We have chosen to be silent.
History is full of people like this. Some don’t stand up because they agree. Some because they don’t agree, but because their neighbor does. Some don’t because in a world of 7+ billion people, one can’t make a difference, so why fight?
Because we have to. Because history remembers those who stand by and watch. History condemns those who watched the trains go by. We all do. Why didn’t they fight? Didn’t they know what they were doing by watching? To stand by and do nothing means we agree. And we’re doing it again.
Time and time again, the world has told certain groups that they don’t deserve the same rights as the rest of humanity. They are different. They don’t deserve to live. They. Aren’t. People. We have tried so many times to decide who is worthy of life and we have had our worst moments during those times. Look at the Holocaust. Look at slavery. Look at history. The darkest times are when certain groups are defined as sub-humans who don’t deserve to live. Slavery. The Holocaust. Think of all of the atrocities that the Nazis were responsible for. The medical experimentation, the mass killings, and the gas chambers to name a few. When we can tear a baby apart with forceps while it’s still in the womb, we can’t point fingers at Nazi Germany. When we can kill a baby inside the one place where it is supposed to be safe and then count the body parts to make sure that they’re all there, we are no better.
All men are created equal. It doesn’t say that they’re born equal or that they come out of the womb equal. They are created equal. As in brought into being equal. Which means they all have the same basic rights and none are more important than the right to life.
The law says otherwise? The law said otherwise in Nazi Germany. It said otherwise before the Civil War. Which side does history fall on?
A lot of people say abortion is different. It’s the mother’s body. It’s not life. It’s a group of cells, not a baby. Let’s accept that last argument for a moment. A flower is a group of cells. A tree is a group of cells (interestingly enough, we actually send people to jail for killing a group of cells – see Harvey Updyke). By the third week after conception, a baby’s brain, organs, and heart have started developing and only a week later it registers a heartbeat (which is very commonly recognized as a sign of life). By the tenth week following conception, the fetus is showing off a very familiar looking facial structure. The group of cells looks suspiciously human. What’s. So. Different.
Maybe you disagree with my logic. Look at the laws. They know it’s life, that it’s a person, as much as they try to say otherwise. Look at the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a federal law with limited jurisdiction, and then go find the 38 state laws (including one in California) that back it up. A person can be charged with the murder of a fetus. Which is really interesting because when we say murder, we mean the killing of a person.
The law has had this sort of contradiction before. Look at slavery. Look at the price we paid for trying to define personhood. We know better. It’s just easier to forget.
We are the people that history will condemn. We know better and we ignore it. We stand by and we watch, ignoring the cries and the blood that’s starting to pool at our feet. If we can’t respect the smallest life, what hope does this world have?
I can’t watch the trains go by. Will you?
beingevanescent 