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[Sitting down, shirt and tie, Crucifix and www.proviequebec.ca banner in background.]
Why I am pro-life, in a dozen minutes.
What is the current legal situation in Canada? Here is a question for you:
[Gestures with right hand mimicking the live baby, with right thumb inside left hand imitating a birth canal]
imagine a baby girl, breathing and kicking, but her left foot is still inside the mother's birth canal. According to you, is that baby girl a human person? Yes, right? But according to the Supreme Court of Canada, you're wrong!
Currently, in Canada, anybody can kill any child for any reason, from conception until the last part of the baby comes out (excluding the umbilical cord and the placenta). In Canada, pigeons, racoons and pigs have more legal protection than a baby inside a mother's womb.
What is important in a society? Well-paved roads? Yes! A prosperous economy? Sure! An unpolluted environment? Of course! But if you had to choose between those things, and human rights, which would you take? Human rights of course!
Now among human rights, which one is most important? The right to a decent salary? The right to a good education? The right to freedom of speech? Or the right to life? How can you be well-fed, well-educated and free to speak, if you're dead?
[Gestures with finger going down two levels.]
That is why the abortion issue is not fundamental, it is fundamentally fundamental.
Pro-lifers are the target of many lies. Some claim we're violent, because every ten years or so, some mentally-deranged person, claiming to be pro-life, kills an abortionist. This is a lie, first because a violent pro-lifer is a contradiction in terms. Indeed,
[Points to Crucifix in background]
the true leader of pro-lifers is also the most non-violent activist in History, and He teaches: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you" [Lc 6:27-28]. Second, don't believe me! Come to our Life Chain this year,
[Pretends to hold a sign]
come and pretend you're a pro-lifer for one hour. You'll see which side prays silently and peacefully, and which side insults, intimidates and threatens.
A second lie is that pro-lifers want to impose their irrational religious beliefs on everybody. Sorry, but to believe that lie, you first have to forget that
[Gestures of both hands one on top of the other, with intersection]
some teachings of the Bible are knowable both by Faith and by Reason. Abortion is condemned by Natural Law, and Natural Law is knowable by both Faith and Reason. Second, don't take my word for it!
[Points to banner in background]
Participate in our Electronic Debate On Abortion! The first one who invokes a religious belief loses!
A third common lie against pro-lifers is that we don't care if a woman dies. Sorry, but to believe that lie, you first have to forget that if the mother dies, so does the child! We are in favor of life,
[Gestures with number one and number two with fingers]
so when one life is in danger, we want to save one life, and when two lives are in danger, we want to save two lives!
Do you like magic tricks?
[Gestures with yellow pencil as a magic wand]
Would you like me to show you how to instantly transform any pro-lifer into a pro-choicer, or vice-versa?
Imagine I needed to go to the hospital to have my infected appendix removed, but that "appendix pro-lifers" tried to block my path, while holding signs saying things like: "Appendectomy is Murder!" I would be angry, and very worried too! If I delayed my appendectomy, I would risk dying from peritonitis! I would consider these "appendix pro-lifers" to be irrational and violent, since it's my body, and I have the right to a surgical operation that will save my life!
In other words, if the "thingamajig" inside a pregnant woman's belly is like an infected appendix, or a tonsil, or a tooth with a cavity,
[Gestures with pen as a magic wand]
then POOF! I become totally pro-choice, and God bless all abortionists!
Now imagine the completely opposite situation. Imagine a mother, with her two young children, a little 2 year-old girl and a young 5 year-old boy. Imagine if this woman screamed out: "I will have the children that I want, when I want! And today, I don't want any children!"
[Pretends to slit throat with finger held like knife]
Then this mother would grab a kitchen knife and gets ready to slit the throats of her two kids. Would you "respect the choice" of this woman?
[Grabs left wrist with right hand]
If a policeman grabbed this mother's wrist and prevented her from killing her two children, would you say this policeman is "violent", or would you give him a medal? If the Government proudly announced that it was going to supply sterilized kitchen knives to such mothers, so they wouldn't catch an infection while slitting the throats of their children, would you re-elect that Government, or would you start protesting in the streets?
In other words, if the "thingamajig" inside a pregnant woman's belly is a real human person,
[Gestures with pen as a magic wand]
then POOF! pro-choicers start to think and talk exactly like pro-lifers!
