It’s hard to miss the big news story of the week. Britain’s Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, are expecting a baby. The news broke sooner than the royal family were probably intending. The Duchess is experiencing severe morning sickness which forced her to be hospitalized.
I know there’s a great deal of excitement in the air regarding this pregnancy. I fear, however, cooler heads need to prevail. There seem to be reasonable issues on the table here making an abortion a good option for the royal family. Here are just three examples why William and Kate should terminate the pregnancy:
First, the royal couple have not even been married for two years yet. They have their whole life in front of them. There will be plenty of time to settle down and start a family. Right now, however, is not a good time. They need to first travel the world and enjoy their youth.
Second, Kate is very early in her pregnancy. Yes, the news is saying she is pregnant with a “baby.” Does anyone know who the uneducated backwoods hick is feeding such silliness to the news agencies? Anyone with even a high-school education should know Kate simply has a blob of cells inside her starting as a zygote forming into a fetus. Kate is simply experiencing a parasite feeding off of her body. No wonder she’s sick. If Kate terminated the pregnancy right now she would be well in her rights since the parasite is so early in development. If it were removed right now it could not survive outside the womb, no harm, no foul.
Third, someone has to think about Kate’s health. Our planet has advanced so far in support of women’s health. It’s a shame for us all to sit back and allow ourselves to be thrown back into the dark ages as Kate suffers. I’m thankful to be far enough removed from the situation to be able to think clearly on this point. Kate is obviously suffering due to this parasite. Kate is an intelligent, professional woman with the entire world in front of her. Why should we allow her to suffer? Perhaps William is a selfish jerk? He doesn’t seem like it, but do you really ever know somebody? Someone needs to make sure William is not forcing her to have the baby against her will. Kate, if you’re reading this, think about yourself.
Should William and Kate get an abortion? If the same reasoning used throughout the developed civilized world is used in William & Kate’s situation the answer very well could be: yes. They should get an abortion.
I think this situation, however, has revealed something inside the heart of all people. The entire world would rightfully place our hands over our mouths and gasp if William and Kate decided to terminate the pregnancy. If their explanation was, “Well, it was just not the right time. We’ve only been married for a year and a half. Kate was suffering with morning sickness. We’ll start a family some day, but not today.”
William and Kate are going to press on through the pregnancy because this child is special. This child is destined for royalty. Any current pain will be long forgotten over a lifetime of joy with this child. Sure, things aren’t pretty today but they won’t stay that way. Psalm 30:5 speaks into this concept when it says, “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Christians believe something explicitly which the world is currently applying implicitly to William & Kate’s fetus.
Christians believe every child is special. Not just because they are being born into a royal family, but because every human is made in the image of God (imago dei). Every child is considered a “baby” as soon as the egg and sperm meet together. No one on the BBC is saying, “Hold on, let’s wait to call this thing a baby until late in the third trimester.” They aren’t talking this way because this is a special child. For some reason, however, abortion is understandable and makes sense for someone who is not part of a royal family. Is this fair?
Does it make sense to gasp at the abortion of a royal family baby while applauding the progressive state which allows for unwed teenage girls to take care of their mistakes? Or to champion woman rights when a middle-aged woman terminates the life of a much younger tiny girl because of “family planning.” I’m glad the non-royal, unwed teenage moms of Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Jesus did not “take care” of their fetus.
The Bible teaches that people who have put their trust in Jesus are forever adopted into God’s family. Christians believe every little child, regardless of socio-economic status, is born into a world with God holding out his hand of salvation…desiring to adopt this person into the family of the King of Kings. The most royal of all families!
Furthermore, regarding morning sickness, we all know that will not last forever. I have watched my wife suffer through morning sickness three times. My wife would say it was all worth it because of the amazing joy we now have from our three children. We would be disappointed if Kate gets an abortion because we all know life changes. Situations that seem beyond hope usually end up getting better.
The teenage girl who sees no hope in her situation is unable to see her life in ten years. She’s unable to even consider the possibility of giving the baby to parents desperate for a child. She thinks abortion is the only way. Our society applauds her short-sightedness.
I plead with you who are pro-choice AND excited about William & Kate’s baby. Please be intellectually honest. Please apply the same human rights to the first-trimester child of royalty as you do the first-trimester child of a nobody.
Author Note: I give credit to Denny Burk for the idea of this post. I saw a title of a post he recently wrote giving me the idea for this post. I purposefully, however, have not read his post because I didn’t want to be influenced by his ideas. Now I will head over to see what he wrote.
