Guest Essay by Alan M. Simon

Make a zygote and call it a life.  Eat eggs for breakfast.  “Those are my babies. I had to keep them.” Nadia exclaims with moral self-righteousness on the news. Do not destroy the zygote at any cost.  It’s what God wants.  Through the advanced technology of medicine, with the work of forty-six doctors and countless nurses and technicians, eight, one-and-a-half pound beings enter the world as celebrities.

The Right to Life crowd sings praises for God’s tiny miracles (of modern science) but then, as the story unfolds, blogs are ablaze with strafing criticism and promises to forego financial support.  Grandma, at a loss as to what to do, flees her own home to escape the 14 science experiments Nadia cooked up. Nadya will tell you her parents were definitely lacking. She will be a MUCH better parent. She studied child development in college. With 6 already, she had 8 more babies all at once anyway.  Did Nadya use taxpayer money? People are outraged! Nadya must pay for what she has done!  Don’t expect a nickel from us!  Shame on Her! But how do you get from a zygote is a human life with all the rights attached, to complete lack of support after birth?  It’ll be ok.  Movie and book deals are in the works. The market decides.  All she needs now is good lawyers.  Oh. Right.

The hypocrisy involved at all levels of this debate is staggering.  Time to pray, since reason is not involved.  Fourteen children under the age of 7, a single mother who says she wants to breastfeed the newest 8,“I’ll stop my life for them.” As if having eight babies at once WOULDN’T stop your life?  What about the first six?   Dad was a needle and the bed was a petri dish. The biological father “needs time” to adjust to the scale of his brood. Fame and fortune abound for those who seek it, but most will agree it’s wrong to have babies for those reasons. It’s also wrong to prevent women from choosing abortion for the right reasons. The degradation of actual life at the expense of possible life, in the name of fame, or naming a zygote a human being in the name of morality, is immoral in itself.  It allows for embryos destined for the trash to receive support where people needing cures for injury or illness do not. Mental illness, abuse, neglect, poverty, slavery, famine, war, and genocide; life is precious but not always good.  Hopelessness abounds for millions of people.  Don’t worry.  People in government are working very hard to make sure your tax dollars are not spent on these problems. The irony is, they are also working very hard to make sure we create more of these problems, eight at a time if possible.  Every zygote is a human being with all the rights of you and me.

When stressed by the environment, female animals sometimes kill their young to procure their own survival.  They do so without thought but through the instinct for self-preservation.  It’s just part of being female.  Humans differ only in that our cerebral cortexes allow us to debate the act.  Those who seek to legislate to exclude the individual from determining her own ability to give life to another individual, and provide for the survival of that life, tread too close to personal space and obstruct her ability to procure her own survival. Offering a life not of choice, but of consequence.   Mostly these are not immaculate conceptions, like Nadya’s, yet we rush to place shame, blame and punishment squarely on women and “precious” children by refusing support once they are actually born. Suffering mothers and children in dismal lives don’t generally get book and movie deals.  We prefer the bizarre and infamous. God bless America.  Ah well, time for breakfast.  Don’t even get me started on the ethical treatment of hens.

“These anti-democratic forces will use fear, chaos and hatred…” Chris Hedges

“At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or the possibility of totalitarianism as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. This is the bleak future. This is reality.” 

…

“There are powerful corporate entities, fearful of losing their influence and wealth, arrayed against us.  They are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control. The tools are in place. These antidemocratic forces, which will seek to make an alliance with the Christian Right and other extremists, will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites, and the specter of left-wing dissent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to extinguish our democracy. And while they do it, they will be waving the American flag, chanting patriotic slogans, promising law and order, and clutching the Christian cross. By then, exhausted and broken, we may have lost the power to resist.” Pp 189

Hedges, Christopher: Empire Of Illusion (New York: Nation Books 2009) pp 145, pp 189

“HOW SHOULD WE JUDGE THE POTPOURRI OF XENOPHOBIC, RACIST, AND HYPERNATIONALIST MOVEMENTS NOW IN THE NEWS?” William Brustein

“Could another racist, xenophobic party come to power today? The logic of the argument presented here leads me to answer yes: evil may be the horrifying outcome of rational politics. If average Germans had known in 1932 what they new in 1945 about the consequences, of Nazism, the Nazi Party would never have attracted a mass following. The Nazi Party skillfully cloaked its aims until it had achieved power. Many present and future demagogues may similarly masque their message of hate. It is unlikely that we can always detect evil before it reveals itself. How should we judge the potpourri of xenophobic, racist, and hypernationalist movements and parties that are now in the news?”

William Brustein, The Social Origins Of The Nazi Party, 1925-1933 (Yale University: New Haven 1996) pp 182

“These Clothes Were Both Splendid And Invisible:” Eric Hobsbawm

“As always, it was not the sophisticated intelligences which were prepared to recognize that the emperor wore no clothes; they spent their time inventing theories to explain why these clothes were both splendid and invisible.”

Eric Hobsbawm: The Age Of Empire. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London: 1987. Pp 250

Long Submission to Despots: Johann Gottfried Herder

“Everywhere human beings are what they have made of themselves, what they had the power and the desire to become. …Long submission to despotism… was not established by the might of the despots. The easy, trusting weakness of the subjects and, later, their patient indolence were its strong and only supports. For it is, of course, easier to bear with patience than to act with vigor.”

Johann Gotfried Herder: Against Pure Reason. Translated and Edited by Marcia Bunge. Wipf and Sone, Eugene Oregon: 1993. pp. 57.

If You Want A Picture Of The Future: George Orwell

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever.

Do you begin to see then, what kind of a world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement. Everything else we will destroy- everything.”

George Orwell- 1984 (Provide Complete Citation)