Guest Commentary
Monday, September 11, 2006
A Modest Proposal: Save A Fetus; Stop A War
By Myriam Miedzian
It hit me like a bolt of lightening. We have a president whose deepest moral concern is for the unborn and the brain dead, so it is obviously to this concern that we (those of us who have been trying to influence President Bush to stop the war in Iraq and not start one in Iran) should have been appealing all along instead of constantly harping on the suffering of the born.
How could we waste our time pointing to the young Americans who are losing their lives in Iraq, or returning home without legs or arms, or the 100,000 Iraqis blown up since we "liberated" their country, when all along we should have been bringing to the president’s attention that there are tens of thousands of fetus carrying pregnant women in Iraq and Iran, (not to mention the brain dead— the Iraqi and Iranian Terry Schiavo’s scattered across these nations.)
As I ruminated excitedly over this new insight and its implications for radical changes in our foreign policy, I realized that Bush’s devotion to the unborn is in no way limited to fetuses. His devotion to stem cell carrying embryos—of which there are undoubtedly a good number in Iran and Iraq— is equally profound. While victims of Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and other tragic illnesses point out that the stem cells required for research would be taken from frozen embryos likely to be discarded, the president’s commitment to the stem cell is such that he is unwilling to take moral responsibility for the willful destruction of even one. He sees every single human embryo as "a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value."
Clearly, Bush was so excited at the prospect of starting his very own war and being commander-in-chief of all armed forces, that he did not think through the implications for the foreign unborn of his military interventions. Once we make him aware that as Commander- in- chief he must take responsibility for the killing of large numbers of unborn and brain dead in Iraq, he will undoubtedly be grief stricken and guilt ridden. Can anyone doubt that he will overcome his natural inclination towards warfare and revulsion at negotiation, and will hasten efforts to bring peace to Iraq? All thoughts of attacking Iran will be abandoned.
Some might argue that his concern for the unborn is limited to American fetuses, embryos, and stem cells, but this is not so. One of his first acts as president was to cut funding to third world non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) if they provide legal abortion services, or are involved in any activity that supports abortion. He has also cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund which provides help for family planning in third world countries.
Some might argue that there is nothing in his commitment to the unborn to prevent him from bombing Iranian or North Korean nuclear facilities which would only take the lives of borns. But this view fails to consider that there might be fetus carrying pregnant women working at some of these facilities. And yes our adversaries might take advantage of our president’s moral fiber— if there are no pregnant women working at their nuclear facilities, they could decide to surround them with frozen embryos which would prevent even such limited military intervention.
But such "taking advantage" could work to our own advantage. If only it had occurred to Saddam Hussein— when Iraq was about to be attacked —to inform Bush of the number of brain dead, and pregnant women and frozen embryos in his country, and of his intention to surround his palace with mobile fertility laboratories. What pain and suffering might have been avoided!
