An Inconvenient Youth

So, as I’ve mentioned before, Cloud Ten is in pre-production on a ground-breaking new film project with a strong pro-life message. Obviously, with a topic like this one, as soon as I mention the word abortion – VOILA! An instant trigger of emotion, opinion and controversy.


Because I enjoy hearing both sides of such debates, I probably mention it more often than I should. One thing that jumped out at me was, as is often the case in these divisive issues, the simplicity of the justifications I heard for the pro-abortion sympathizers. Two catch phrases came out within the first ten words nine times out of ten: choice and rape. Let me talk about choice first. Obviously this is the official buzzword of the pro-abortion camp.


After all, pro-abortion, pro-death, anti-life etc don’t look very good on a bumper sticker. By pretending this is about choice, it seems to give people who are making a horrendous moral decision, something to grab on to. It also gives them an enemy to fight against. It’s not a battle with people who think killing unborn babies is wrong, but rather with people who are threatening to take away their right to choose. That makes it a whole lot easier to hold your head up high.


But does choice actually MEAN anything in this case? “Pro Choice” could be the slogan for pretty much anything you are trying to find a way to justify. Do we make drunk driving a crime or do we respect the drunk person’s right to choose? Do we make child abuse illegal, or do we respect a parent’s right to choose for himself whether or not to beat his children. So the “choice” part doesn’t hold a lot of water as far as I’m concerned.


And the second most common weapon used by the pro-abortion folk I’ve talked to? The “rape card”. If you say to someone, I think abortion is wrong, you’re very likely to hear “what if a woman is raped by a gang, or by her father”? So, in other words, abortion would be okay if there’s a good reason for it. I can see the logic in that. But where it goes wrong is in the sweeping conclusion that if it is “okay” in one situation then it is “okay”. The same could be said for killing someone obviously.


While the choice-card is harder to play here (the killer’s right to choose), the rape-card works nicely. Is it okay to shoot a guy who’s about to kill your daughter? Is it okay to kill in self-defence? Most would say yes.


But for some reason, those people I talk to over coffee at the morning hockey practice don’t ever go the next step and say “you know, sometimes shooting someone is okay, so I guess it’s really just a matter of choice. If you’re comfortable with killing, you should be allowed to do it.


After all, who is society to tell me what I do with my own trigger finger?” In other words, most people don’t think abortion is right – they just have an excuse in their own mind that gives them the right not to have to think about the actual decision. After all, this is not about abortion, this is about liberty.


Let me, in closing, take it one step further. Imagine if scientists and medical professionals made the case that “true life” doesn’t really start until the child is about 6 months old. After all, how many of us remember being six months old. Are we even self-aware? So what if there were a supreme court ruling saying we could choose to kill our children up to the age of six months? Would you do it? “Of course not, you sick freak” is the answer you’d get most of the time.


After all, just because our leaders and respected people of influence say it’s okay, and all of our neighbours seem to be doing doesn’t mean I would do it. Never. Not in a million years. That would be like saying ordinary citizens could be convinced that it’s okay to persecute, torture and execute the entire Jewish race. Or that it’s okay to keep other human beings caged like animals, and use them as slaves. tWe’re a civilized society. Surely nothing like that could ever happen.


- Post by Paul Lalonde, Chairman and Owner of Cloud Ten Pictures

8 Comments

  1. A la carte Christianity

    What is death? Can it be defined by what it is not? If so, then death is not life—therefore it’s synonymous with the end of life.

    If death’s the end of life, when does life begin?

    In Terri Schiavo’s case, the question was not “Is this person dead?” but rather “Is this person truly alive?”

    Wikipedia defines that an ad hominem consists of replying to a factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject.

    Asked another way, when does death begin or life end in abortions? Can proving or disproving when life begins rewrite morality, and can the argumentum ad hominem be defined as “A la carte Christianity”–take what you like and leave what you don’t, when even science proves the baby’s heart beats within 10 days?

    Can we speak with vague certainty over the sanctity of life, debating the beginning of one’s existence, but dare we, who say it is important to follow the teachings of the Bible, unequivocally reject the moral absolutes of what God has to say on the subject?

    God told the prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” In Proverbs 6:16-17, we’re told that God hates hands that shed innocent blood. I challenge anyone to say a child’s blood isn’t innocent.

    For instance, Scott Peterson was charged with two counts of murder; one for his wife and the other for their unborn (named) and very much alive person. Also, if a man hits a pregnant woman and injures the baby she’s carrying; there are ordained laws against this offense. Is Caylee Anthony’s life worth more than a living child protected by the womb?

    Last weeks headlines read that Florida bio-bagged a live botched abortion; the 23 week old baby was born alive and thrown into the trash! At 23 weeks old, this baby was felt daily by the mother, making this a premeditated killing from the heart.

    Are we to understand that killing a baby within the womb is justifiable but once it passes outside the womb, the baby gains a soul and somehow a life that wasn’t there before? And to the doctors who commit these crimes in the darkness of a womb—why, is it so different in the light?

    Why do animals and PETA activists have more rights than human life and why should unfettered pro-abortion be nothing less than infanticide; a viable, chargeable murder in the first degree or is abortion merely thought of as modern-day birth control?

