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Decatur Central High School

She taught me so much. I heard through the grape vine that she thinks I’m a religious nut. Oh well.

New science is showing us how much we didn’t know about the developing baby. We can now watch, in detail, their movements in real time. Such science will help us understand and hopefully cure many early onset diseases and disorders. We can also see how even the very young fetus is not “a blob of cells”, but rather a human being. The bbc has a few interesting articles with pictures that show the new technology.

BBC NEWS | Health | Scans uncover secrets of the womb

From 12 weeks, unborn babies can stretch, kick and leap around the womb – well before the mother can feel movement

From 18 weeks, they can open their eyes although most doctors thought eyelids were fused until 26 weeks

From 26 weeks, they appear to exhibit a whole range of typical baby behaviour and moods, including scratching, smiling, crying, hiccuping, and sucking.
Until recently it was thought that smiling did not start until six weeks after birth.

Now crossreference those pictures and gestation periods, with the numbers of abortions in those periods. Shocking isn’t it? It should be.

I was walking down the street in Over the Rhine about two months ago and saw something strangely familiar on the ground, smashed up and soggy next to a brick fence post and a clump of grass. I immediately recognized it as the popular vegan tract, Why Vegan (.pdf). I picked this same track up at some point in college, probably also on the ground, and read through it carefully. I’m always interested in reading the arguments of others, and have an affinity for any type of “tract” whether relgious, or not.

If you’ll notice the tract, it outlines a few of the popular arguments for veganism. Most interesting to me, however, was it’s abundant use of quotes. I remember reading a few of the quotes by “famous smart dudes” like Ralph Waldo Emerson and thinking, “Well, if a smart dude said this, then eating animals must be wrong.” Okay, I didn’t actually think that, but I think that’s what they’re going for. Notice how many times, “Blah blah, PHD” is mentioned. I was also intrigued by their choice of public figures. The first one that caught my eye was a quote by popular author and “autistic” advocate Temple Grandin. Temple is in fact, very famous in the education world for the therapies that she’d created in her aunts slaughter house to help her overcome some the effects of autism. I know it sounds weird, but it’s absolutely true. They quoted her as saying,

“Insufficient amperage can cause an animal to become paralyzed without losing sensibility.”

She was, of course, talking about ways to perfect slaughter houses, has always been an advocate of this perfection, and moreover, wasn’t equating “sensibility” with “sentience” as the out of context nature of the quote mide lead some to think. It’s also absolutely true that Temple is not in fact, vegan, or even a vegetarian. She designs more “humane” slaughter houses and machinery. Which is why I thought it odd that they included her.

“‘when an animal dies in a well-run slaughter plant, it’s much more peaceful than out in nature. People forget that it is a harsh world out there. Animals could die in a snowstorm. There could be a drought and they could starve to death, or get eaten up by predators. If I was an animal, I’d rather go to a slaughter plant than have my guts dined on while I was still alive.’”

Secondly, they have two quotes in there from Peter Singer. If I’m ever going to be convinced of the immorality of eating meat, it’s not going to stem from arguments coming from Mr. Singer. He’s one of the rare way far out wackos who thinks that animals and people are the same thing, only different on the outside, and oh yeah, it’s perfectly moral to kill a baby up to about three months after birth. It’s all about quality of life people. I’ve more thoughts on Singer but am too tired to post them here.

I found it not ironic that I salvaged this tract from the gutter.

Peter Singer: Architect of the Culture of Death

Sarah is out east visiting her family for the next ten days. I’ll be here at home all by myself. I didn’t think I would really care, considering I try to play the aloof tough guy most of the time, but I’m really starting to get lonely and it’s only been two days.

For some reason, being at mass without Evelyn squirming and Sarah at my side wasn’t the same. I know I shouldn’t really care about who I’m sitting next to, logically, since it is God in front of me, but I still had that sentimental feeling.