No, Tulsi Gabbard, a Pro-Life Society is Not a Theocracy
Tulsi Gabbard, 37-year-old Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii announced this weekend she is running for President. Gabbard is a major in the Hawaii National Guard, serving two tours in the Middle East. For that, we should honor her.
She also used to be pro-life. She changed her views in 2011.
She saw the “absolute importance” of separating church and state and the danger of “theocracies” to personal freedom. “Allowing government to dictate these most personal aspects of our lives,” she declared, “is diametrically opposed to what makes America great: individual liberty and equal rights for everyone.”
She could not be more wrong.
More Than Theology
Supporting the right of the unborn child to be welcomed into life is not only based on theological conviction. It’s based on an inescapable reality.
As a culture, we intuit that as a person, an unborn baby has the same value as you and me.
The unborn child has value. Intuitively, we — our whole culture — know that the unborn child is a person. If not, why are there ads like this?
“It is not known if REXULTI may harm your unborn baby.”
“It is not known if MAVYRET will harm your unborn baby.”
“BENICAR, BENICAR HCT, AZOR, and TRIBENZOR can cause harm or death to an unborn baby.”
Are these warnings based on a woman’s choice about bearing her unborn baby to term? Or maybe, just maybe, something else? About the value an unborn child has, in herself? As a culture, we intuit that as a person, she has the same value as you and me. Even pro-choice people will let this intuition slip out.
That’s not “theocracy.” That doesn’t violate the strictist idea of the separation of church and state. It just describes who this person is under the law. It’s not more “theocratic” than the recognition that black Americans have full human and legal dignity and cannot be enslaved.
Why?
Why do we think this about the unborn child? What’s behind this intuition? What we know about the child’s development, for one thing. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, here’s what happens in just the first eight weeks of pregnancy:
- The child’s brain and spinal cord begin to form.
- The tissues that will form the heart begin to beat. The heartbeat can be detected with ultrasound at about 6 weeks of pregnancy.
- Buds for limbs appear with paddle-like hands and feet.
- The eyes, ears, and nose begin to develop. Eyelids form, but remain closed.
- The genitals begin to develop.
- By the end of the eighth week, all major organs and body systems have begun to develop.
This is not the history of an organ or a bunch of blood and tissue. It is the story of the early life of a person. A human being.
And what we see in the children we have, for another thing. Like little LynLee Hope Boemer, who in 2016 was found to have a cancerous tumor at the base of her spine. She was four months along in her mother Margaret’s womb.
A few weeks later, doctors removed LynLee from her mother’s uterus, removed the tumor, and returned her to Margaret’s womb. LynLee Hope is now two years old. She is beautiful. And her value, her worth, her humanness did not rely on the choice of her brave mother. It was hers.
We Know the Truth — We Can’t Pretend
We know that unborn child is a child, a person with all the rights persons have. Take a look at all the ultrasound photos of unborn children posted all over the web. Do people share them as a sort of medical parlor game? Or could it be that they are thrilled beyond words with the new life coming into their own?
Ms. Gabbard, this is not about the imposition of a severe theocracy. It’s about something — someone — else.
In a recent Subaru ad, a pregnant woman is shown talking to her unborn child — she even calls her “baby.” It is a lovely ad, with scenes of the woman and her husband at the beach, the forest, and other places. “There’s so much we want to show her,” says the woman. The ad ends with a little girl, the now-growing daughter, saying, “C’mon mom, let’s go!”
Why would an international automaker run an ad like this? Because it wants to make a controversial political statement? Of course not — because it knows that what its ad is showing is one of the universally-shared joys of the human experience. Anticipating and then welcoming a new life, a baby, a child. Born and unborn.
Ms. Gabbard, this is not about the imposition of a severe theocracy. It’s about something — someone — else.
Not a blob of disposable, optional organic matter. A baby.
A baby. Even Tulsi Gabbard cannot not know it.
