March 27, 2009
Our Readers
After 18 days . . .
I recently had the privilege of seeing my unborn grandchild through ultrasound. Amazing . . . the tiny heart beating (after 18 days) and stomach hiccupping away made us all laugh! The whole miraculous wonder made me cry. What fantastic technology! Science has now proven what faith and reason know . . . that’s a real baby.
We Americans demand instant gratification. Just what can be accomplished in a few seconds? Saying, “I love you . . . or . . . hate you.” A smile. A frown. In the blink of an eye, Creator God forms new life with an eternal soul and unique personality. How exciting!
What also happened March 9 makes me shudder. President Obama’s brief pen stroke lifted restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. This, despite non-controversial advances researching adult stem cells, which don’t require life’s destruction. This morally acceptable approach holds promises benefiting many medical conditions. Embryonic research doesn’t. Yet, the murdering will now commence on a scale that rivals the Holocaust.
It’s never been permissible to kill one person to benefit another. Suppose embryonic research did offer measurable benefits — ends do not justify means. One lame excuse: “These embryos are not viable.” Has our society sunk so low that we now accept cannibalizing tiny babies for spare parts? Where is the outrage?
The infamous Nazi Dr. Mengele used this flawed reasoning defending his horrifying WWII experiments. Nazis considered Jews and others subhuman. They reasoned any “research” was acceptable that potentially benefited the Aryan super-race. Many thousands were murdered.
In Dachau, Dr. Klaus Schilling injected dozens of Catholic priests with malaria to study survival rates. One-hundred twenty Polish clergy selected as “human guinea pigs.” Russian POW’s submerged to their heads in freezing water until they succumbed — determining how long shot down German airmen could survive frigid ocean waters. (See Christ in Dachau, Rev. John Lenz: Roman Catholic Books, 1960).
At war crimes trials, Nazi “death doctors” denied any guilt. Insidious doctrine had blunted consciences, forbidding reason. Is this what our scientific community has been reduced to? Our most precious national resources — future citizens — are being dissected due to diabolic “research” which may have helped quadriplegic Christopher Reeves, a.k.a. Superman.
Once the safest place in the world is now the most dangerous. Do babies belong in their mother’s wombs, or a petri dish? “Truly, you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139: 13-14)
Bewildered, I shake my head at the irony: which tears were more profound? Joyful tears seeing new life or tears of grief from the president’s latest assault on human dignity? Insist scientists, doctors and the politicians who allow them, to STOP playing God. By the way, it’s a girl!
- Tracy Burch | Loogootee