I read an article this morning about an Orthodox Jewish woman who began a crisis pregnancy center for other Jewish women. It's called In Shifra's Arms, after one of the two Egyptian midwives the Bible names who did not follow Pharaoh's orders to kill newborn Jewish boys. Erica Pelman wanted to encourage Jewish women to consider alternatives to abortion but didn't want to work within Christian organization.
The article (World Magazine) discussed some of the views within the Jewish community toward abortion. Very interesting.
Reading that article also made me wonder if everyone opposed to abortion is, for lack of a better term, religious. Ms. Pelman views all human life as inherently sacred, having surpassing value whether it's in utero or post birth. If someone denies the existence of a deity, a Creator, if only natural processes are responsible for everything, a human being at any stage of existence can be nothing more than a life form. OK, the highest, most evolved life form at this point, but not different in essence from other life forms. How, then, could one make an argument for the protection of an unborn child? It seems that in that context any case for or against abortion could only be made on the basis of pragmatism, the greater good in a particular situation. And greater good is tough to argue in defense of the unborn.
You can see where this leads if I'm correct that there's no logical argument for the sanctity of the unborn outside of a theistic system. What changes during the transition from pre- to post-birth that adds sanctity to human life and serves as the presupposition for all manner of laws? If pragmatism justifies the abortion of an unborn [your preferred term here] with significant handicaps what changes a month later when the child draws breath?
Which, of course isn't exactly a new thought, it just struck me particularly as I read this article about an Orthodox Jew who started a crisis pregnancy organization for other Jewish women. I couldn't help but wonder if there are any atheists or agnostics opposed to abortion, and if so, on what basis.
Imago Dei
In an interesting related story just out today, Susan B. Komen for the Cure, the large non-profit dedicated to preventing and curing breast cancer is severing its affiliation with Planned Parenthood and ending its grants to that organization, which totalled $680,000 last year.
I spent the morning at the hospital waiting with Mike while his wife had surgery. It strikes me as especially insensitive for a hospital to put a young woman whose hopes for bearing children have just been ended in the maternity unit for her post-op. It's done (too frequently) for the convenience of the Ob-Gyn who goes to one unit/floor to make his rounds. Wrong priorities.
The Case-Shiller Index tracks home prices in major cities around the country. Today's edition reports that those prices dropped in 19 of the country's largest cities from October to November of last year, the latest period for which stats are available. Phoenix was the lone exception, actually showing a slight increase in home prices.
In the financial world I think this is what they call a "dead cat bounce."
The drive across town to the hospital in Scottsdale had me on the road in the middle of the morning rush hour, which gave me plenty of time to listen to the news on NPR. Traffic flowed smoothly on the way home at noon but it's still a 45-minute drive. On both drives different programs did a story about a drug called Ketamine that, on the street is knows as "Special K" for its unique hallucinogenic properties. But they've just recently discovered the drug also brings almost immediate improvement for patients with significant to severe depression. And whereas its hallucinogenic effects last for only an hour or so, the therapeutic effects for the clinically depressed last for days, even a week.
The story on the drive home included interviews with dr.'s who explained how it works in the brain, and I didn't understand. They also said there are related drugs that seem to have the same effect without some of the side effects of Ketamine (the hallucinations the partiers are after). But the segment I enjoyed most was the interviews with people whose lives had been turned around because of the drug.
I'm glad that - within my lifetime - medical science has advanced to the point where brain chemistry is understood at least to the extent that the clinically depressed get this kind of good news. And that society has matured to the point where we accept clinical depression as a medical condition and not a personal failure of some kind.
There is good stuff going on out there.
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