“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!
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“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
It’s great to have values and stand by them. Referring the quote you cite & attribute to “Mike Spencer”. I see huge gaps in his logic.
It’s a huge leap of logic to say “if I do this, here & now- then, I would’ve done this other thing, at this other time.”. In Nazi Germany, maybe Mike would’ve stood for Jewish friends and neighbors- maybe not.
There’s no way to know because he wasn’t there- it’s only hypothetical. The world isn’t hypothetical; the world is real. I wonder what Mike is doing in the real world.
Reality: sadly, anti-Semitism is alive and well. It by no means stopped at the end of WWII.
What is Mike Spencer doing now to stand-up for his Jewish friends & neighbors? Does he have Jewish friends & neighbors? If not, is that a deal breaker or is he standing-up for Jews at-large, despite not having Jewish friends & neighbors?
If so, how?
If he’s actually referring to standing-up for the friends & neighbors he does have: what is Mr. Spencer doing now to stand-up for his current actual friends & neighbors?
If Mike intends to refer to standing up against genocide, the Holocaust is one horrible event of many horrible examples. There’s lots of genocide in progress, right now. The daily news is full of reports of genocide. Also: .
What is he doing to help Syrians, Afghanis, or the many other groups facing ethnic cleansing, today?
Does he mean to refer to defending Religious Freedom? If he’s referring to Religious Freedom, what is he doing to defend Religious Freedom, here & now?
The quote attributed to Mike Spencer refers to the Nazis.
Nazi policy included:
* forced pregnancy & childbirth for Aryan women
*forced abortion & sterilization for women who weren’t Aryan.
The State wielded complete power; individuals & individual couples didn’t have the right to choose anything.
Thoughts?
May the Peace in me also reside in you. God bless.
Hi Florence, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! 🙂
First, a point of clarification, the quote and meme in question is not one I made, so I’m actually not sure who Mike Spencer is. The meme was posted on a friend’s site not long ago and I found it quite apropos to my post.
Another point of clarification: Whenever one draws comparison to any historical event, it’s important to point out that comparable does not mean identical. In this case, the only parallel I wished to draw was in reference to those who identify as pro-life and who believe that a fetus is as much a member of the human family as a Jew is and was. If someone will not speak up for an oppressed human being when it costs them almost nothing to speak up, it is indeed doubtful that they would speak up for an oppressed human being when their lives are on the line.
With regard to genocide and anti-semitism, of course it’s still happening today and of course we as Humanists should care about that and seek to oppose it where we can. There may not be room for all issues in our schedule and wallets, but there should certainly be room for them in our heart and conscience.
Actually, I do know who Mike Spencer is; he spoke at a nearby campus last year. He argued that there are no moral standards outside God’s will, and recommended a book on Biblical morality by William Lane Craig, who takes this to its logical extreme and denies that “killing innocent human beings is wrong” is an objective moral truth–because it’s possible that God would command such killing, and indeed the Bible reports occasions when God did command the slaughter of, for example, Caananite children of all ages. Spencer contradicted himself by claiming that only his biblical morality can support objective moral truths, and castigated secular morality for denying the truth of such claims, but in fact his own arguments and sources reject the idea of objective moral truths of this sort. I presented this contradiction to him both in person and later by email, and he refused to address this objection. He also very openly advocated the death penalty (judicial murder) of women and doctors who engage in abortions.
You can also learn more about Spencer by listening to some of his sermons recorded at http://www.aletheiacc.net/messages_all_sermons.aspx Especially “interesting” are those which display his extreme homophobia; he very much fails to “stand up for” this minority group. So putting this together, yeah, I have a lot of doubts as to whether I would trust him in Nazi Germany; it seems to depend a lot on what he thinks God whispers in his ear on any particular day.
Yes ,God did order that the evil Caanaites be wiped out, all of them, every age group. But think about it; who created those Caananites? God did! He knew the evil they were capable of and he wanted it stopped. As the Bible says The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. No where do we find that He ordered anyone to slay their own unborn child. If the government ordered that all Jewish delis must serve ham sandwiches, I would be there protesting, even though I am not Jewish. If the government said all Muslim eateries must serve alcohol, I would be there protesting even though I am not a Muslim.If the government ordered all religious schools to pass out condoms I would be their protesting. Why? Because these are moral and religious values that those people hold dear and they need out support just as these unborn babes do. Millions have been slaughterec that could have helped eradicate cancer, famine . They could have been another Bach or Da Vinci or Mother Theresa. Yet we let them be torn to shreds in what should be the safest place for them… the womb of their own flesh and blood!. One day we will all have to face God and answer why we did not do our best to eradicate this holocaust!
“No where do we find that He ordered anyone to slay their own unborn child.” Perhaps so; but in Exodus and elsewhere he often orders *other people* to kill someone else’s unborn children, and he often does so himself (the Flood, etc.) Once again, the Biblical god is not a source of objective ethics, since whether this is wrong varies with god’s subjective moods. Of course your other arguments are equally silly; yes, aborted fetuses could have grown up to do great things; the same is true of the child I could have fathered by raping your daughter, wife, mother, cousin, etc., which hardly would justify the act. And such children could also have done bad things overall. Try to use less silly arguments if you want to be taken seriously.
“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?”
More than a little. I think we have to admit that the default viewpoint, the mental starting point, for many people, may be that the unborn are of no significance. On your “secular case” page I commented on “the subtlety of thought involved” in coming to see the unborn, correctly, as humans. Many people’s minds will not be able to see it without a process of development, for which education and art need to be mobilized.
Just as Uncle Tom’s Cabin made vivid, to people unable to see it before, the human yearnings of slaves, I think a blockbuster book or movie could make vivid the yearnings of the unborn to live and realize their potentials. Some of those yearnings are very undeveloped or unconscious, but they exist (they are in the genes), and could be portrayed imaginatively by art. We need a suspenseful movie portraying an unborn baby imminently threatened by abortion.
On your “secular case” page you recalled the proverb “Might makes right.”
I think the whole prevailing situation can be explained by 3 old proverbs:
“Might makes right.”
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
“The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”
“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.”
Being an autistic, atheist, math nerd had already made me the odd one out. I never had a reputation to protect and so it was no big deal that I faced criticism when I started posting Pro-Life stuff on my Facebook and blog. I can’t understand why people are so afraid of losing a few friends.