By Dave Andrusko
Quick reminder: tonight at 10:00 EST, the Fox News channel will present an investigative piece exploring what the (so far) nine undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress tell us about the harvesting of fetal tissue and intact baby parts by Planned Parenthood.
We know nothing specifically about “Planned Parenthood: The Hidden Harvest,” but the subject matter is one NRL News Today has covered extensive and in exhaustive detail.
(For our latest, see “Even for researchers, the sight of an unborn child’s head in a delivery box is too grisly”)
How do these strikingly dehumanizing practices shown on the video link up with the following post and to a class I am leading this weekend? Glad you asked.
In the opening paragraph of his classic, The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton observed, “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.”
That is not an option for us. Clearly, in our treatment of unborn babies–as exemplified by the ghastly behavior of PPFA and so-called “fetal tissue procurers– we have wandered far from home.
“The other,” he wrote, “is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.” And using that image, as we work to return to the place where the unborn are protected in law and welcomed in life, often times it can seem as if our nation has walked halfway around the world and we are now as far away from home as we can possibly be.
So what can you and I do to help the American people complete the return journey? Consider the following as a way of empowering our fellow citizens to see what many are blind to now and without which they are unlikely to join us in the greatest movement for social justice of our time.
Some/many/most of you may be familiar with the “Johari Window,” a psychological/communication model in which the self is envisioned as a window with four panes. There are many descriptions, here is just one.
“The Open self is known to the self and to others; The Hidden [or private] self is known to the self but not to others; The Blind self is unknown to the self but known to others; The Unknown [or undiscovered] self, which lives that Deeper life, is unknown by all.”
Referring to the Blind self,
“There are things about ourselves which we do not know, but that others can see more clearly; or things we imagine to be true of ourselves for a variety of reasons but that others do not see at all.
Interesting. But for purposes of helping people truly “see,” the following sentence is crucial:
“When others say what they see in us in a supportive, responsible way and we are able to hear it, in that way we are able to test the reality of who we are and are able to grow.”
How does this help us, then, as we campaign against our culture’s ever more cavalier, ever more brutal pattern of dehumanization and depersonalization?
I would argue that it begins by teaching us that we must help Americans address “things about themselves” which they “do not know.”
For example, that out of ignorance or as a result of a conscious choice, they have failed to see the humanity we share with our unborn sisters and brothers. How can they come to know this and be indignant that unborn children are treated like meat?
One way is the kind of unvarnished, uncensored truth found on the CMP videos. But as powerful as those videos are, that is not enough. Some people will never hear, some will simply choose to look away, still others will be so repulsed they will want to be just “left alone.”
Long term, engaging and then awakening consciences requires that pro-lifers speak the truth to a people in a “supportive, responsible way.”
Why will this work? There remains a core of shared values that have been hijacked by the anti-life forces but which do not belong to them.
How do we return those values to their rightful owners? By our example, by our diligence, and by our genuine love for both mother and child.
Our task, though immense, is clear. It is restoration. We must restore memory, mercy, and mankind’s reverence for life.
If anyone can do it, let me boldly suggest it is the marvelous men and women who make up the pro-life movement.