If the following constituted some sort of youth program—called, like, Extreme Junior State—it would be a cool one. Fetuses are preparing to testify before Congress, and appearing in billboards with their doting dads (or are they models? I genuinely don’t know) to bring attention to a social issue. (Well, judging from the photos, near-term fetuses are the main recipients of these doting smooches, but I’m sure there’s some unassailable logic whereby those near-term fetuses fairly represent the whole range of embryotic and fetal life, and it just escapes me.)
On the “Voices from the Womb” event:
Beginning at the Congressional Auditorium in Washington, D.C., “Voices From the Womb” will launch its national campaign in October “to let the children of America ‘speak’ for themselves about ending abortion,” according to a statement.
No word on whether the mothers will be referred to as ‘models’, or whether grown-up women will be prevented from actually speaking (sans scare quotes) about how their own health would be endangered by anti-abortion legislation, as happened during deliberations on Ohio’s “heartbeat” bill. So far all we know is that the fetuses will “speak”—where “speak” means “perform physiological processes that can be detected using medical equipment”—and somehow this “speech” amounts to an opinion which (oh, hey!) neatly matches the opinions espoused by Voices From The Womb. Which is an, er, interesting way of showing respect to a party whom one claims to believe is ethically and legally a person. Using them as props in political pageantry, I mean, or imposing political opinions on them which they do not hold. (Can one imagine doing this to, say, Dick Cheney? “No, no, no, we don’t need you to TALK. Just stand there and demonstrate your heart pack and from that we shall draw inferences about your opinions on health care.”) Hmm. You know, I feel like there’s some other domain of life that’s pertinent here. Is there some other arena where those with power have invented a class of perfectly-passive, compliant helper-persons who are to obligingly yield to whatever projections or desires are forced upon them?
Maybe it’ll come to me in a moment. In the meantime, a word on the “Fatherhood Begins In The Womb” campaign:
Fatherhood begins in the womb and doesn’t end until you enter the tomb. President Obama forcefully declared, in a Father’s Day speech, that “fatherhood doesn’t end at conception.” There is no excuse for men who’ve chosen to have sex, to then choose to avoid any and all responsibility, when the natural result of sexual activity brings forth Life. Our government, too, has failed miserably in protecting the rights of fathers to exercise that responsibility by stripping away any ability to protect ones [sic] own unborn child. Every man is completely powerless, thanks to the anti-family, anti-life Roe v. Wade decision, to defend the life he is 50% responsible for biologically, emotionally, materially, and spiritually.
Of course! I remember now. It’s MEN who have no power. Because if they chose to have sex and that sex results in a pregnancy, they are dirty trollops and have to take what’s coming to them bringers-forth of life who have rights that are being trampled by the evil feminists.