This is the heart of the debate: What exactly is killed by an abortion?
Pro-choicers often make three claims concerning what is inside a pregnant woman. First, pro-choicers often claim it's a part of the woman's body. But how do we know if something is part of a woman's body? Three clues: (1) each cell has the same genetic code; (2) the same blood circulates everywhere; (3) each component collaborates for the same end (keeping this woman alive).
What about the "thingamajig" inside the pregnant woman's belly? (1) The genetic code isn't the same (it's a mix between the father's and the mother's); (2) the same blood doesn't circulate (the placenta establishes a barrier between the two, and often the baby's blood group is incompatible with the mother's); (3) the components have different ends (what grows inside the uterus doesn't become a kidney or a lung of the mother, but a baby). Whatever is inside that pregnant woman, it's not a piece of her body. If a biologist said the contrary, he would be ridiculed by the entire scientific community.
The second claim we often hear is that the "thingamajig" inside the pregnant woman doesn't yet have the complexity required to be a human person. Really?
[Gestures of putting a bit of powder and closing a garage door]
Imagine if you could take a totally empty garage, put a bit of magic powder on the floor, then close the door.
[Picks these objects out of a blue bin, and throws them behind, like Muppet Show Swedish Chef.]
Then, every so often, you'd open the garage door a little bit, and slide a recycling bin underneath, filled with elastics (for the rubber), bottle caps (for the plastic), and empty tin cans (for the metal).
[Gestures of opening the door]
Then, after nine months, you'd open wide the garage door and you'd find a brand new Ferrari sports car! Wow! Incredible!
Now what about the "thingamajig" inside a pregnant woman?
[Pretends to inject strange liquid with syringe]
Do we have to inject some complexity after three or six months of pregnancy? The miracle of life is so common that we tend to forget just how amazing it really is!
The third claim often made by pro-choicers is that the "thingamajig" inside the pregnant woman could not possibly be a human person. This leads us to a very important question: what is a human person? If a human person was just a bunch of molecules, yes, there would be nothing wrong with abortion! If we were purely material beings, then what would murder be? Just re-arranging molecules! If we were purely material beings, what would rape be? Just shaking some molecules! If we were purely material beings, there would be no essential difference between racoons, pigeons, pigs, and us!
One of the ironies in the abortion debate is that pro-choice feminists often accuse the Church of saying that women don't have a spiritual soul. Except it's the exact contrary! It's the pro-choice feminists who often imply that human persons are purely material beings!
But do human persons have a spiritual soul? Yes, and this can be scientifically proven. Even Aristotles, the inventor of biology who lived centuries before Jesus Christ, observed that pure matter cannot be self-aware or have free-will. What, you disagree?
[Points to the www.proviequebec.ca banner in the background]
Did I mention our Electronic Debate On Abortion? You're more than welcome to participate!
To conclude, a word on censorship. The reason abortion is so pervasive in Canada is that most of the media and politicians constantly censor this topic. There never has been a public and official debate on abortion in Canada, and yet bad politicians (like Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party of Canada) repeat lies such as: "We don't want to re-open the debate on abortion". It cannot be re-opened, Mr. Harper, since it was never opened in the first place!
Don't take my word for it. Go search for such a debate. But remember, a real debate has some essential components. First, it needs to be documented. (In other words, can you find transcripts or tapes of such a debate?) Second, it needs to be somewhat "official". (In other words, an argument on abortion between you and your kid sister doesn't count.) Third, an effort has to have been made to extract all common ground between the two parties, before the actual debate begins. This third essential component is worth a longer explanation.
For a real debate to be possible,
[Gestures with two hand puppets representing each side]
each side has to first search the other side to find things it agrees with.
[Right hand points to part of left forearm, pretends to pull out a little piece, and puts it in the middle between the two opponents]
"Look, what you said here, I agree with."
[Same gesture, but left hand with right forearm]
"Oh, and what you say here, I agree with too."
[Lowers both hands in steps, as if the supporting forearms had slices removed from them from the bottom]
When each side makes such an effort, the quantity of disagreement is reduced . This doesn't eliminate the disagreement, but it at least isolates what both parties disagree on.
I've looked for such a debate, and I've never found one. Part of the reason is the censorship by the pro-choice media and politicians. Canadians need to reject this censorship. Pretending the problem doesn't exist only makes it worse.
Thank you for your attention, and God bless you.
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