Dunkle a Killer Lives Here - Arrow pointing at himself
Every time I write a new blog, it engenders a lot of conversation. Indeed, it seems that lately there are more and more people responding to my stuff and, honestly, my head starts spinning as I try to keep up with the threads and the incessant questioning. You see, for the most part we have one anti-abortion person who is gutsy enough to put himself out there and to respond as well as he can to the numerous questions posed by those who support abortion rights. But over the last week or so, a question has been posed that I want to highlight today.
It seems that this anti-abortion activist spends a lot of time protesting at various clinics in the Allentown/Reading area of Pennsylvania. He also, however, spends every third Sunday of the month standing in front of the house of a young woman who is the Director of the Allentown Women’s Center. I don’t know exactly what this guy does outside the house, but I picture him holding some kind of sign designed to bring attention to her neighbors that she works in an abortion clinic. Now, let’s think about this…
First, there is a very good chance that her neighbors already know that she works at a clinic. Indeed, in my experience most abortion clinic workers, owners and doctors usually tell their neighbors about their work, especially if they are expecting some kind of protest. Generally, the neighbors react very well, no matter what their position on abortion. While they may not support abortion rights, they also do not want their neighborhood disrupted, especially if someone is holding up an ugly or graphic sign.
Second, and perhaps most important to me, is the question of what does this anti-abortion activist expect to accomplish? His ultimate goal, his lifelong dream, is to stop “the American Holocaust,” to “save babies.” Fair enough. That’s his right and, indeed, I defend his right to be outside someone’s house in protest.
But let’s take this scenario a step further. Let’s say that this person succeeds and one morning the young woman announces that she cannot take it anymore and that she is leaving the clinic. Praise Jesus! The protestor has succeeded!
Upon hearing the news, the owner of the clinic gets very upset. After all, the young woman has been at the Allentown Women’s Center for many years, has done a lot of good work, has helped thousands of women in need. She has been a voice not just for the clinic but for national abortion rights groups as well. She will be sorely missed. The going away party will be a sad occasion.
And minutes after the clinic owner gets the word, he or she will put the word out that the Allentown Women’s Center is looking for a new Director. Within a month or so (perhaps shorter in this economic climate), the owner will find a new person to run the clinic. During this time, however, the assistant director will take up much of the load or the owner might even come in and help out. Meanwhile, the patients will have no idea that the young woman has left. They really don’t care, to tell you the truth. And the number of patients that use the clinic in a regular basis will not be affected at all. In other words, NO BABIES WILL BE SAVED. The protestor will not be one step closer to his goal.
So, exactly why is this person standing outside of this young woman’s house?
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 
July 7, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Commander: “Less sacred” is certainly subjective, but it can be measured objectively if one reasonably assumes that the respect I accord to life is shown by the way I treat it: thus, if I congratulate a sullen Mrs. Bundy on the delivery of her bouncing baby and walk away, I show one level of respect for a child’s life; but if I on the other hand assist her in raising him, protecting him from the dysfunctions of the family, presenting a positive male role model and filling his medical and developmental needs, I show a wholly different level. As you have noted in your comments about “some” so-called “pro-lifers.” And yes, it does diminish the holiness of yet another principle, but that’s the way the world works.
The principle of the ideo-motor doesn’t apply in this scene, since that is an unconscious action (like feeling sick to your stomach when you get an F on a paper you thought was your very best ever). The aborticentrism impulse is driven subconsciously.
To understand it, you need to read Professor Ernest Becker’s book, “Denial of Death.” After helping liberate a concentration camp, he wondered how anyone would even want to continue to live in such horrible conditions. He came to realize that the desire to live is all-consuming, because we of all animals are most conscious that it will sooner or later end. And he wondered why people would nevertheless be willing to die voluntarily, despite this awful knowledge. Taht was how he found the role heroism plays in dealing with one’s own death, and from there it was an easy deduction to see how heroism is needed in the so-called “pro-life” movement.
After you read it, you will understand better why the “pro-lifer” MUST avoid having to deal with real human life.
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July 7, 2010 at 7:49 pm
What is the difference, then, between “heroism”, as you say, and the satisfaction one feels in fighting for a just cause? Is there a distinction according to your “centrism” theory?
Reason I ask is, I relate to the one but not the other; I’m quite satisfied I’m acting for a just cause, as are virtually all pro-lifers. What I’m not is any kind of hero (speaking for myself). I need only think of the abysmal ratio of conversions (less than 1 per 100) and of the more I could have done to check satisfaction from becoming something more. Further, I condiser it a basic human duty to help others (and this also applies to instructing and counselling the uninformed, hence sidewalk counselling), and there’s certainly nothing heroic about simply fulfilling an obligation (if it even amounts to that).
I will try to get my hands on the book, though.
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July 8, 2010 at 6:03 am
Hey, Commander N, I could re-print Becker’s entire book here to answer questions like yours! I really urge you to give it a read.
However, to put it briefly (ten paragraphs or less): Heroism is something that is endowed: You can’t say, “I’m going to do this and be a hero.” It is other people who determine you are a hero. My grade school girl friend became a hero in high school. As a life guard, she jumped into the pool and pulled out a little girl who was in distress. The good citiizens of the Lion’s Club decided that was heroic and gave her an award. As she said later, “All I did was jump in and pull her out.” No CPR, no Kiss of Life, no tracheotomy with a ball point pen, just yanked a kid out of the pool. But the community said she was a hero, and so she was.
And quite often society doesn’t realize how much you’ve done for them until after you’re dead. Which is why saints are only recognized AFTER they’re dead– while still alive, they might do something to destroy the community’s esteem– like Benedict Arnold, who probably did more than just about anybody else except Washington to beat the British– right up until the time he became a traitor.
To become a hero, you have to meet society’s price, as Becker puts it. If you become a missionary and try to convert untouchable women, you’ll never become a hero in a strict Hindu society. They will not agree that you are paying their price. Similarly here: you want to be vilified for being a caring Christian? Do hospice work with homosexuals dying of AIDS. If it’s not a price society specifies, you don’t get jack.
Now, imagine that you have chosen to be the champion of a creature that has the following characteristics: It’s slimy, leprous white, HUGE misshapen head, forelimbs like a T-Rex, dead black eyes that yield no clue as to what it’s thinking. It is so repellent that if it approached you in a dark alley, you’d piss your pants– if it were your size. Do you think society would see you as defending them against it, see you as paying the price they specify when you “protect” it? Of course not!
But if you can sell society on the notion that your work with that monster is heroic, you just might bring them around to agree that you’re a hero. Which is what so-called “pro-lifers” do. But I won’t go further into that.
The satisfaction one feels in fighting for a just cause has more to do with the self-assessment of one’s exhibited prowess (“Boy, I did well this time”) than it does with the justness of the cause. Since the justice of the cause is largely subjective (Negroes are sub-human, so I’ve got to be the best Klansman I can be, or Albigensians are a threat to the True Faith, so I’ve got to kill as many as I can, that sort of thing), it’s basically simply a justification for the actions performed by the individual.
It’s great to know that you value helping others in this wicked world! You just have to be aware of how your talents and energy can be co-opted by people who would manipulate you for their ends– like the so-called “pro-lifers” who insist that babies be born, but refuse– or simply are unable– to raise them safely to adulthood.
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July 8, 2010 at 8:53 am
I understood Charles’ last eighty-four word sentence, maybe because this is the fifty-fifth time he’s repeated it, but what the heck does what he writes above that mean?
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July 8, 2010 at 9:29 am
I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that to others to explain to you.
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June 29, 2012 at 2:41 pm
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