Shownotes Transcript
While Life Matters focuses on the battlefield of ideas, something that often trumps ideas and influences many people’s decisions, are emotions.
Emotions predate our consideration of ideas. As infants, emotions dominate our experience of, and understanding of, the world around us.
Dr. James Dobson once wrote a book called “Emotions: Can You Trust Them?” Emotions are often indicators. They can indicate something to us about life or our circumstances, but they are not always the best guide for making important decisions.
Images of an unborn child can carry powerful emotion and that’s good news for us in the pro-life movement. The journal Neuromarketing has examined the use of a child’s image in marketing because it universally draws on the emotions of the viewer. Not unlike images of a small animal, these images draw emotions of compassion and protection. That’s good news for us.
But, if that commitment to protecting that child is only based on the emotions surrounding that cute pre-born child, then that pro-life education is incomplete, because killing that unborn child is not wrong because that child is "cute,” killing him or her is wrong because that’s a vulnerable human being. On the other end of the spectrum, when someone is older or incapacitated by serious illness, the decisions we make based on our emotions can be very dangerous if we permit, for emotional reasons, the killing of a vulnerable person just in order to be free of the emotions we feel at at the moment.
Emotions surrounding illness and terminal conditions are very, very powerful. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlined them in her book on the five stages of grief. These were clarified in her book, “On Death and Dying” (1969). It is a phenomenon that all of us will face. But if we surrender to the emotions and are willing to kill either ourselves or a vulnerable person because of the emotions out of the desire to escape those emotions, we are engaging in a most heinous and reprehensible act. You’re killing a fellow human on the basis of emotions.
The resources that are available for physical pain, Kübler-Ross points out we will often need to help sdeal with the emotional pain, but the rewards of caring for that person instead, are wonderful. She indicates that that is the reason FOR the emotions, to draw people DEEPER into life and help them accept their mortality in a mature way.
Like the foxhole conversion, an individual that is finally willing to face and accept their mortality is transformed in a remarkable way. They no longer wish to just, "get it over with," they appreciate every breath.
Legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide for emotions is very wrongheaded, and prevents individuals from coming to that mature understanding of life. Kübler-Ross adamantly opposed killing patients because of these emotions. You should too.
Later, Sylvia Aimerito of the PowerOf7 App explains its use and importance for the pro-life movement. The app is free to download to iPhone, smart phones, iPads, etc. Familiarity with the PowerOf7 allows individuals to quickly and easily answer the seven most common pro-abortion arguments. If you ever feel at a loss or insecure about advocating for unborn children, you should consider downloading the free PowerOf7 App to give you the tools you need.
November 18th, 2017 there is a conference on these issues at BIOLA University, La Mirada California. Go to www.CaringNotKilling.wordpress.com).