68 replies to "Should William & Kate Get an Abortion?"
Francis,
I agree with much of your assesment of the pro-choice position but this article dos address some of the arguments pro-choice proponents might use to argue for the individual (really the woman’s) right to choose. The arguments give ethical reasoning behind allowing individuals to have the right to terminate a pregnancy through abortion. Not all pro-choicers will agree with the reasons satired in the piece above but they are reasons given by more than just a small minority of women for the right to choose.
For example I might argue that a woman should not have that righ because she should not have the right to kill a human being without just cause. I hav heard women and sympathetic men use those types of arguments to justify why the woman is justified or has just cause to make a decision to end to life of the fetus.
So while the reasons above are of individuals the reasons are still given to justify the right to choose. Again not all pro-choicers woul agree with these reasons or arguing for the pro-choice argument in this way but I think that a good number of pro-choice supporters do argue for a woman’s choice in this way.
I do agree that ultimately the article is for those who believe in the pro-life argument and not pro-choicers.
Thanks for the reply.
Carl
Although this post started out as satire but now turned more serious someone can stop me if you want. But I am curious by this statement.
Could you explain the moral basis for abortion? Is this morality based on “individual rights”? Is every “right” moral?
I personally think you wrote this to just cause trouble for Will & Kate. If I was in her shoes, this article would upset me terrible. I would wonder why someone thinks I should KILL my baby. All because their marriage has only been for 18 months. Apparently all those years they dated and LIVED TOGETHER dosn’t contribute to the 18 month’s of marriage. Who ever wrote this must be a real piece of work, and off his rocker. I really hope Will’s and Kate just blows this off and laughs. With Gods help they will have a beautiful baby. So who cares at that moment that their baby will be on the throne someday. Because at that moment they have their baby no one elses, to love and care for. I only hope Will’s is as good of a parent as his Mum was. I’m sure Diana is looking down on her sons and is very proud of them because they have turned out to be wonderful men. So come on give Will’s and Kate a chance here and just leave them alone, Please.
This is some straight up asshattery. There are more logical fallacies than I care to count. For one, I think you overestimate the number of Americans who have peed their pants because a pair of newlyweds across the pond are knocked up. Second, if they’d decided to abort, do you really think the pregnancy would have made the news at all? Geez. Also, I would trust that she and her doctors had made a conscientious decision that was in preservation of her physical or mental health. The reasons women have abortions are NOT our business. And the most glaring fallacy of logic of all–how DARE you compare a pregnant teenager to one of the most privileged women on the planet? Even if the teenage girl chooses adoption, there’s no chance in hell she has a fraction of the resources and support Ms. Middleton has at her beck and call. You’re missing the most basic point of being pro-choice–the right to CHOOSE whether or not to be a parent. Children should be had by people who want them and are mentally, physically, and materially prepared to care for them. Wills and Kate want the kid, so good for them. They’ve made their choice. Everyone should have the right to choose for themselves also. You’ve made a purely emotional argument that simply will not sway anyone who is pro-choice, as that viewpoint is nearly always informed by logic.
“You’re missing the most basic point of being pro-choice–the right to CHOOSE whether or not to be a parent….You’ve made a purely emotional argument that simply will not sway anyone who is pro-choice, as that viewpoint is nearly always informed by logic.
I submit that if someone isn’t ready or doesn’t want to be parent, then perhaps they shouldn’t be engaged in a lifestyle that leads to unwanted pregnancies (i.e. having lots of sex, protected or otherwise). But that kind of logic is a little too restrictive for you isn’t it.
The pro-choice “logic” you espouse here amounts to nothing more than a desire for consequence-free sex at the expense of unborn human life. Disgusting, selfish, and evil at it’s core.
@ teleologist, I’m glad that you got the point.
The way to convert a pro-choicer isn’t satirizing a view that he/she may fundamentally disagree with. It’s certainly not misrepresenting his/her view in such a way that goes against the fundamentals of the pro-choice stance.
The only way to do it, is by convincing them the immorality of certain “individual rights”. And since most of pro-choicers aren’t even Christians to begin with, it’s even better if you can convince them without having to resort to the Bible.
If you, on the opposite end of this debate, can’t get into their head and talk their language, then you’ll forever be congratulating yourself for your righteousness without ever making a difference on this issue.
