Your brain, which is forever trying to make sense of the world by filtering you senses through your memories and experiences, is momentarily confused. The magician used a technique called "misdirection" to distract you, basically tricking your brain to pay attention to the wrong thing.
People use the same trick in politics to convince you that something is true when it's not. Like the magician, these people are tricking you on purpose and they're often very skilled. If you're not extremely careful, you might think the quarter really did disappear. When watching a politician, or a magician for that matter, you should question everything you see or hear because it just might be a trick.
But I didn't intend to write about magicians or misdirection today. Today's post is serious. It's about abortion, a controversial issue that most people don't really understand.
Some of my friends tell me the issue has been settled by a Supreme Court case, Roe v Wade, which made abortion legal back in January 1973. The case wasn't even close, they tell me. It was 7-2 in favor of legal abortion.
Some of my friends tell me the court got it wrong. Abortion is the murder of an unborn human child. Since killing is more wrong than denying someone their right to privacy, abortion should be illegal.
Actually, Roe v Wade does suggest that some abortions are murder. The tipping point is something called viability, which is where the art of misdirection can be applied. At what point does mommy's egg and daddy's sperm turn into a human being who is CAPABLE of continued life outside of mommy's tummy? (By the way, I defy the gay marriage supporters to prove that a baby can be made by anything other than one man and one woman. But that's another blog post, I guess.)
Most of my friends don't know this, but Jane Roe was a fake name, like John Doe. The real person involved was a redhead named Norma Leah McCorvey, and her life story is pretty tragic. She was born in 1947 in Louisiana and moved to Houston at a very early age and raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Her father took off when she was too young to know what was going on. Her mom, Mildred Nelson, was a violent drunk. But wait, it gets worse.
Norma dropped out of school when she was 14. Despite the fact that she was sexually attracted to other women, she married a guy named Woody McCorvey when she was 16. She got pregnant two years later and decided to split up with Woody. She gave birth to her daughter Melissa.
Apparently, she was still sexually active, maybe even with Woody, and got pregnant again. She gave birth to another daughter, Paige, and gave that child up for adoption. Then Norma moved back in with her mother. When Norma told her mother she was gay, Her mother disowned Norma and kicked her out of the house, taking custody of her granddaughter Melissa.
Norma went to live with her father and took some low paying jobs to support herself. Apparently, she wasn't as gay as she thought, since she managed to get pregnant a third time in 1969. Unemployed and depressed, her friends advised her to move to Dallas and claim she was raped. Under Texas law at the time, you could get a legal abortion if you got pregnant after being raped. There was just one little problem with Norma's plan. She couldn't prove she was raped. There was no police documentation or evidence, so her appeal for an abortion was denied.
She tried to get an illegal abortion, but the clinics she'd planned to use were shut down by the authorities. She ended up being referred to a couple of lawyers named Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington. According to Norma, these were activist lawyers who were searching for a case they could use to overturn the anti-abortion laws. It took three years, but they finally managed to get the case up to the Federal Supreme Court where they prevailed by a 7-2 decision. During the proceedings, Norma gave birth to her third daughter, Mariah, who was also given up for adoption.
Many of my friends see Norma (who they call Roe) as the Rosa Parks of the pro-choice movement. Actually, the story is much more complicated than they think. Norma was confronted by a pro-life activist minister named Philip "Flip" Benham. It made her think about what she'd done, and it made her confused and depressed.
She stayed in Dallas living with Connie Gonzales for many years. She became a pro-life activist. She fell into deep depression and ended up abusing drugs and even trying to commit suicide. At one point, Jesus took the wheel and Norma's life got turned around. Norma ended up getting baptized in a swimming pool on television.
Norma published her autobiography, I Am Roe, in 1994. She published her second book called Won By Love in 1998. She was received into the Catholic church. She announced that she was no longer a lesbian.
Did you know any of this? You should read her books! Not shocked enough yet? Let me continue.
In 2005, Norma asked the Supreme Court to review Roe v Wade in a case called McCorvey v Hill. She wanted to present new evidence to prove that abortion harms women. Her petition was denied.
Norma has now endorsed Republican Ron Paul in his race to become president in 2012, saying, "I support Ron Paul for President because we share the same goal, that of overturning Roe v Wade. He has never wavered on the issue of being pro-life and has a voting record to prove it. He understands the importance of civil liberties for all, including the unborn."
Norma participated in a pro-life demonstration at the University of Notre Dame on May 17, 2009 before President Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver a commencement address to the graduating class. His invitation to speak at this Catholic school raised a lot of controversy, given his pro-abortion stance.
Norma got arrested on the first day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor after she joined another protester who was yelling at Senator Al Franken during his opening address.
You'll even get a chance to see Norma in a movie called Doonby that is scheduled for release this month. It's been called It's A Wonderful Life without the Wonderful part. I intend to see it.
When I explain all this to my pro-choice friends, many of them are shocked to learn that Roe never actually had an abortion. I'm always surprised by the number of people I meet who don't know the story behind Roe v Wade.
But I wanted to talk about viability. That, I believe, is the key ingredient in the controversy. The exact date when a fertilized egg turns into a person cannot be determined. The fact is, this is different for every fertilized egg. Based on observations and such, it was determined that a baby becomes viable an AVERAGE of seven months into the pregnancy.
But this is just an average. A baby has a 50% chance of survival, on average, after only 24 weeks.
My pro-life friends tell me that this doesn't matter. Only God can make a baby, and it is a living thing right from the start. Science has done some amazing things. We can fertilize an egg in a test tube, but it has to be planted back inside a mom in order to grow into a baby. We cannot create a human being from just an egg and a sperm, at least not yet.
So the question becomes, is it murder to kill ANY living thing, or only a human being?
Personally, I'm in favor of abortion, provided the unborn child waives his or her right to live. Seriously, since you can't know for sure when viability occurs, any abortion can result in the death of a viable human being. That would be murder, and that would be illegal despite Roe v Wade. If you know with absolute certainty that the fertilized egg has not become a viable human being yet, then abortion would simply be the termination of a non-human life, albeit a life that most likely would have become a viable human being at some point if not aborted.
You can't have it both ways, by the way. When someone murders a woman who is found to be pregnant, her attacker is usually charged with two murders, one for the mother and one for her unborn child. If killing her resulted in the death of two human beings, and these cases have been won and have, therefore, set precedents, then ANY fertilized egg must be considered viable. Again, since we don't know for sure when viability occurs, we are left to assume that this particular mother, this victim of a horrible crime, would not have aborted her child and would, therefore, have given birth to a brand new human being. The murder did take two lives. One was certainly a human being, while the other may have been, but almost certainly would have been. Still with me?
I'm easily surprised these days, I guess. But I'm still amazed at the number of people who think Roe v Wade was all about preventing kids from being raised by parents who can't take care of them. It had nothing to do with that, even though from what you now know about Norma, her baby would probably have been in that category, at least for awhile. In fact, Norma admits it. Norma now has a good relationship with her daughter Melissa, who has blessed her with two granddaughters.
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| Norma McCorvey |
References:
Robin Acton - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 01-20-2008
Cornell University Syllabus - Roe v Wade Supreme Court Case
Roe v Wade - Wikipedia Article
Norma L. McCorvey Wikipedia Article
Flip Benham Wikipedia Article
Operation Save America Wikipedia Article
Operation Save America Published Statement
Purchase I Am Roe by Norma McCorvey on Amazon.com
Purchase Won By Love by Norma McCorvey on Amazon.com
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