Contending with the “cults of death”
- Sep 18, 2007 - 8
It is now clear that a “death cult” has taken root within Islam. These fanatical enemies of freedom will as soon rain death and mayhem upon a schoolyard of innocent children (Muslim as well as non-Muslim) as they will attack a military vehicle.
Yet while we denounce these zealots who seek to destroy in the name of religion, we should also acknowledge that a “death cult” has arisen in our own society as well. Many in this group worship at the altar of secularism. They have devalued life, and their handiwork is memorialized in the ignominious Roe v. Wade decision as well as in those state statutes that allow for euthanasia and lethal experimentation on embryonic stem cells.
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II noted as the twentieth century came to a close that a full-blown “Culture of Death” had established itself within Western civilization.
Clear marks of this “culture of death” are seen in a hideous September 12 decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court. It held that a physician has “no legal duty” to inform a pregnant woman consenting to an abortion that what is within her womb is a “complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being.” The case primarily focused on the “theory of lack of informed consent.”
The New Jersey justices affirmed a lower court ruling that a woman who consented to an abortion of her six- to eight-week-old unborn child but claimed she did not understand it was a child she was aborting was not entitled to the disclosure that she was carrying a child, nor was she entitled to damages for emotional distress or wrongful death. This is in spite of the medical fact that a baby’s heart begins to beat 24 days after conception and a baby has measurable brain waves at 42 days gestation.
“On the profound issue of when a life begins, this Court cannot drive public policy in one particular direction by the engine of common law when the opposing sides, which represent so many of our citizens, are arrayed along a deep societal and philosophical divide,” said the court in Rosa Acuna v. Sheldon C. Turkish.
The court had previously interpreted the state’s Wrongful Death Act as not including a “fetus within the definition of a ‘person’ covered by the Act.”
The plaintiff, Rosa Acuna, said when her physician, Sheldon Turkish, told her she was pregnant, she asked “if it was a baby in there.” Acuna claims Turkish responded, “Don’t be stupid. It’s only blood.” Turkish denies making that statement, but speculates he might have told her that a “seven-week pregnancy is not a living human being” but rather “just tissue at this time.”
Some weeks after her abortion, Acuna experienced unexpected complications. She was admitted to a local hospital where she was told she had had an “incomplete abortion” and that “the doctor had left parts of the baby inside” of her. At that point Acuna was horrified to realize her earlier decision to terminate her pregnancy meant not simply the removal of “blood” but the destruction of a real human being.
While expressing sympathy for the “deep pain” the plaintiff was enduring because of the abortion, the justices said informed consent extends only to doctors providing “their pregnant patients seeking an abortion only with material medical information, including gestational state and medical risks involved in the procedure.”
In essence the court held that while a physician has an obligation to inform a patient about the known (agreed-upon) risks from a particular medical procedure or drug regimen, that same doctor has no obligation to tell a person considering abortion that the “thing” that is to be aborted is a preborn human being, in this case a baby with a beating heart and a functioning brain. The court’s reasoning in this assertion is that there is a lack of agreement over the nature of the pregnancy itself within society.
In applauding the ruling the ACLU said the case was an “underhanded attempt to turn doctors into ideological mouthpieces and subject women to non-medical moral judgments.”
Why are pro-abortion groups afraid to let an unsuspecting woman know that the “thing” growing within her is a human life? Even with that information, under current law the woman would still have the “right” (wrong though it may be) to have that life flushed out of her system.
Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and other members of this cult of death don’t want women to know this is a human life we are talking about. It is not only a truth revealed in Scripture (Psalm 139; Jeremiah 1:5); it is a fact agreed upon by most in the medical community.
It is a fact that the plaintiff in this case consented in writing to this procedure. (Although it is her contention that she did not fully comprehend its ramifications.) It is difficult to fathom that any woman would not understand that what was growing within her is a child —particularly if this was the woman’s third child (as it was for Acuna).
Nonetheless, we cannot make such assumptions about the population.
That is why the paper cup you are handed at your local coffee shop has a warning imprinted upon it to tell you that the coffee in the cup is hot and may burn you if you pour it on yourself.
And it is why there is a label on hair dryers that warns that you if you want to dry your hair immediately after washing it you should step out of the shower spray before you take hold of the dryer.
This case rises to a much higher level because a human life faced immediate and deadly risk.
The ACLU said the court’s decision is a message that citizens of New Jersey will not “tolerate backdoor efforts to curtail reproductive rights or free speech.”
It is easy to perch haughtily on the right to freedom of speech embedded in our Constitution’s First Amendment, but is there not at least a moral obligation for that speech to be truthful and complete?
Should a patient not expect her physician to tell her everything about a pending medical procedure? The law, in fact, requires as much. Yet the law in New Jersey does not recognize the unborn child—the target of the abortion—as a patient (or a victim). So the doctor has no obligation to inform the baby’s legal guardian of the risks of the procedure.
While those who value human life—born and preborn—may be disgusted by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling, we should be more disgusted with a society that contends that an unborn human baby is just a mass of tissue until some subjective, magical time in-utero when the tissue is transformed into a human being.
We had a similar issue earlier in our nation’s history when we regarded the color of a person’s skin as a determinant of their value as a human being. African-Americans had been regarded “as beings of an inferior order” by U.S. Supreme Court justices writing in the Dred Scott decision.
