In the year 1982, I wrote a futuristic drama entitled, Pandora’s Child. The play was originally performed at the University of California, Santa Barbara and eventually published by Russell House. Subsequent productions by a variety of community theater groups on college campuses and other venues gave Pandora a considerable audience. I also did a one man version of the drama for some two decades at churches and universities across the country.
Here is an example of how the play is currently described on my website for Christian groups who want to perform the piece:
“Pandora’s Child takes place in America’s future. Laws have changed, but the society reminds us very much of our own culture. One significant difference is that there are now two trials in the courts, the first to determine guilt or innocence of the offense itself; the latter to determine whether or not a proper motivation excuses the action. Emile Hutton, having already been tried and convicted once for the murder of her one-month old infant is facing her second trial, attempting to validate her motives with the same arguments used for abortion. The prosecutor builds upon a premise which becomes the underlying theme of the play-the idea of a universal intuitive sense of morality which comes from God. The play is designed to graphically portray the horror of humanistic philosophy when such a philosophy is applied in real life situations and pushed to its bitter end.”
And now, I will share a sample of the dialogue, from fictitious character, Emily Hutton the accused, as she testifies in court:
“You’re saying it involved my baby, Mr. Vale? OK.. Let’s talk about the baby. What was she? What was she really? She was an untimely infant who was never meant to exist. My pregnancy was forced upon me. I did not ask for it. What kind of situation is necessary before a child should be born if not a decision? Two people decide to bring a new baby into the world. The baby is therefore personal property produced by their own bodies. When a husband and wife decide not to be parents, or to wait a number of years before having children, they are directly preventing a potential human being from coming to life. Wouldn’t the end result be the same as mine? Because of a brutal rape and mistaken information, I gave birth to a baby. If I hadn’t been raped, she wouldn’t have been born. I shouldn’t have been raped and therefore her birth was a mistake, a mistake which I chose to correct. If time travel were possible, I know you would have no objection to my going back and avoiding the rape. Naturally that could never happen, but can you deny that my life at this date is the same life I had before? I was single and childless then. I’m single and childless now. At the same time, nothing cruel happened to the baby. Her death was painless, so I can’t be accused of hurting her. She never had time to grow into a normal human being, so I didn’t rob her of a conscious, enjoyable life either. The Baby gently and peacefully went to sleep. Now, all is as sit was. If I hadn’t been raped, the world would have been without a baby. I was raped, but I saw to it that the world is still without a baby. Show me my crime? What was wrong with correctly this error? If not for some temporary, physical existence, this would be nothing more than a woman’s decision not to be a mother. What right do you have to stand there and tell me that like it or not, I have to choose between mothering a child I could never live with or sentencing the poor baby to doomed, miserable days as an orphan. Neither alternative would have been proper at all. But this way I’m better off and the child is better off.”
Once again, my play was written in the year 1983. We are all familiar with the phrase, “truth is stranger than fiction.” Indeed, those words are often uttered in a care free manner. But there’s nothing care free about the road our society is traveling. In previous articles, I reminded my readers that partial birth abortion is really infanticide and that the Illinois Infant Protection Act was passed because nurses in hospitals were refusing to care for babies accidentally born due to botched late term abortions. The excuse, of course, was that since the mother intended this to be an abortion, the hospital supposedly had no right to keep the now viable baby alive even though this new living, crying human being was obviously no longer “her body and her choice.”
Horrific as all that sounds, the situation has gotten worse. It was only a matter of time before people admitted the truth, shedding their inhibitions which caused them to hide behind titles like “abortion.” While one can always appreciate honesty, expressing accuracy about an evil practice (without a willingness to call it evil) is another matter altogether. Some are no longer shying away from a full embracing of infant euthanasia. No longer do they need to dumb down their language by using a convenient term, fetus. Now the word baby works just fine.
UK Columnist Virginia Ironside made news Sunday morning by appearing on a BBC talk show hosted by Susana Reid.
“”If I were a mother of a suffering child,” Ironside said with upbeat passion, ” I would be the first to want – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face,” said the columnist. “And I would with any suffering thing.”
Later, Zoe Williams of the UK newspaper, Guardian defended Ironside as being “valid” and” brave.”
OK, Miss Ironside is talking about a suffering baby but she also said most adopted kids would be better off dead as well as “unfit” children.
Sweet Virginia is not alone in her convictions: Check out the words of well known popular “scholar” and “ethicist” Peter Singer:
On the Sanctity of Human Life
I do not deny that if one accepts abortion on the grounds provided in Chapter 6, the case for killing other human beings, in certain circumstances, is strong. As I shall try to show in this chapter, however, this is not something to be regarded with horror, and the use of the Nazi analogy is utterly misleading. On the contrary, once we abandon those doctrines about the sanctity of human life that – as we saw in Chapter 4 – collapse as soon as they are questioned, it is the refusal to accept killing that, in some cases, is horrific. (1)
On The Acceptability of Killing Newborn Infants
In Chapter 4 we saw that the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. We saw in our discussion of abortion that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics – not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celibacy. No infant – disabled or not – has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time.
(As quoted in First Things, June 8, 2010 The Wit and Wisdom of Peter Singer Part Two by Joe Carter.)
God save us! The barbarism of Ancient Rome has returned. In those days, the nurture or destruction of a new born baby was legally at the whim of the father. Our “enlightened, morally evolved” 21st century culture is headed the same direction and even further. In China, only one baby per household is allowed and Planned Parenthood spokespeople have been known to talk favorably about China’s rule. No surprises since Margaret Sanger published writings from Hitler’s eugenicist.
Folks, this argument has moved light years beyond “My body, my choice!” Pandora’s Child was obviously titled with the ancient myth of Pandora in mind. The legalization of abortion opened Pandora’s box to a whole host of euthanasia justifications. In some places adults are legally treated to physician assisted suicide. First babies, then adult volunteers. What is the missing piece of the mosaic? Mandatory euthanasia for adults as well! It already happened to Terry Shivo, although nobody talks about her any more. Did you know her death was ordered by a judge who belongs to the Hemlock Society?
Time for some sanity. Time for some mercy. Time for a return to basic human decency. Then again, human nature can not be trusted because it really isn’t all that decent. Better that we should return to our Creator who warned us of the real danger right from the start: Sin.
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