The Pro-Life Cover of Time

James M. Kushiner
Touchstone
September 28, 2010

The cover of the October 4, 2010 issue of Time caught my eye a couple of days ago at the Atlanta airport--not the picture but the text: How the first nine months shape the rest of your life

Excuse me, "the rest of your life"? Since when did Time view your life as including the 9 months in the womb? So that's you there in the first trimester? That was your life?

Sometimes headline writers bend a story a bit and don't write lines that are meant to be taken too literally. I know, for I write enough of them myself. So on to the inside text of the article, where influences such as genes, DNA, childhood expereinces and lifestyle choices are cited as typical explanations for our conditions in life. the rest

Read the comments after the article, esp. the George Orwell quote.

I was struck by this comment about the mindset of a woman who wants her baby and one who wants to abort:

"In the moral world of Time a baby is a baby unless the woman doesn't want it to be one, then, no facts may be admitted to prove it otherwise."

I have actually had an abortion discussion end at just that point... "So, what you're telling me is that if two women are carrying 8 week fetuses, and one wants to continue the pregnancy, then she's carrying a baby, and if one wants to terminate, then she's not carrying a baby?" "Yes, that's right." "But either the baby is a baby or it's not a baby. It's exactly the same thing in both instances." "No, it's not." "How can one be a baby and the other not be a baby when they are exactly the same thing?" "Because the woman who is going to terminate doesn't want to continue the pregnancy." "So if I don't want to eat pizza, so I call a pizza an apple, am I eating a pizza or an apple?" "You're not taking this seriously."...