“Ok...but just for the record...I AM human from the get go.”
“Sure. Whatever. So first, I know you don’t usually have the opportunity to speak.”
“No. Mostly I just swim around in here, invisible to most folks. But I am here. Growing fast too. Millions of cells a day.”
“That’s remarkable. So let’s get going, so you can get back to growing.”
“That’s a good one!”
“So Fetus...you don’t mind if I call you Fetus, do you?”
“Not at all. It is just Latin for ‘little one’. I AM little. But man, am I amazing or what? Like within just 17 days of conception my little heart is beating like a metronome!”
“Right. But it’s not like you have a brain or anything.”
“Well, actually I do. And brain waves are detectable at the end of 6 weeks. For such a little tyke it is hard to believe all that is packed into each centimeter. I mean I have all my organs in place, respond to touch, and even have completely unique fingerprints, all by eight weeks.”
“Well not completely unique fingerprints...I mean what if you are an identical twin?”
“I kinda wish I were...it is a little lonely in here at times. But even if I had an identical twin, he would have different fingerprints from me.”
“What???NO way. You share the same DNA. That’s impossible. How can that be?”
“Beats me. Ask God.”
“Well...uh...Fetus, let’s get right to it. If you could speak to the world, what would you say?”
“I’m glad you asked. I hear sounds at 18 weeks, and I can tell you, what I am hearing rocks my womb. I am sure it is just that my hearing isn’t yet super acute but I hear my own mom talking about sucking me out of her piece by piece. And as if that is not bad enough, I hear people telling her it is her choice since it is her body. Like, hello!!!”
“Well Fetus, surely you do understand that you are freeloading off of her...like a leech...for 9 months. She has the right to determine who resides in her body or not.”
“Is there a question in there for me?”
“Er...yes. Doesn’t your mother have the right to determine what happens with her own body?”
“Well, let me answer that with asking you a question. Can she guzzle a quart of whiskey and then get in a car and drive down the busy highway?”
“No...not legally.”
“OK, and how about morally?”
“Well no. Not legally or morally.”
“Why not?”
“She’d be drunk as a skunk and endanger others.”
“So the rights to what she does with her own body are limited by the needs of others...by the rights of others.”
“Look Fetus, I know where you are going with this, but you are not an ‘other.’ You are a fetus.”
“Which means little one. I am a little other. Fetus is Latin for offspring, child.”
“Regardless, you have no rights till you are born.”
“How about the second before I am born? An hour before? A day before? What changed in me, fundamentally changed in me, that suddenly produced that right?”
“Taking a breath of air on your own.”
“So someone on a ventilator is no longer a human being with the right to life?”
“That’s different.”
“Where do your rights come from, Newspaper? You don’t mind if I call you Newspaper, do you?”
“Well...I guess not, but my name is Tom.”
“OK Tom. And God says before one day of mine came to be, He called me by name.”
“How do you know?”
“We fetuses have our sources, just like you newsboys. The Bible also says: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. That’s pretty amazing evidence that God cares about me and knows me, and named me even while I was still ‘leeching’ off my mom. God also says this in the book of Isaiah: The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. So if God formed me, knew me, consecrated me, appointed me to my life’s calling, and named me in the womb....do you think He wanted me to be regarded as a freeloader, a leech, with no more rights than your appendix?”
“Well I don’t believe in God so your argument holds no water with me.”
“I don’t believe in gravity, yet its effects are everywhere. We can’t see it, and we have trouble defining it...but it clearly exists whether I believe in it or not. But OK, let’s leave God out of it, as if we could. Go back to my question. Where do your rights come from?”
“Which rights?”
“I’ll keep it simple, Tom. The right to life. Who gave you that right?”
“Government.”
“Not according to our founding documents. The right to life is upheld by the government, and in fact, one of the most basic duties of government is to protect our right to life. But the right to life is fundamental, intrinsic, and according to our Declaration of Independence, inalienable. That means cannot be taken away. The government does not grant this right and cannot take it away. So who DID grant you the right to life?”
“I will ask the questions, Fetus.”
“Fine. I hear other voices...maybe Mommy is changing her mind about this sucking my little body limb by limb to be tossed into the trash! Hey Tom, here is what I would like to say since you have a voice that can be heard outside the womb! Mommy, mommy, I hear your heart and I love and know you already. Please, love me too. Don’t take away my first breath, my first step, my first bicycle ride, my first view of the clouds and the flowers and the rainbow...Mommy, please. I want to live.”
“Sorry Fetus, we are out of time for this interview.”
Sucking noise. Unbearable pain. Silence.
***************
My prayer for the coming year is that every heart would be changed to regard the precious, sacred nature of every human being, born and unborn.
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