I Have a Dream: A Campaign of Civil Disobedience is in Order

This piece was written by my friend, Antonio J. Soave, and is posted here with his permission.  My thanks to Antonio for a wonderfully-written piece.  – Lamar Hunt Jr.

This past weekend’s March for Life in Washington, D.C. was one of the largest civil rights demonstrations to take place in recent history.  With estimates ranging from 500,000 to 750,000, the campaign should have been a force with which to be reckoned.  However, it was largely ignored by mainstream media and cast-off as some form of mass hysteria.  The fact that we have destroyed over 50 million fetuses since the inception of Roe v. Wade seems to have little to no impact on today’s modern society.  Unfortunately, this is another sign of the times – a very disturbing one at that.

It was fitting that the March for Life coincided with the events surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America.  Dr. King stood for the protection of life and most certainly all life – regardless of race, color and creed.  Just as Dr. King said, “I have a dream … ,” so, too, do I have a dream.  I have a dream that all life, regardless of size, gender and disposition will be respected and protected by society.  I have a dream that humankind will understand the abuse that is being perpetrated as millions upon millions of children are being exterminated.  It is most certainly an act of genocide.

What is genocide?  According to Merriam-Webster, it is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.”  In my opinion, the unborn are members of a cultural group, one that is being ignored and spurned.  It is a group that has no rights.  It is literally an unprotected group in society.  Although Merriam-Webster has no official definition of “cultural group,” it is widely defined on the web as follows: “A cultural group is a self-defined group of people who share a commonality of cultural experience.”  People who oppose abortion are also members of a “self-defined” group of people who share a common cultural experience related to defending the unborn.

Many on the left of the political spectrum like to note that a fetus is technically not classified as a human being in the first – or perhaps even second – trimester.  Yet few would argue that a fetus is more than just an ambiguous living organism in the third trimester.  Why is this the case?  A fetus can only grow into one thing: a human being.  And it happens in a very, very short period of time.  A fetus does not grow into a tadpole, although Darwin supporters might like to see that.  A fetus does not become a plant or a dog or a car or another mammal such as a dolphin.  It becomes a full-fledged human being – nothing more and nothing less.  It is the concept of nothing less that affects me.

People protecting the lives of unborn children are doing just that: they are protecting those that cannot protect themselves.  They settle for nothing less, and why should they?  When millions of babies are being killed, we go about our daily lives as if nothing is wrong.  We seem to consider them – the unborn, that is – as something less.  Yes, these unborn children are members of a common cultural group – a group that is ‘easy prey’ for those exterminating them.

Many anti-life/pro-abortion activists tell me that they are protecting a woman’s right to choose.  I ask this in return: Choose what?  Do these women have a right to choose death?  Are they fully aware that the organisms in their bodies become actual human beings?  Can they conceive of anyone they love having been exterminated in a mother’s womb prior to being given a chance to live?  Consider this: Someone you love dearly could have been randomly selected to die in a womb.  You would not have known this person today and you would not have been able to love that person.  Anyone could have been in that predicament.

As the March of Life was occurring in DC, I was returning from a business trip in Chicago.  As I awaited my delayed flight, I happened to catch a bit of CNN.  I was surprised that CNN covered the March, albeit slightly and in a distorted fashion.  CNN’s coverage was short and not complementary to the pro-lifers.  The coverage lasted about 30 seconds before it shifted the discussion to Texas and the supposedly ‘inhumane law’ there that requires women to view or listen to an ultrasound prior to having an abortion.  CNN gave this scenario extensive coverage, thereby clearly implying that the preferred stance of CNN was this: support abortion and oppose life.  An executive with an abortion clinic in Texas was interviewed by CNN in that report.  She complained about Governor Perry and his unfair and overreaching stance that forces women to listen to the very real sounds of the child inside of them.  It was as if the abortion clinic executive was the victim.

It makes sense that a woman about to have an abortion would not want to listen to or see the fetus: it would probably make her re-think her action.  For if that woman were to really understand that the fetus inside of her was truly alive and would soon become a wonderful new baby, she could hesitate and perhaps change her mind.  To listen to and/or view the fetus would bring the fetus to life both visually and acoustically.  The fetus would no longer be an antiseptic scientific description, a description that sanitizes, dehumanizes and downgrades the unborn child.  Just for reference, Merriam-Webster states the definition of “sanitize” as follows: to make more acceptable by removing unpleasant or undesired features.   Is the baby so ‘unpleasant’ that it needs to be removed or killed?  Is the dead fetus now ‘more acceptable’ to society?  Is the mother better off now that this has occurred?

Liberals like to think of themselves as protectors of the downtrodden and underprivileged, often being described as “bleeding heart liberals.”  I wonder why their hearts do not bleed for an unborn child, a child that is truly bleeding when removed from the womb prematurely.  I wonder why these bleeding heart activists are not taking to the streets to defend those that are clear victims of systematic murder and extermination.  I wonder why they aren’t outraged.  Maybe they would be if they knew the truth about living fetuses.  Those fetuses are human; they are nothing else.  They will not become less human just because we attempt to justify our actions or sanitize our description of the act.

I find it interesting that many of the same folks who oppose the one-child policy in China and often view the policy as ‘barbaric’ are the same people who support abortion in the United States.  It must be that abortion looks less attractive in China, especially when we view hopeful parents literally plea for their children’s lives.  The mothers of these fetuses are brutalized and, in some cases, beaten and tortured.  These women and their unborn children are truly victims, for are they forced to uphold the law – a law that is inhumane, insensitive and immoral.  In fact, when we see these images from our U.S. perspective, we condemn China for its violation of human rights.  So why don’t we condemn ourselves for human rights violations as well?  Is a child any less a child in the U.S. than in China?

I also ask this: If dogs were being aborted inside of their mommy’s stomachs, would these same “bleeding hearts” defend the unborn animal?  My contention and belief is that they would defend the unborn animal and they would do so in droves.  Yet they wouldn’t dare defend a human fetus or come to its aid.  I admit, animal rights are important, but so are the rights of unborn children.  At least arguably, the rights of an unborn child should exceed the rights of an unborn animal.  In today’s society, I am not sure we see it that way.

Perhaps it is time for a true campaign of civil disobedience, the kind of campaign that may have made Dr. King proud.  I believe that he would have supported a sit-in or a demonstration or a march that was designed to defend human life.  After all, he was a man of God and a man of the cloth.  He truly stood up for others that were being treated as less than human; he even gave his life.  How could he have seen this any differently?  From what I have heard and read about Dr. King, he had a dream to eradicate racism, not a dream to eradicate life.

In my mind, it is no wonder we have a society in rapid moral and ethical decline.  We have become desensitized and sterilized.  We are far too busy with our lives, so children have become roadblocks for us.  After all, we have important things to do and people to see.  We cannot possibly be bothered by these little tikes running around and tugging on us.  But, if the kids do come around and are eventually born – despite our attempts to eradicate them, we can just go ahead and outsource them to daycare.

Unfortunately, children have become disposable and dispensable, especially the unborn.  At certain times, we seem to more actively, devoutly and fervently defend the rights of animals than we do the rights of children.  We disregard the heartbeats and sounds of an unborn child while – at the same time – attempting to defend the civil rights of others around the globe.  This is inconsistent and it is an incorrect position.  If we defend life then we must defend it from start to finish – from natural inception to natural death.  All life is precious.