The foundation of this article is built on the idea that people would be shocked and saddened if the royal heir was aborted. I then built the article from there trying to show every fetus is a royal heir.
If any of those who have had a strong disagreement with my article were sitting in my living room and we were having a civilized, respectful conversation I think the area we would end up disagreeing is I would say, “We would be shocked and saddened if the royal heir is aborted.” You would say, “No I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t feel anything…it’s none of my business.” This, I believe, is where our main disagreement would reside.
I would go on trying to convince you the most loving thing, not condemning or hateful thing, but the most loving thing I can do is to care about this child being born into the world. You would try to convince me that the most loving thing we can do is stay out of their business.
Do you think this is a fair analysis of the differences being expressed in the comments?
– Tim
@ MarvinTheMartian
Funny how your make so many assumptions. Here’s a news flash for you–not everyone who doesn’t want to be a parent is a godless whore. Some people genuinely have no desire to be parents and/or have their own set of unique circumstances that lead them to conclude that parenthood is not a good life choice. I’ve been married for 9 years, and my husband and I agreed years ago that we do not want children (and should not have children primarily for the good of the hypothetical children) and would take necessary precautions. We both have bipolar disorder, he’s on the autism spectrum, and I have multiple chronic illnesses (with medications that would likely have already harmed a fetus by the time a pregnancy was discovered). Genetically speaking, that’s a hell of a lot to saddle a child with, and our capacity to care for a child is significantly diminished. We do not have the mental, physical, or material resources to support a child. So I’m not supposed to have protected sex with my husband by your logic. LOL I can’t even. How are we supposed to have a healthy, emotionally fulfilling marriage by your logic? Should we martyr ourselves to singledom and/or celibacy because O NOES, WE SHOULD NOT MAKE A BABY? Were I to become pregnant, I have no idea what I’d do. I really don’t. Nobody every *wants* to have an abortion. That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it, should we come to it. Having options is necessary. Your logic is far too simplistic to encompass the full reality of human experience, and you’re straight up rude for calling me evil because the conclusions my experience have led me to are not the same as yours. This is the biggest problem with anti-choice rhetoric. It’s disingenuous, ableist, and utterly lacks compassion.
@ Smartypants
Of course I made assumptions. Assumptions made based on the fact that the vast majority of abortions occur not from the rather unique circumstances of your own life, but rather under circumstances rooted in what can be boiled down to what is considered convenient for the mother (i.e. just not ready to be a parent, can’t afford a child right now, or whatever excuse is ginned up to justify it). In a word, selfishness.
But let me see if I understand you correctly. You have a very unique set of circumstances which leads you to believe that if you ever got pregnant, it would be better to abort the pregnancy rather than choose life and the potential difficulties that could arise from said circumstances. Using your very unique situation (experience) as a case study and justification for your beliefs, you then extrapolate and conclude that abortion on demand under any circumstance is therefore the “logical” position to hold. Does that about sum it up?
If so, then there really is nothing logical about that. In fact, I would argue that is the kind of “purely emotional argument” that you decried initially. And you will have to forgive me if I lack compassion for an unrepentant position that supports the genocide of the unborn sacrificed at the altar of “convenience”. I reserve my compassion for those who have had abortions and then grieve for the life they took and for the unborn who have had their lives snuffed out because mom wasn’t ready to be a mom.
Abortion as it exists and operates today is what is; rooted in selfishness, it results in a disgusting procedure that kills an unborn human life. The rest of the debate is smoke filled coffeehouse crap meant to cloud the issue. In a word it is evil and I won’t sugar coat that to protect your delicate sensibilities.
This is my first visit to this website and I enjoyed this post “sarcasm” and all. This is just how the prochoicer’s convince young women to abort their babies. And this article was not in the least racist at all. I don’t think the negative responders read the whole article….they certainly didn’t seem to understand it for what it was, that is for sure.
I would simply like to make the point that in our current world, there orphanages filled with unwanted, unloved and UN-parented babies and children. There are children going hungry in this world, and being abused by their parents. So before everyone gets on the “abortion is murder” bandwagon, I think your points would be better received if you fixed the current situation. I ask, how many of you have adopted a child? How many of you are feeding someone elses child that is going hungry? How many of you are mentoring a child who has no parents? and the Padre does not get to weigh in as due to his status as a priest he is not part of the real world and taking care of physical needs of the children produces on this planet are not within his job description.
