On June 5th, our primary day in Montana, I volunteered seeking signatures for the “Personhood Amendment” petition. This amendment is basically from the “womb to the tomb” definition of the term Person.
“A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT . . . Montana Constitution to define “person” as used in that section to include every human being regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.”
This proved to be very interesting. We had to represent the proposition correctly starting with the word “conception”. Once the voter heard that word, many right away said “no” without giving me the opportunity to complete the definition of Person. Many more women than men said “no”. (We women are very well indoctrinated on our “reproductive rights”.)
I wanted the opportunity to explain Person from the womb to the tomb. I actually wanted to emphasis the later phase of our lives, the elderly, especially the infirmed elderly, as many of the voters I talked with will shortly approach that age.
With our indoctrination of “when does life begin”, I believe our society is very gray on what life is and as we see in this video, indifferent and/or mimic what they have been taught or have heard via education and media.
A day is coming when the question will be when is the elderly no longer viable. I so wanted the voter to think about that end of the life spectrum. But not only the elderly, how about the chronically ill? Some one who has relapsed once, twice, three times with cancer? Multiple sclerosis? Lou Gehrig’s disease? Diabetic? and so on?
A sobering thought came to me as I sat on my hospital bed while receiving chemotherapy. If this chemo didn’t work and my cancer didn’t go into remission and I needed further treatment, if I lived in the days of Hitler would I be expendable? And, if our society moves in the direction of indifference to defining what connotes life at any age, if I relapse (and many cancer patients do relapse and receive chemo as a “maintenance” drug) will I be denied my drugs and exterminated because I can no longer live as a productive Person and I am a burden to my family’s finances or worse yet, the government dole?
Hmmm. . . .
Hitler consider the Jews, Russians, Christians, people of dark skin color, infirmed, disabled and/or handicapped expendable Persons. He exterminated them regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency. (Ooops, the last sentence came right out of Montana’s proposition for the Personhood Amendment.)
Adolf Hitler’s reign begins in 1933. Abortion rights established 1973. Will the term “Person” be defined in 2013? Or shortly thereafter? I guess we’ll see . . .
The Voice: a Christian cancer blog 