Peter Witkowski Apologetics

The Precedented Unprecedented

precedentThe interdisciplinary team working at Huanchaquito-Las Llamas recently disturbed the modern conscience with their latest discovery. The team led by Gabriel Prieto of the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and John Verano of Tulane University and sponsored by the National Geographic revealed that their Peruvian archaeological dig contained the, “largest single incident of mass child sacrifice in the Americas— and likely in world history.” The scientists and historians found the remains of more than 140 children and 200 baby lamas that had been murdered and mutilated some 550 years ago by the Chimú Empire. And less than a half mile away from where children’s hearts were ripped from their chests, the empire conducted their affairs of state. Calculated trades and negotiations took place just minutes away from unbelievable horror.
The pictures of the excavated skeletons lying face up with broken ribs are dark and disturbing. Though America is increasingly defined by violence, the mass premeditated murder of 140 or more children still disturbs the modern mind as evidenced by the magazine’s bold claims. And evil of this magnitude should be noted in the press and mourned.
But the Kristin Romey, one of National Geographic’s editors that covers archaeology and paleontology, missteps when she attempts to help audience appreciate the magnitude of the slaughter being studied. She writes,

The discovery of a large-scale child sacrifice event in the little-known pre-Columbian Chimú civilization is unprecedented in the Americas—if not in the entire world.

Romey’s captures the sentiment of the moment, but she wrong assumes that the sacrifice is unprecedented in world history.
In one sense, her claim is justifiable. The whole sale slaughter of 140 plus children at one religious event is noteworthy. But when compared against the annals of world history, academics cannot say this is unprecedented. If we go back only four years in the historical cannon of world history, we discover a far greater slaughter.
In 2014, the United States legally aborted 652,639 children (the most recent statistical year in file) according to the CDC. Americans aborted more than 1,788 babies per day in 2014 down. Such acts of horror took place down the street from hospitals, gas stations,  factories, restaurants, and government buildings. Clearly large scale infanticide taking place in close proximity to a nation’s established societal institutions  is not unprecedented in the Americas as Romey claimed.
Admittedly some will object to the comparison, pointing to the religious nature of pre-Columbian event. Few if any abort a child to appease the gods or to convince them to send rain. Few if any cut out the heart of their child to determine their future or to connect with the life force of the gods.
But the basic ideas that drove those men and women to murder children 550 years ago are still driving modern men and women today.
The Chimú people sacrificed those 140 plus children because they believed their deaths would benefit society by alleviating hardship and winning more wealth and happiness. Today, boyfriends and husbands, parents, and ultimately mothers abort their children for their benefit. They do not want to be saddled with having to care for the child’s physical, emotional, and monitory needs. Modern adults do not want to sacrifice their educational goals, their financial plans, and their personal peace for a child. Instead of sacrificing for the child, they sacrifice the child for their needs. As C.S. Lewis thoughtfully showed through his book, That Hideous Strength, modern science divorced from Christian morality often becomes  little more than cruelly efficient paganism. The Chimú people could kill 140 or more kids in one day at one location. We can kill 1,788 or more kids across 50 states in a day. We too rip apart the bodies of our dead children seeking to find brighter futures filled with medical advancements. For all of our advancements modern men and women apart from Christ are still quintessentially pagan.
As believers we should mourn the discovery at Huanchaquito-Las Llamas. But we must not leave our gaze in the past. We must fight against our nation’s annual sacrifice of children to the gods of ease, comfort, and wealth. We must support foster care and adoption. We must speak for the unborn. We must engage in the political community. We must do all that we can to end this slaughter.
We do not find fault God for bringing the Chimú government to end. If this is true, can we find fault with God for one day bringing our nation to an end?
God be merciful to us!
Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Why Being ProLife Makes So Much Sense

prolife“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” – Jeremiah 1:5

Much of the pro-abortion movement is based on the idea that it is a choice. To be prochoice is to proclaim that women may choose how to care for their body. As long as a baby is in their body, they- as the mother- have the ability and moral right to do what they want with the child. As Cecile Richards the CEO and President of Planned Parenthood said, “For me, life began when I delivered them.” Before that moment, the baby is not a child. The right to abort a child becomes analogous to the right to remove one’s tonsils or gallbladder. My body my choices.

The moment the baby breaks forth from the womb, it becomes its own person. But until birth, the baby is just an organ like thing of tissue that the mom can dispense with if she should so choose.

Let’s take this thinking to its logical conclusion.The moment a baby leaves the womb, the baby is a person according to Richard. If this is true, then a baby becomes a person as soon as he or she leaves her mom’s body irrespective of how and when he or she is born. Thus, the moment a baby is born and/or is removed from its mother’s womb, that baby is a person. Abortion is predicated on removing a baby from its mother’s womb in an effort to kill that child. Yet once the baby is out and once the baby is born, the baby is a person. Thus the death of an aborted baby by the abortion movement’s own standards is murder. That fragile little life now that is extracted via abortion deserves all the protection that it’s mother has. It deserves medical care, a proper burial, and love the moment it leaves its mother’s womb.

And even if you want to qualify abortion by saying it’s a unnatural removal of the baby, let’s remember that c-sections are also an unnatural act. Yet, killing a baby post c-section is never permitted.

If babies are a person at birth, are they not a person at 28, 14, and 4 weeks. The essence of something is not based on our recognition of it. It is based on it. For example, a kangaroo is no more a kangaroo or less a kangaroo depending on the number of our visits to the local zoo. And a baby is no more or less a baby depending on our interaction with it.  If a thing is a baby at birth, then it is a baby at conception. The very fact the Planned Parenthood recognizes that a baby is a person reveals that all abortion is an act of murder.

