By Andrea Graham
I must admit, it made me happy as a lark to get mentioned in Karri Compton’s review of Light at the Edge of Darkness:
Andrea Graham’s “Frozen Generation†explores the possibility of technology bringing frozen fetuses to term artificially, resulting in humans being used for spare parts. One woman tries to save as many babies as possible by smuggling them away and saving them from an uncertain future.
Bravo to Karri, and everyone else who has found a way to summarize the plot without mentioning abortion or racism. Honestly, with the possible exception of Cyn’s description (the line in the book’s summary about terrorists smuggling frozen embryos), this is the best yet.
I’ve heard many things about my story since we began this crazy quest June 2006, but one of the most consistent comments has been on how I combined the topics of racism and abortion. If the majority rules, the majority opinion has been that I went out on two limbs and managed not to land flat on my rump thirty feet down.
Would you like to know my secret to not crashing and burning big time in this adventure? Yes?
Easy, though in general I land on my rump more than I care to remember, in this case, I wasn’t actually standing on the two visible branches, but the shared root.
In America, racism originates from slavery, of course (it could be argued the other way around but I mean historically here) and what makes a human being a person with rights versus property with no rights, but rather subject to the will of the master.
Regardless of where you stand on abortion, the question at the root of the debate is what makes a human being a person with rights versus property with no rights, but rather subject to the will of the master. