Posts Tagged activism

3 results.

Popular Pastimes

Aug02
by on August 2, 2015 at 7:12 am
Chapter:

This issue is really bugging me, as you can probably tell.

I’ve already ranted at length from a secular and biological perspective about abortion and the selling of dismembered fetal body parts on my comic, Scientific Opinion, if you haven’t read it already. But, let’s delve into a little bit of ancient history, more science (because I love biology), and theology for sanctimonial Sunday, shall we?

For some reason, many people seem to believe that having children was never inconvenient at any time other than our modern era. After all, in our modern era, we have often have households in which two adults are working, which puts a tremendous strain on the parents’ relationship with their children. And that’s not even touching the strain of being a working single parent, which puts an even more tremendous strain on the parent’s relationship with their children. In cases where it takes two incomes to survive, even without children, and daycare can cost as much as a single parent’s yearly paycheck, this can seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Combine this with all the other factors that make raising children difficult, and it is perfectly understandable that many people do not want to have children and will go to extraordinary lengths to prevent children because of their inconvenience.

But having children has always been inconvenient for a multitude of reasons and the deliberate killing of children was not an uncommon occurrence in the ancient world. The comic, of course, refers to Molech, which the Caananites and Amorites worshiped, and whom the Israelites were also prone to worship from time to time, and there are many instances in which Molech’s name comes up in the Old Testament. When they are small, a child’s use is minimal, after all. At least when they are sacrificed, maybe Molech will be happy with the people. Finally, through their death, they can become useful and stop being a burden to society!

But there are also many other instances of the killing of children in the ancient world. In fact, infanticide was fairly common in both ancient Greece and Rome. Why? Because these ancient peoples didn’t consider children to be people until they hit the age of reason, essentially. This is not to say that they wouldn’t take care of their children, if they wanted to raise their children. But, children weren’t considered to be fully human until they could demonstrate that they could think. Thus, it was completely acceptable to kill infants and small children, especially if they were a burden. In a letter from the centurion, Hilarion, to his wife Alis, he writes:

Know that I am still in Alexandria…. I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered [before I come home], if it is a boy keep it, if a girl, discard it. You have sent me word, “Don’t forget me.” How can I forget you? I beg you not to worry.

If the sex selection of that quote horrifies you, don’t worry; boys were routinely killed as well.

So, the inconvenience and burden of raising small children is not a new thing.

For some reason, people also believe that abortion is this new thing that has never existed before. But, this is also not true. In fact, abortion was so popular in ancient Greece and Rome that the United States Supreme Court, in its historical Roe vs. Wade decision which ultimately legalized all abortions, referenced this fact as a justification that abortion can exist in a civilized society. (For some reason, infanticide did not get the same okay.) In fact, Tertullian, who was a Christian writer who lived in ancient Rome, wrote this about the procedure:

Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.

There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] “the slayer of the infant,” which of course was alive. . . .

[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive.

– Tertullian, The Soul 25, [A.D. 210].

This method is not completely dissimilar to our own method of abortion, except we are prone to use vacuums to suck out the fetal body parts as well. In the recent controversy regarding the sale of dismembered fetal body parts, Dr. Nucatola talks about being extra careful to keep certain body parts, such as organs, intact. This is because when an abortion happens, often the fetus is ripped apart in the process. If you would like, you can even see the graphic images of the fetal remains so that you can better understand what happens when an abortion takes place and how they extract the parts in this way.

So, we shouldn’t pretend that any of these things are new. Nothing is new under the sun.

But we, as Christians, should make sure to continue to stand up against this whole idea of children being disposable things that can be gotten rid of when life is difficult. Abortion has been denounced by early Christian writers from the early times of the Church. We should hold fast to our traditions, just as the bible tells us to do, and continue to fight for life. After all, Jesus asked us to let the children come to him… and no, that doesn’t mean kill them off so they can go to heaven.

And this is not to say that the women who procure abortions are to be hated. Far from it. Part of being pro-life is about supporting women too, which is why nobody should ever hate a woman for having an abortion. If you’re going to talk on and on about the human dignity of a fetus, you need to at least recognize the human dignity of the woman who is contemplating or has already had an abortion. Otherwise, you miss the point of the beauty of human life and your argument is ridiculous.

There’s a meme going around on Facebook which is a Catholic nun, Sister Joan Chittister, talking about the difference between pro-birth and pro-life… if all you care about is the baby, but you’re willing to smear the mother to kingdom come, there is something wrong with your perspective about things. This is true. There are people who are suffering from medical conditions, both physical and mental, who are ignored or ostracized or told that they should just get over it. They need people who will stand up for them. There are people who are imprisoned in terrible, terrible conditions. They need someone to reaffirm that they are still human and to stand up for them. There are people who are impoverished and struggling to survive. They are called lazy because they don’t earn the top dollars some do and there is this whole crazy mindset that they deserve to be poor and to struggle to survive. This is madness. These people need people to stand up for them as well. There is so much temptation for those who “have” something to dismiss the concerns of those who don’t have that particular thing, be it health, wealth, age, freedom, or whatever else they aren’t privileged with.

The same is true for women who procure abortions — the majority of the people who abort are some of the most vulnerable in society, and that cannot and should not be ignored in this abortion ethics discussion.They are just as important and worthy to be loved as anybody else. Period. We need to stand up for them too.

But.

The unborn are also human too, and their dehumanization is particularly tragic. They are so vulnerable that, if you take them out of the womb, they cannot survive on their own without major medical intervention. They are clearly human — we know too much about biology to pretend that they magically become human when they pass through the birth canal, alive. The womb is built to protect them until they are ready to come out — through the strange and wonderful process of evolution, the womb has designed itself to protect this tiny little human life and to foster its growth. Sometimes it fails, such as miscarriage, but on the whole, that’s what the womb is designed to do. And now, we are ignoring nature and forcing it to bend to our own whims and designs.

We need to stand up for them as well.

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#Black Lives Matter

Jul26
by on July 26, 2015 at 7:54 am
Chapter:

Right now, many Americans are awaiting for the second autopsy results from Sandra Bland’s death, who died in police custody under suspicious circumstances. Sandra’s family has requested that we all wait for the results of the official investigation, so I will not speculate how she died. However, as a white person, I would like to say some things about this situation and the other situations that mirror this one…

1) The police are not infallible.

There are many people who want to defend the police as a gut impulse, no matter what the circumstances, because we, as Americans, want to believe in truth, justice, and the American way. Ideally, the police should be the defenders of all these things, and fortunately there are many officers who do their jobs wonderfully well and are remarkably fair to everyone they meet. It is nice to think of a police officer as some sort of Captain America, without the superhuman strength and the funny-looking costume.

However.

Police officers are people. They are not infallible. They are not perfect. They can make mistakes. They can be bigoted. They can be racists. They can be mean. They can get unreasonably angry with people. They can do terrible, terrible things. They can kill people. And they can do this all while justifying their actions under the law and hiding under protections which were made for police officers.

Of course, we don’t want to think about that. Even Anne Frank, who died in the Nazi concentration camps, wrote in her diary, “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” This is from Anne Frank, while she was holed up in an attic eating endless amounts of rotten potatoes because Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jewish race. She even didn’t want to think the worst of people. Guess what? We don’t want to think of the worst of people either. We want to believe that people act their best, especially when they are in such powerful positions in our community.

But, clearly, this is not the case. There have been too many cases that have been reported lately that show us that police officers are not perfect and that their actions are not necessarily justifiable and perfect for every situation. So why do so many people rush to the police officer’s aid before the evidence has had a chance to be filtered through in a fair and unbiased manner?

It’s beautiful that we can have such idealism. It really is. But let’s be more realistic about what is going on, please. Too many people have died to pretend that everything is fine. If we are serious about establishing truth, justice, and the American way for everyone, then that means we have to hold ourselves and our actions accountable to the justice system.

And that includes police officers.

2. The death sentence should not be given out on a whim.

When there is a death of suspects in police custody, sometimes there are people who say that so-and-so probably deserved it because the police officer thought that this person was acting suspiciously when they were arrested.

This whole idea is wrong.

Suspicion does not mean guilt.

Guilt must be established using legitimate proof in a court of law. An officer’s gut feeling should not be enough to indict a person. And it definitely should not be enough to give that person an automatic death sentence.

This is not to say that, were a police officer in a position where self defense was necessary that they shouldn’t defend themselves. They should. But, the majority of the cases that have come out recently are not self-defense cases, and many times the police officer just seems to be taking out some pent up frustration or anger on another person who does not deserve it.

Can it suck to have pent up anger and frustration issues related to the job? Yeah. But, just as retail workers have to control themselves when they get harassed about incorrect pricing and food service workers have to control themselves when they are serving patrons that refuse to leave tips, so too police officers need to control themselves when they feel harassed or inconvenienced or have to deal with temporary secondhand smoke.

Suspects need to be treated with respect. Even if — nay — especially when this is hard to do. They are suspects, not necessarily criminals. And, even when they’re criminals, they’re still people.

Let me repeat that: they’re still people.

Too many people forget that.

3. It is reasonable for black people to be suspicious when they are stopped by the police.

One of the biggest problems that officers face is that they rely heavily on gut feelings when stopping someone. Unfortunately, much of their gut feelings depends on the other person’s actions and whether they are evasive when dealing with the police. Thus, even an officer who tries to act without the slightest racist action can be naturally suspicious towards black people because many black people are suspicious of the police and will act evasively.

But. The reason why many black people are evasive is partly because of racism, which still exists, and because there have been a string of highly publicized wrongful deaths concerning innocent black people and police. So, guess what? They are suspicious of the police, and quite rightly so. I know that, were I in the same position, I would be very much scared.

There are so many people who like to point out that a disproportionate amount of black people are convicted as criminals, and thus police should be more wary with black people. However, those same people that quote these statistics quite eagerly forget that there is also a startling number of innocent black people who are killed by police, and that makes black people wary of police. The statistics works both ways. Why shouldn’t black people be distrustful of police?

So, when police officers stop black people for anything, they should be trained to expect more evasion from black people and not to automatically assume that this means guilt. Which means they need to be more patient and forgiving toward people who may be distrustful toward them and not immediately attack them.

Simple as that.

4. Black people are people.

Yes, they can make mistakes. They are people, after all. People are not infallible, as I said in the first point. But, their lives do matter. And they are people. Don’t paint them all as criminal thugs who justly deserve death without even the benefit of due process. They are people. Their lives matter.

Have I repeated myself enough?

Final thoughts

What is happening is not acceptable.

Racism is alive and kicking in America, whether we like it or not. Yes, we have made progress in the last hundred years to combat racism, and that is fantastic. We even have a black president! But, we still have a lot more work to do. There are black people who are afraid of even a traffic ticket as having a deadly consequence, and it is clear that their fears are reasonably founded on reality. This has to change.

Now is not the time to pretend that racism doesn’t exist. It does. We cannot say it doesn’t when black churches are being destroyed through arson or gunshots. We cannot say it doesn’t when nine members of a black congregation are massacred by a lone gunman while they are praying at a bible study. We cannot say it doesn’t when even our police — the people we trust to defend truth, justice, and the American way — kill black men and women, either through their direct actions or their passive neglect.

This is not good.

There are too many dead bodies that surround us to sit back with our blinders on and pretend that everything is okay. It isn’t. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work. There is not much we can do about the psychopaths that work alone, but we employ the police to defend and serve us. Shouldn’t we be able to make them stand up for their actions — good or bad — and make them live with the consequences? Shouldn’t we make sure that justice is served?

And maybe — just maybe! — by making a stand, we’ll be able to influence things for the better and truly make a difference.

After all, we’ve made such good progress in the last hundred years. Why stop now?

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Scientific Opinion

Jul16
by on July 16, 2015 at 11:55 pm
Chapter:

There are lots of things that I want to say about abortion, but right now, I just want to put on my biochemical engineering hat and speak about our responsibility, as scientists, in this abortion ethics debate.

