Here is a real problem for the "pro-life" people out there. Why aren't you insisting on getting people to have abortions all the time? It seems to me that any Christian who is against abortion for any reason is simply unaware of the contradiction -- the massive hypocrisy -- of your position.
I'll explain. One day a couple of years ago, a Christian recruiter came to my door. He started telling me how I could be sure of getting to heaven, and I guess that was OK. After all, I'm not a fetus any more and he thought I needed his help. But I had to ask him what he thought about abortion.
"It's a terrible sin!" was the immediate reply.
Apparently, he (along with most other Christians who think about this stuff) believes that when a sperm enters an egg, the resulting stem cell also immediately has a soul... whatever that is. So I had to ask my next question. It's rather hard to get someone to explain this stuff to me in any detail. What happens to the soul of a stem cell or fetus or embryo, if it is not born? I had to ask this, you see, because it's a pretty vital question. Far more fertilized eggs die than ever come to full term. Mostly for natural reasons, in spite of what the televangelists will tell you.
"They go to heaven," was his answer.
"Cool!" said I. "So aborting pregnancies means that all those children get to heaven. That's a pretty good thing, then!"
"No!"
"Why?"
Well, he really couldn't say. Sure, he tried. But the bottom line is that he had suddenly come face to face with his own hypocrisy.
"Well... the doctor is committing a terrible sin by murdering an innocent baby!"
"Oh," I said. "So your concern is for the soul of the doctor! You know, I never would have guessed it, considering how many doctors have been shot, bombed, harassed and hounded for their work. So all of that was to try and show them that they shouldn't send baby souls to heaven?"
"Uh..."
So it comes to this. This good Christian person was completely unaware that he wanted to keep souls from getting to heaven the easy way. How hard-hearted can a person get? It seems to me that the best route for any Christian person to take, assuming he believes that innocent baby souls go to heaven at death, is to start conceiving as many babies as possible, and making damn sure they are all aborted as soon as possible.
Or better yet, have all the eggs from the women in your church harvested, fertilize all of them in a petri dish and torch it! Why, heaven will be simply overrun with millions of saved souls! God will be so happy.
So what if doing so sends you to hell? You'd be sacrificing yourself so that a multitude could get to heaven because of your help. How noble would that be?
All right. Now back to planet Reality. There are several religions that have such logical nightmares living under the surface of their beliefs. All of you who think you have a link to some "higher authority" on morality might want to stop and ponder this puzzle. I know that it's pretty cool to think that morality is a matter of black and white, that there's always a RIGHT answer to a question. But you need to understand... you live in a world of grays. Something that is right for one person can kill another. That's the way life is in the real world.
You need to get used to it. Because it isn't going to go away and it won't change because you want it to, or because it makes you uncomfortable. Get a real life, get off your high horse of "absolute morality" and stop pestering people if they aren't harming you.
(c) 2005 J. Eric Harrington