    With God’s input, I’d bet that death is only the beginning…

  2. A one minute video that will change your life!

    http://www.priestsforlife.org/images/index.aspx

  3. Pro-slaughter as a Choice?

    Illume all the stars in heaven
    Aborted babies looking down
    Number them in the millions
    Persons and places for a noun

    The sacred sanctity of life
    Sacrilege in Roe vs. Wade
    Forsaking “Thou shall not kill”
    Anything, which God has made

    Woe to abortion on demand
    And to pro-slaughter for choice
    Rebound echoes of the Spirit
    Not hiding their helpless voice

    Masses of malignant tumors
    Removed cancers like infanticide
    Euthanasia’s precedent
    No less a being inside

    Named sweet souls as meaningless
    Outside of a mother’s womb
    All the innocents come from God
    Where all dead life is resumed

    Their bones were never hidden
    Secretly and skillfully wrought
    Premeditated murderers
    Without pre or afterthought

    At the right hand of the Father
    He incepted them at death
    Thrown cold in a surgical pan
    Gasping and fighting for breath

    Divine inception and purpose
    Things that go bump in the night
    And what of PETA activists
    With more rights than human life

    Prepare to met your Maker
    Next to the smile of murdered kin
    Eager for acknowledgement
    Beast of burdens born within

    The distant sound of trumpets
    For whom does the death bell toll?
    Ready and waiting to greet you
    Face to face and soul to soul.

  4. “After all, pro-abortion, pro-death, anti-life etc don’t look very good on a bumper sticker.”

    yeah, well, let’s see here: “anti-choice” and “anti-woman” don’t look too great on bumper stickers, either. that argument goes both ways, buddy. personally, you can call me whatever you want. i’m pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro-death, and all of the above. obviously, i prefer to be called pro-choice, just like the opposite end of the spectrum prefers the term pro-life. but that doesn’t really matter to me. it’s just a label; it doesn’t fully explain my view on the issue and why i believe in what i believe in.

    “By pretending this is about choice, it seems to give people who are making a horrendous moral decision, something to grab on to.”

    i don’t understand why some people think the pro-abortion argument ISN’T about choice. how could it not be about that? what else could our argument possibly be for? do pro-life people think we’re arguing just for the sake of killing babies? because we’re that sadistic? of course not. and it’s not like most pro-choice people are doing this for their own gain. how many pro-choicers actually plan on having abortions, anyway? i know i certainly don’t. and i doubt people like kajal ever plan on getting an abortion, either. so obviously we’re not arguing this point just so we ourselves can have abortions. we argue in favor of abortions because we think having that CHOICE, that option, that safety net, is important and critical to a free society.

    “It’s not a battle with people who think killing unborn babies is wrong, but rather with people who are threatening to take away their right to choose. That makes it a whole lot easier to hold your head up high.”

    god, whoever wrote this article is extremely pretentious. i fully recognize that people who are pro-life believe killing unborn babies is wrong. no shit. isn’t that pretty obvious? however, i also believe pro-life people want to take away a woman’s right to choose. it’s not like you can only pick one those things. why can’t pro-life people be both? i’m willing to recognize the fact that pro-choicers support the termination of unborn babies, and pro-lifers don’t. i also recognize the fact that pro-choicers want to keep a woman’s choice intact, while pro-lifers don’t. it is plenty easy for me to hold my head up high knowing all the facts, and knowing all the pros and cons of the pro-choice agenda. with all of this in mind, i am still able to say that i share the same ideals that the pro-choice stance shares, and i’m proud of it, not ashamed.

  5. you can’t compare a woman terminating the fetus in her uterus to killing another actual person, completely separated from her own body. because the fetus lives inside the woman, it is a part of her own body, therefore, she should have the right to do with it what she pleases. a woman’s uterus, a woman’s own control. in the case of just taking out a gun and shooting a person, it’s just absolutely ridiculous to compare that to having an abortion. this other person is totally separate, he or she has nothing to do with the person who is doing the killing. in no way can this person directly affect the woman like a fetus can.

    also, you are aware you compared getting an abortion to killing out the entire jewish race, right?

  6. There are a few holes in the logic in some of the responses.

    Let’s look at the argument that killing a person outside of the womb is different than inside the womb. In both instances a life is ended. In both instances that person would have lived if an outside force hadn’t killed it. Both people would be aware and feel pain while being killed.
    The only difference is their physical location. By saying that since the one person is inside a womb they don’t have a right to live doesn’t make sense. Do co-joined twins have the right to decide if their twin dies? Do employers have the right to kill employees who work inside their buildings? (Employees need to be sustained (pay) just a like a baby needs to be sustained. And yes, many premature babies survive outside of the womb.) Why is it considered a double-murder when a pregnant woman is killed? So: where a person is doesn’t make them any less of a person. How old a person is doesn’t make them any less of a person. How inconvenient a person is doesn’t make them any less of a person.

    Which leads to the problem with the next argument which says supporting abortion is only supporting a woman’s right to choose. But let’s finish that sentence: “supporting a woman’s right… to kill their baby.” That IS what you’re fighting for if you’re pro-abortion. What is relevant is not the ability to make choices but what that choice actually is.
    Choosing what hamburger to eat is entirely different than choosing to kill someone. ANY choice that involves hurting someone else should be a choice that is questioned. So the labels of “Anti-choice” and “Anti-woman” are NOT synonymous with “Prolife”. If the baby that is to be aborted is female than those against abortion would in fact be “PRO-woman”. If the woman chose to let her baby live then people who are against abortion would also be “PRO-choice.” The problem isn’t the right to choose – THE PROBLEM IS WHAT THAT CHOICE IS.
    If you’re in favor of the choice of killing babies then “Pro-death” and “Anti-Baby” are indeed accurate.

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