Instead of standing with Planned Parent, I encourage all to value you the sanctity of life. I encourage all to champion the pro-life cause.

Peter Witkowski Apologetics, Babies and Birth

Why Ultrasounds Magnify Women

In her latest article, “How the Ultrasound Became Political” The Atlantic writer Moira Weigel laments that arrival of Ultrasound technology. The technology that  was once used to hunt down and sink German subs is now being used to hunt down and dehumanize women. She writes,

The framing of the ultrasound image was notable for what it excluded: the woman. In order to make the fetus visible, it made her disappear.

Before the ultrasound, the woman was the primary focus of the doctor and society. She was the sole proprietor and mediator of her body. She alone was the voice for her child. The woman was first. But the ultrasound redirected the authorial control of the birthing narrative to people other than the woman. Wiegel writes again,

“Before ultrasound, medical care received by pregnant women had depended on their testimony, or how they described their own sensations. Ultrasound made it possible for the male doctor to evaluate the fetus without female interference.”

ultra-soundThe woman no longer controlled the narrative of her body. Now doctors, politicians, social media platforms, and even the fetus can and do shape the dialogue. The little pictures of an alien like creature swimming in the womb have obscured the very woman carrying it. And so, Weigel mourns the arrival of the ultrasound.

But having seen the ultrasounds of all four of my children, I think Weigels argument is deeply flawed. Ultrasounds do not obscure the woman. They highlight and celebrate her very being and essence. They highlight the triumph of motherhood. They highlight several of the very things that make a woman unique and valuable. For this reason, I am proud to have all four of my children’s ultrasound photos in my office. The do not obscure my view of my wife. They praise her.

The first and most memorable ultrasounds I ever saw involved our first-born son. When he was just 19 weeks and 4 days, my wife saw his perfect little silhouette on the screen for the first time. Instead of obscuring my bride, the ultrasound helped me see how amazing she was. The ultrasound validated her cravings, need for sleep, and ever changing shape.

And for the first time, we were both able to share an experience with our child simultaneously.  Our eyes locked; we smiled; and I began to gain a fuller understanding of what it meant for my wife to carry a child. I went home that morning with a far greater respect for my beautiful bride.

A little less than two weeks later, I saw another ultrasound of my son. As the doctors rushed to stop my wife’s premature labor, I saw my little boy on the ultrasound monitor again. This time the screen was smaller and the situation was dire. I relayed the images of my tiny sons outstretched arm to my moaning wife, they did not minimize her pain. It did not make her seem invisible. Rather it revealed that she was suffering and risking her own health for a precious little person. It validated her struggles,  her concerns, and her love for her child, and;  it helped me and the medical staff fully understand what my bride was experiencing inside her body. The ultrasound was a blessing.

Admittedly, Weigel acknowledges that, “ultrasound technology has been a crucial component of prenatal care, too.” I think Weigel would fully support the doctors’ decision to use the ultrasound to help their diagnosis my wife’s condition that terrible day. However, I do not think this concession is enough. The beauty of the ultrasound is not purely by its medical utility.

The machine does more. Those tiny black pictures circulating on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, validate the very life of the woman from which they came.

The second most memorable ultrasound image for my wife and me was the one taken of our third child. Unfortunately shortly after that picture was handed to us, my wife miscarried. Because of that ultrasound photo, we know my wife had a baby. We were able to grieve and honor that child’s existence because of this fabulous invention.nd8movhpdly-daiga-ellaby

Before the ultrasound, my wife would have bled. She would have not known the cause. While she might have suspected that she lost a baby, she would not have been able to celebrate her motherhood and the little life with credibility. She would have been left with an incomplete picture.

Because of science, she knows about that precious life she lost. The ultrasound enabled her to share her heart with me, with our families, and with the world in a demonstrative and very real way. Instead of obscuring her, the ultrasound helped others to understand my wife and her story. The ultrasound enriched her narrative.

And my amazing bride is not alone. All over the world, women know that they are mothers precisely because they have an ultrasound picture. If we were to take those images away from them, we would marginalize these women and their experiences. We would denigrate their very nature.

At the end of the day, I believe Weigel dislikes the ultrasound machine not because it hurts women but because it damages her worldview. In the midst of attacking the machine Wiegel notes, “These images produced a new and unprecedented vision of human development.” These machines reveal aspects of humanity to us that were previously unsee. Though she hates the machines, Weigel cannot even fully escape the reality that ultrasounds reveal. She cannot escape the face that babies are more than tissue. And so, Wiegel laments that arrival of ultrasound images. She laments that her view does not mesh with science.

Now, I do fully agree with one of Weigel’s conclusions: “What the appearance of the flicker on the ultrasound shows is not a change of state but a threshold of the imaging technology.” The little beating heart images that many have seen via the ultrasound machine do not change the reality of when a fetus becomes a human. Those pictures merely reveal when we can see the human heart. Our ability to physically see a baby does not carry moral authority with it.The thing in the mother’s womb is what it is from conception irrespective of our prying eyes.

Technology does not make a baby any more a baby any more than the lack of technology makes a baby a fetus.  Changing the threshold of technology does not mean that a baby becomes human at an earlier age. God has already declared all babies to be human from conception. The ultrasound machine helps humanity to understand the scientific and moral reality that God has declared.

The question facing us all is this week as we prepare for the March For Life this Sunday is this, “Are willing to accept science and advocate for life or will we lament science and press on for death?”