborn.    When I look at those in the segregated south who knowingly faced the same beatings and death threats as their black neighbours, I wonder why they were so willing to risk everything to Freedom Ride with the oppressed – and yet so many of us are unwilling to risk a few Facebook friends or the verbal wrath of a professor.

Do we really believe our unborn neighbours are as human as Holocaust and Civil Rights heroes believed their neighbours to be?   Does the fact that we can’t see the unborn being victimized and can’t hear their pleas for life somehow dull our consciences a little?    We live in a society in which we have freedom of speech and where it costs us relatively little to speak up often and loudly and tirelessly on behalf of our unborn neighbours, and still so many of us think a march and a bumper sticker is exactly how we should be reacting when a human life is in danger.

It costs us relatively little to speak up.  Our pro-life silence costs many unborn children their lives – children who could be saved if more of us took abortion as seriously as we should if we truly believe abortion is taking human lives.

The time for polite silence is long past. It’s time for more of us to stand and shout and rock the boat with a lively dance upon injustice!

—

“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr

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