By Selwyn Duke

When does an unborn baby become human?  If our contradictory laws are to be believed, it all depends on geographical  location and whether or not the wrong person tries to kill him.  A case in point comes to us from Wisconsin, where a man, Manishkumar Patel, is being charged with first-degree murder for slipping the abortion drug RU-486 into his pregnant mistress’ drink. 

The contradiction here should be obvious.  If the thesis used to justify legalized abortion is correct — that an unborn baby is merely an "unviable tissue mass" — how can Patel be guilty of murder?  And if the baby is human, as the murder charge implies, how can abortionists not be?

This isn’t the first time a man has been charged with murdering an unborn child, and many of those in the pro-abortion camp support such prosecutions.  And when they do, they betray themselves.  Why is it that they suddenly "know" the baby is human when his angel of death is his father and not his mother?

If the woman in this case had taken RU-486 herself, it would simply have been her "choice" and we would have heard nothing of it.  Yet, when the father unilaterally makes this decision, it’s front page news.  Oh, it’s not his place to make decisions concerning her body, some say?  Fine, but if the issue is merely her body, then a murder charge is unjust.  He then could only be guilty of something akin to amputating an arm or leg in inducing the necrosis of an internal "body part."

This stark contradiction can be understood simply: It is the result of making law using emotion-based determinations and convenience-inspired rationalization.

This is what explains such a complete descent into irrationality.  An unborn baby is either human at a given stage of development or he isn’t.  Under our paradigm, however, his humanity is a fluid thing, determined by time, place and circumstance.  If one parent wants him and the other wants him dead, he’d better hope the latter is not the member of the group that has been given a license to kill.

Contradiction tells us that something is amiss.  If a principle cannot be applied consistently, it needs to be re-evaluated.  Cases such as the tragic Wisconsin affair tell us that, deep down — although it might have been exiled to that part of the mind reserved for real inconvenient Truths — most people know the Truth. 

We talk much about choice, but there is no such thing as a choice to alter reality.  We could deny it out of convenience, though.  And if we are thus guilty, then our only real guiding principle is that the end justifies the means.