@Fr. Robert: As I do not believe in the traditional “devil” I believe evil comes from layers of fear. In my work with sending home wayward and misguided spirits, one could easily assume that they are evil, but when I look deeper into their souls, I see layers and layers of fear, and when those layers are removed with connection to the God Force, hate and evil dissipate, and want of peace fills them. I believe man is inherently good, but lives in a state of fear, perpetrated upon him from society norms and unfortunately religions. If you tell someone they are inherently evil, they will act thus. If you tell someone that are the image of God, and therefore the holiness and pureness of God is one with them, that they are God, I believe that they will act accordingly, and their goodness will always come to the surface. Are there negative spirits? Yes, and they cry out for help and relief, but their negativity is just the hard shell they have put around themselves to protect themselves from the fear that dwells within. Exorcisms are real, I have conducted them, and seen first hand what is behind the so called “evil spirit”. I often ask myself why are people so afraid of decisions, thoughts and laws that merely govern the human side of our existence, when it has nothing to do with the reality of our spirits.
I’m cognizant of the meaning and use of sarcasm to make a point, esp in the world of politics. The point made about the sadness and perverse evil of the way folks think nowadays is valid. I just found the way it was made tasteless and crass as well.
Perhaps that will make sense if you consider the use of the word honor. I’m not suggesting that we should worship folks who have royal position, but scripture makes it clear that we are to give honor to whom honor is due. To reduce the royal couple to a vehicle or political football to make a point is to use them, without their permission. No one likes to be used.
Frankly, we have no more business discussing the Duchess’s pregnancy as if it was our business then we have in discussing she and her husband’s intimate life. There is a lack of propriety in this situation, a concept all but lost to our generation. I can only imagine how Kate would feel reading this discussion. When I was pregnant, a friend of mine, who was treating one of her horses with something, commented to me rather bluntly that if she gave me a shot of this stuff ” you’d abort within minutes”. Her casual discussion of something as gross as child murder horrified me. You can hide from the miracle of life and the sacred tenderness of it fairly well but pregnancy makes that hard to do.
Considering the person you are speaking about, and how they would feel if they heard you, is what is right. Would you say this in front of Kate? Probably not. Somehow, though, people seem to have the idea that as long as the point made is valid or serves some higher purpose, its okay to be crass, rude or insensitive and as long as its “truth” we can be as blunt or sarcastic as we wish. And also that somehow the normal rules are suspended when we are on the internet or on paper. I doubt God respects such rationalizations just because we do. There are times when we have permisson to speak truth if it offends someone, such as declaring that one is a sinner on the way to hell and even then our motive has to be love for the lost. As much as I agree with the intended point and valid observations being made here, I found this article rather gross and felt that the lack of honor and respect towards the royal couple negated much of the value. That being said, I appreciate the many articles of fine content on this site and realize that any writer , esp those who want to use their skills to reach people with truth, isn’t going to always produce perfect writing.
Ok, so I’m a little late to the discussion here. But, I’d like to throw my two cents in.
First of all, by making this an issue, you’re putting morality above the hearts of people who hurt the most. You’re turning it into an us vs. them thing and that’s hurtful. This is not a problem of legality or morality, but the problem of seeing children as a burden and not a gift, the problem of shaming (young) women when they decide to take responsibilities for their mistakes, even the problem of misogyny. (Yes, the abortion debate smacks of misogyny, because it stereotypes and objectifies women – on both sides.)
On some level, every woman I know who has “taken care of” their pregnancy, has done so with regret. Either regret of the original actions that brought them to that point, or regret of the result of the actual procedure itself. Yet, on “our” side of the debate we continue to condemn them for an action that they are already guilty about, only instructing them about how they should feel and think. We don’t offer empathy, or care, or help, only “shoulds.” Yes, there are women (men, too are guilty of this, maybe even more so, since they are more detached) who think very little about terminating their pregnancy, but for most, it’s not an easy decision.
Yes, I agree that life does begin at conception, and that we should respect that with our laws, but making this a black and white political issue using a fluffy news story is not the way to change our culture. Jesus stood up for the prostitute who poured perfume on his feet. Are we standing up for those young girls, before they’re even pregnant?
Also regarding Kate’s morning sickness: my friend shared her diagnosis and LOST WEIGHT through her first and part of her second trimester. It’s actually a dangerous condition and can be life threatening. It wasn’t just “morning sickness.”
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