Debate Reigns - Sorta

Okay so my essay in debate against the illustrious (and allusive) Debussey is complete. It looks a little bit like this, do read on and let me know what you think:

What would you say is the most important and basic human right?

Perhaps when I mention such a phrase, the first thing that comes into your mind are liberties we use at a whim in our daily lives such as; freedom of speech, the ability to worship any deity we please, the right to choose employer, education, taxation affairs or possibly even the prerogative to bear arms.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these are important characteristics of the modern social-democratic state that most of us have the privilege of residing within. And yet, none of the ‘rights’ I’ve mentioned above is the most critical. Remove any one of the above and you’ll find yourself that much less free. Remove the most important and basic human right; and you’ll find yourself free of freedom. There is a distinction.

And yet, this is the one autonomy that tends to get lost first in any argument over whom should receive what treatment and why. Specifically, the Left has historically been a foremost advocate of everything from Women’s rights to those of blacks, gays and now, more so than ever, endangered animals. The first three of these I have all the patience in the world for, and number four isn’t all that far behind; I like my Polar Bears wearing the terrain, not being worn for it.

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, it’s pretty simple really – simply a very complex moral/religious/political issue. The Left has clearly lost in sense of what is most important to it, and what is actually worth standing up for. We see this most explicitly in the Left’s recently acquired admiration for far-Right religo-maniacal Islamists. An odd combination indeed - and one that probably exceeds the scope of this argument – but it’s worth noting anyway. If the Left can distort what were once noble views of the world and very worthwhile causes into today’s support of Muslim clerics to hold the Western world to ransom at the drop of the proverbial Danish cartoon, then what other moral travesties are they capable of?

Abortion comes to mind. At the mere mention of this word you can drag even the most committed Leftist’s correlated opinions to religious-Right Imams back to the polar opposite of the religious-Right Priest’s. Why is this? What in this world could possibly be more fragile, precious and therefore worthy of the Left’s metaphorical protective wing than a human baby, not yet born to be seen - and therefore within our collective minds - so it would seem. Surely, if there’s any cause worth championing by the Left, it’s the cause of the human child that is yet to have been given the gift of life as we all know it; post-womb.

Only last month, in India, it was reported 437 baby bones were uncovered in central Madhya Pradesh state, where abortions had been carried out illegally by mothers with unwanted female children. It’s an odd accumulation of Western science and archaic Indian tribalism that has caused this to happen; how else would the mothers have known their child was to be female?

And still, a technological progression is not akin to a cultural and moral one. Methods developed to save and nurture lives are now turned in against oneself, in preference of the mother’s choice. Which is, of course, that trumpeted ‘human right’ the Left champions today more than almost anything. I’m still waiting on the global protests that will no-doubt choke our city streets in revulsion of our despicable treatment of Guantanamo Bay inmates, erm, rather - these reproachable human rights violations.

But in all truth, you need not look as far away as India to establish an abortion epidemic, even if by some reports 10 million babies have lost the opportunity at life in the last 20 years. The US and indeed Australia have some astronomical abortion figures in the same period of time. I’d like to make it perfectly clear that my ideological position is not 100% anti-abortion. Some are completely necessary and tragic in their occurrence. In a perfect world, we’d never have to make choices over whose life we should sacrifice.

My abortion stance, what I’d like to consider it to be anyway, is more central than to be involved in a laissez-faire ‘Women’s rights’ Leftist pro-choice disposition. It’s also too Agnostic to buy into the religious-Right’s pro-life stance; within which all abortions are prohibited. I must point out, however, that the Catholic Church’s position on this matter is that man and woman should not engage in pre-marital sex, and therefore would avoid such a dilemma before they were capable of raising a child.

For those of us that are not Catholic, and do not uphold the world of the Bible, the realities of a world where young women become pregnant before they’re prepared for such a challenge is evident. I cannot help but support a raped woman’s prerogative to abort should she be so unfortunate as to find herself in this predicament.

What concerns me most about this abortion issue are matters that involve a child that is more developed; that has spent enough time in the womb to allow it life outside. I cannot find myself in support of the majority of late-term abortions. Where I live in Victoria, Australia, some women have (I must point out, legally), chosen to terminate the lives of their growing babies for the most trivial of reasons:

"In 2000, a prominent Melbourne specialist performed an abortion on a healthy 32-week-old fetus, a girl, after her deeply distressed mother threatened to kill herself if made to give birth to a baby so imperfect.

The mother believed from ultrasound tests that her baby, Jessica, could be a dwarf. But the tests were in fact inconclusive and the staff notes written immediately after the baby had been killed in the womb and still-born at the Royal Women's Hospital state: "On delivery, the baby doesn't look small." It seems possible, and perhaps even likely, that the baby had no "defects", after all."

So that you’re aware, a 32-week old foetus looks like this:

Or not much unlike what you’d expect a baby outside of the womb to appear like. One has to question the processes a mother that has threatened to kill herself, unless her baby is terminated, is taken through.

These cases, and those like it, seem to be quite infrequent in number – even if they happen far more often than we’d like to think – or talk about, for that matter.
On the contrary, an unwanted child that is merely an assortment of cells made up from the appropriate male and female DNA some hours old is not quite the same as ‘Jessica’. In this instance, I can see myself supporting a couple’s decision to take measures ensuring an unwanted baby does not begin to grow.

Destroying a child’s life out of a matter of convenience is, however, mostly a procedure I am morally opposed to. The question is, rather, at what point do we stop calling the biological material growing within a woman a ‘cluster of cells’ and begin labelling it a child? Surely in the ‘Jessica’s’ situation above, she was a child for all intents and purposes. A human being in wait; with all the necessary ingredients to be a post-womb baby with a chance at life.

Such a scenario denies someone their most valuable and basic human right; their right to life. If any cause was worth defending - by anyone - it would surely be the cause of a delicate, womb-encased baby, weeks away from being born into life as you or I see it.