Unless You Become As Little Children

Yesterday you may have read the quote I included on abortion from from German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer which said in part:

Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question of whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of its life. And that is nothing but murder."

Shared Manhattans explained how they handle this in South Carolina Wednesday Sunday School. I love it!:

...OK, who has seen the sea turtle nests with the fences around them and the signs? Bunch of hands go up again. ...

...Easy question: if I were to catch and eat fish or crabs at the beach, is that OK? That's OK, we go crabbing, it's ok to eat them. And we eat the fish that we catch.
How about if I caught a sea turtle, could I eat it? NO! That's against the law!
Yes, because sea turtles are protected. There aren't many of them, so to kill even one would be bad.

But here's tonight's trick question: I know it's illegal to kill a sea turtle, but why are the nests protected? (I am playing stupid here) Because we have to protect the turtles!

(More stupid) Yes, but there are no turtles in the nest. But there are eggs in the nest!
C'mon, turtle eggs aren't turtles.....don't y'all know that? It's pretty obvious to me. Yes but there's a baby turtle in the egg, Stratopops! (How dense can I be?)

Well, maybe when they're about to hatch, but at first the eggs are just full of goop, like chicken eggs. Could I make myself some scrambled turtle eggs if I made sure they had just been laid, and I couldn't see even a tiny turtle in them? If the cops came, I'd just say, well, there weren't any turtles in the eggs yet. No, it's still going to be a turtle, you can't ever eat it.

Yeah, but look: not all the eggs hatch, and not all the hatchlings get into the sea, not all of those that do live very long, sometimes just a few minutes. Considering how few eggs actually become independent turtles in the sea, can't we say the eggs are just potential turtles, and can I eat them? No, it's still the same as killing a turtle, even if all the eggs wouldn't make turtles anyway. (read the rest here)

You see where this is going. It's common sense. Why, even a child knows it.