Todd Unctuous on Abortion

Last updated on: June 26, 2010 at 7:08 pm by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Todd Unctuous on Abortion 2010-06-26T19:08:00-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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Guest blogger Todd Unctuous is top commentator for MSM. With a degree in Media Studies from Scranton Community College, Todd writes for many papers and websites, and is known for his incisive writing, objective reporting and razor sharp comment.

Once again the scientific community have stepped forward bravely to boldly go forward with facts in the face of blind emotionalism. I am referring to this report by British medical scientists that a fetus cannot feel pain before 24 weeks of gestation. Some anti-choice campaigners have observed that some premature infants who survive as early as 21 weeks gestation seem to be conscious enough to feel pain, and they have drawn the totally erroneous conclusion that the fetus in the womb, who at that stage is nothing more than a mass of cells, can also feel pain. This is ludicrous, and the British scientists have now proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the fetal matter of just twenty four weeks’ gestation cannot feel pain because it is unconscious and sedated by chemicals in the mother’s womb. Therefore they do not see any reason why the law allowing a pregnancy to be terminated up to twenty four weeks should be changed.

This ground breaking report changes everything in the often heated abortion debate. Those emotionally unstable people who would deny a woman the freedom of choice are fond of showing gruesome photographs of fetal remains. This sort of emotionalism simply doesn’t work. No one is affected by those pictures which have clearly been doctored by photoshop. Then there is the video called ‘The Silent Scream’. Can there be anything which is more emotionally motivated and designed to make a poor woman who needs medical help feel guilty? I have researched this issue and the anti choice people say the fetal matter at eleven weeks appears to be human and has all its bodily functions and can wave its hand. They even go so far as to show an eleven week old group of cells pushing away the tools that the medical doctor uses to terminate it’s life, errm I mean the pregnancy.

Thankfully this kind of emotional scare mongering is a thing of the past and modern medical scientists in Britain have done all women a great service by determining that the twenty four week old collection of fetal cells cannot possibly feel pain. All people of common sense know this to be true. However, I have been thinking further about this and have come to the realization that this really closes the whole debate about abortion completely. Clearly if the fetus does not feel pain then abortion cannot be ‘wrong’ as the anti choice people would like us to believe.

These issues require us to think things through carefully, and I remember in my introduction to psychology class at Scranton Community College that we discussed the difficulties of making moral decisions. Several principles which are rock solid were explained. First, we must decide moral decisions on the circumstances of the people involved and we must always try to be compassionate. Clearly a thing is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ depending on whether it brings pleasure or pain. Therefore if the fetal matter does not feel pain, then abortion cannot possibly be wrong. The third principle for making a moral choice is that religious emotions should not enter into it. As the legendary folk singer and philosopher John Lennon observed before he was slain, “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for. No religion too.” If people would remember these rather simple principles they would not get so confused by their emotions in this matter.

Happily the number of late term abortions are falling and we know that no one really likes abortion, and we wish there did not have to be any at all because we all know deep down that there is such a thing as good and evil, but we also know that difficult choices have to be made sometimes. I am not myself a religious man, and I respect all those like Tom Cruise and Vice President Biden who have strong religious principles. However they too have come to the conclusion that when a difficult choice has to be made the woman has to have the freedom to make that choice. It is not easy to choose for a termination, but our sympathy needs to be with the woman who makes this tough call, and not for a collection of cells that cannot feel anything.

Todd Unctuous is forty two. For more information on Todd go here.

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