We should be motivated by this decision (as well as many other similar decisions before it) to assist our citizenry in understanding when life begins and that, especially at two months of pregnancy, this baby is not simply a cluster of random cells. The baby not only had a heartbeat when the doctor performed the “incomplete abortion”—the baby had measurable brain waves, the legal definition of human life in most states.
We should also encourage Christian young people to pray about whether God might call them to ministries in medicine and the life sciences, so as to “season” the medical community with Truth.
We should ensure there is an amply funded pregnancy care center in every city and town across our nation and that every center has ultrasound equipment that allows women in crisis pregnancies to marvel at the life that God is growing within them. Women who see a sonogram of their unborn babies are five times less likely to snuff out their babies’ lives.
Finally we should, with all the earnestness and seriousness the Spirit will provide us, be “salt” and “light” in our families, churches, communities, and nation. It is not an option; the Gospel demands it, lives depend on it, and the survival of our civilization hangs in the balance.
The death cults abroad and at home must be confronted.
In a separate but similar case, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction of a South Dakota statute that would require doctors to disclose to an individual seeking an abortion that the procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” The court said the state’s requirement for the patients to be given particular “biological facts” as a precondition for informed consent “violated both the First Amendment rights of physicians and the due process rights of women seeking abortion.”
Further Learning
Learn more about: Life, Abortion, Citizenship, Christian Citizenship, Human Rights, Science, Bioethics
8 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Sep 19th, 2007, at 4:21pm, steve wrote:
It’s interesting that Dr Land should refer to Psalm 139 when discussing ‘cults of death’. Particularly when the author of this perverse piece of work states - “If only you would kill the wicked, O God!”. The author of this passage also demonstrates his total lack of credibility with respect to the abortion debate when he states - “my bones were not hidden from you, when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth” - ???.
It is, of course well known that Land’s other biblical reference Jeremiah 1:5 is often cited by his ilk to affirm a biblical affirmation of life in the womb - but what about a passage such as Leviticus 27:6 - “And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver”. Well there you have it - the bible states that a baby isn’t a real person until it’s a month old.
2 On Sep 19th, 2007, at 5:14pm, eric wrote:
“....is there not at least a moral obligation for that speech to be truthful and complete?”
Does the SBC provide a ‘complete’ view of ALL religions?
Does the SBC state that, to a majority of the world’s population, Christ is irrelevant, and may, indeed not exist?
Does the SBC offer ‘truthful’ insight by using discredited scientific evidence in an attempt to deny the LBGT full equality in society?
Is there ‘complete’ honesty to claim protection under hate laws while seeking to deny the same protection to others?
Does ‘complete’ mean employing censors on their forum board to prevent opposing viewpoints?
Perhaps the SBC should do more beam-plucking throm their own eyes before worrying about the motes in others.
3 On Sep 19th, 2007, at 5:32pm, Matt Hawkins wrote:
Eric, you mentioned,
I suppose the ERLC could just turn off any comment feature entirely. Would you prefer that? Considering they pay the bill for hosting, and offer the comments feature for free, you’d think even those who oppose the ERLC’s positions would be a little more respectful and gracious in their attitude and communication.
Considering that your above post has nothing to do with the above article, the ERLC seems to be fairly accommodating to opposing comments.
4 On Sep 20th, 2007, at 4:49pm, eric wrote:
Hi, Matt; Do you no longer state that, as an employee of ERLC, you are paid to spin discussions and censor posts?
My post QUOTED the article, and pointed out that, once again, the ERLC falls woefully short in practice of the standards it would impose on others. [in this case,"a moral obligation for that speech to be truthful and complete”]
I note that you answered NONE of my questions, but attacked my demeanor. Gracious??
5 On Sep 22nd, 2007, at 8:37am, John wrote:
The pro abortion lobby is definitely an evil organization. Also, the SBC does not have to give you a complete view of other religions, you can look that up yourself. You make ridiculous statements in a lame attempt to counter an article on a truly horrendous situation, “doctors” killing babies.
6 On Sep 24th, 2007, at 1:45pm, eric wrote:
John:
You consider abortion to be an “horrendous situation”. Such is your right.
I consider someone’s attempt to interfere in the private affairs of someone else horrendous.
If you don’t approve of abortion, don’t have one. If you disapprove of gay marriage, don’t have one. If you think beer is evil, don’t have one. Nobody is attempting to control your life; reciprocal respect would be appropriate.
Would you care to expand on the basis for your ‘lame’ remark, or was it just a lame remark?
7 On Oct 7th, 2007, at 11:03am, jim wrote:
Right John. You have such well formed opinions. Let’s continue. If you dont approve of murder don’t murder. If you don’t approve of slavery don’t own them. If you don’t approve of bank robery don’t rob them. If you don’t approve of bigomy dont have two wives. However you should not interfere with me if I want to do these things.
You are so wise. Fortunately our founding fathers didn’t have access to your vast “up to date” wisdom?
8 On Oct 17th, 2007, at 8:15pm, Greg A wrote:
I am very familiar with Islam having been an evangelical missionary among them for the last decade.
Yes, I agree there is a death cult among them—especially with the extremists but also with the larger population who morally support support suicide attackers as martyrs.
However, we Americans have to remove the beam from our own eye in regards to loving death.
We, as a nation, have built the most horrific killing tools in the history of humankind. Our military spending is a national priority above everything else.
So, before we finger-point too much at Muslims for loving death, we need to take a long hard—repentant—look at our own militancy.