The angel of death has a new disguise: health. More exactly, a life-saving inoculation.
The vaccines used throughout Ontario and some other provinces, to protect Canadian school children from such diseases as rubella and rabies are derived from abortion. Human fetuses have been used by scientists to produce the cultures (WI-38 and MRC5 strains) from which the vaccines are made.
We’ve all heard stories. For years we’ve heard stories about crazed humanitarians, about mad scientists; stories that range from grave-robbing Frankensteins to Bedlamite vivisectionists, from gothic fiction to the sickening realities of European death-camps. But always, in the end, the anarchy, the madness is stopped and some measure of order, peace and virtue prevails. Always the angel of death is thrust out of civilized society, exiled or returned to the hell that is properly his.
Until now.
Now it isn’t a man, or a scientist, working in a tower or a dungeon with a hunchbacked accomplice. Now it is the mild-mannered biologist down the block, or the chap on the bus who works in a lab. Now his “Igor” is, of all things, the cheerful school nurse. It ought to make your blood curdle. You won’t wake up and find this nightmare gone: there’s nowhere to go; no escape. You too, and you, and you, all unwitting, are made accomplices.
A few years ago, as you know, the entire medical “establishment” of Western culture threw up its hands and flatly refused to answer for us the question, “When does life begin?” Of course, they knew (and know) perfectly well when, but they tossed it back to us, to the lawyers and politicians, to sociologists and philosophers, to pollsters and unwed mothers – to, in short, exactly the wrong people. Wrong, because we were both ignorant and unqualified to deal with it, or because we had too pressing a reason to find an easy, selfish, short-term answer. The old maxim, “Hard cases make bad laws” has never been better proven.
Now we can see some of the reasons why medics dropped the ball: they wanted their hands free. While we were busily diverted, fumbling with it, they too were busy, opening the rusty lock on the dungeon door. A hellish brew has been bubbling down there ever since, it seems.
Now, many scientists will be quick to point out that “many children are alive today,” etc., because of their vaccines; and besides, those aborted babies were headed for the incinerator anyway. (Where does garbage-picking leave off and grave robbing begin?) Of course, perfectly good vaccines used to be (and still are, for some things) produced without the benefit of our abortions. So, why?
Not only are these dead children’s bodies cut up for vaccine-producing cultures, they are used in cosmetics, and they are “harvested” for spare parts. In England, babies are grown in test tubes to produce raw material for scientific research. In the U.S., a woman conceived a child in order to provide her husband with a much-needed kidney donor. So it goes.
If the medical profession has forsaken even the pretence of real ethics – though some individual doctors have not – what are we to do? Conscientious pro-life parents appear to have yet another burden. We have to protect our children, but we cannot do so over the bodies of yet other children.
One wants to smash down the door to the dungeon, to destroy it and purge it with fire. Letter writing seems a pretty tame excuse for direct action … but think: one flaming letter can set a house ablaze. A thousand, ten thousand, may fire the consciences of those who can end this anarchy.
Death of The Human
An exceptional human died recently. The plug was pulled quietly and without ceremony on September 20. Word of the sudden demise is now spreading throughout the country, to be met with cries of shock and dismay. A case of mercy-killing perhaps – but it’s done now, and as in most situations of this type, the offers of life-saving help came too late. The Human, once known as The Uncertified Human, was a feisty little magazine begun on the U of T campus back in 1973. It operated continuously on a shoestring, and when that shoestring broke in September its directors had the sense to kill it rather than incur further liabilities they could not hope to discharge.
Money the culprit
For eleven years The Human kept pro-lifers informed on the life issues facing them. An “independent magazine concerned with social justice for all human beings from conception to natural death”, The Human was characterized by a degree of integrity and insight rarely seen in Canadian journalism. It was incorporated as a private company rather than a charity so that donations could not be accepted. Its founders were determined that their editorial policy not be influenced by the ideals of a major donor, and deliberately negated the possibility of receiving donations. Their adamantly pro-life editorial policy negated the possibility of government grants. So the shoestring was stretched to the limit.
The Human was renowned in pro-life circles for its in depth articles on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, palliative care, the rights of the handicapped, medical ethics, treatment of handicapped newborns, pornography, birth control, the problems of adolescence, aging and opportunities for senior citizens… the list of timely, well-researched articles was endless. The Human had purposely “mainstreamed” itself into a little publication that was quickly becoming recognized in professional health and social service circles. It had rejected preaching and adopted a policy of “posing the issues” rather than “stating the answers.” It was beginning to influence through subtlety rather than hollering.
The main culprit in this untimely death was money. Although proud of its kitchen-table efforts, the magazine could not grow without any infusion of funds. These funds were not forthcoming from the pro-life movement because pro-life groups are continuously scratching for money themselves. Encouraging a $10 subscription to The Human meant $10 the pro-life groups wouldn’t get. Giving gift subscriptions to libraries and hospitals would have taken money that could be spent on literature for the local fair. And so it went.
We grieve with managing editor Denyse Handler and her companions. The Human did not die a natural death. It was killed by apathy and a system, which decrees that anti-life efforts receive money and acclaim. The same fate may be in store for the entire pro-life movement if we don’t support the best of our collective efforts, and banish the apathy that will kill us if allowed to breed.