Right now, we live in a world in which science is becoming more and more important in our daily lives. The general public knows more science than at any other time in history, despite the current lamentations of many scientists today about the general public’s scientific knowledge, or lack thereof. There are many scientists who are currently having conniption fits about society’s perception of evolution, global climate change, and vaccinations, yet they remain strangely quiet about the issue of abortion. There is no doubt that the above topics are very important issues that must be dealt with, but the silence regarding abortion is deafening. Why?

It is sheer idiocy in which we pretend that human life is something that magically occurs at the moment in which a baby is extracted from its mother. We know better than that. We, as scientists, know too much about pregnancy and the whole process of the creation of life to pretend such a thing. To believe anything else is a lie that is based on pseudoscience and wishful thinking.

Why is the disbelief of evolution such an abhorrent thing and yet the belief that a human is formed at conception such a controversial topic in which we can’t speak about unless we know the circumstances of the birth? After all, the idea that life begins at conception is so well known of a scientific principle that even scientists are able to create human embryos in the lab and implant them into people so that these people are able to conceive a child, via in vitro fertilization, or IVF. If this is the scientific reality that we live with today, then why do we shy away from talking about what makes a human alive?

Of course the fetus is human. Of course the fetus is alive. Of course it’s a lump of cells — so are all of us. We know this all from basic biology. This isn’t even difficult biology. All of these shouldn’t be up for scientific debate. In fact, as scientists, we should make sure the general population is scientifically educated to know these basic facts of biology, at the very least. The question is, when we are posed with the choice of deliberately preserving life or deliberately destroying it, will we choose the side of life or will we choose the side of death?

Let’s talk about another uncomfortable, controversial issue for us scientists, which the recent controversy regarding the sale of dismembered fetal body parts delves into: scientific research. As scientists, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, scientific research is not some sort of hallowed golden calf that we should all bow down to and worship as the source of enlightenment that will lead to the betterment of society. And yet too often, in order to get donations, grant money, or corporate funding, we treat it as if it is. And we have done so to such a large extent that the public perception is such that donating “to science” with their money, their own bodies, or even to the fetal remains of the fetus that was once inside of them, is considered to be an act of goodness.

Perhaps Planned Parenthood is not making any money off the proceeds of the fetal body parts they are selling, but the companies they are selling the parts to are certainly making a lucrative profit in this niche market. After all, there is a certain scarcity of these sorts of human tissues, if one can call fetal body parts that. Perhaps we should be less outraged at Planned Parenthood for trying to find a use for these body parts, which would otherwise be thrown into the trash as bio-hazardous waste, and more angry that the reason why these people were able to go undercover and shoot this video in the first place was because companies can buy fetal body parts and sell them for profit, and quite legally too.

Let me put this another way: we, as a society, are outraged if women who abort fetuses profit financially from their aborted fetuses. We, as a society, are outraged if Planned Parenthood profits financially from aborted fetuses. But if a corporation that invests in “scientific research” for profit financially profits from aborted fetuses? What then? Are we still outraged?

Let’s get real here: many of the women who undergo abortions are poorer women who would be financially imbalanced caring for a child. With that said, it seems to be in remarkably bad taste for a corporation to make a profit of their financial suffering. And yet this is clearly what happens. As scientists, are we comfortable in exploiting other people, especially the most vulnerable in our society, in this fashion in order to possibly progress our own agendas?

Speaking for myself, and only myself, I am not comfortable at all in sacrificing to this golden calf of scientific research in this way.

Once again: I’m trained as a biochemical engineer. I studied science and math because I hoped to make the world a better place. I believe that science and technology add a definite value to our society and can, in fact, better it. But I also think that science and technology can be a dual-edged sword and, if we are not careful, it will destroy us.

If science and scientific research are truly going to be a sources of betterment for society, it needs to be for all of society. We cannot exploit the most vulnerable and impoverished of the world, all in the name of scientific research. It’s as simple as that.

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