|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Abortion and the Insatiable Self
| Article
# : |
20513 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1992 |
4,915 Words |
| Author
: |
Camille Williams
Camille Williams is a part-time faculty member in the
philosophy department at Brigham Young University and has
written on abortion, women's issues, and family issues. |
When the family name was called, the parents carried the child to the front of the small chapel, where they are joined by the grandparents, relatives, and close friends. Each person placed a hand beneath the father's hands supporting the baby; encircled, buoyed up by shared joy, the young man offered a prayer of thanksgiving. In a voice soft with emotion, he asked for guidance in teaching, loving, raising the child aright.
This blessing ceremony, though it differs from rites in other churches and other cultures, reflects the very old practice of welcoming babies into our communities with ritual, celebration, promises, and gifts.
A few weeks later the chapel filled again, this time for the community to say goodbye to six-year-old Rachel, who stepped in front of a car and out of this world on her way home with her brothers. Neighbors and friends surrounded the family, saying by their presence: It matters to us that she lived; it matters to us that she died. We will bear sorrow with you that the burden may be light.
Such communal, life-affirming rituals have sustained cultures the world over since time immemorial. But in recent decades, in Western and particularly American culture, the values that undergird such rituals have begun a rapid erosion. The weakening of community-building, responsibility-oriented values and their replacement by self-oriented ones have led to an atmosphere in which abortion, once widely abhorred, now has broad approval.
In the past, our collective history of virtue and vice served as the text for instilling morality in our youth. But the old stories of serving and sacrifice that sustained our parents and grandparents have been increasingly displaced by the myth of the self-defined individual who believes that "when it comes right down to it, your first responsibility is to yourself."
For example, in a poll of a thousand U.S. adults last fall, George Barna of the Barna Research Group found a "massive realignment of thinking is taking place" in the religious beliefs and practices of the United States. While most respondents said that religion is important to them, the religion they describe is significantly different from traditional belief in the absolute power of God to save human kind from its own frailty. Eighty-two-percent agree that "every person has the power to determine his or her own destiny in life." This essentially New Age belief elevates the individual while turning the personal God of
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
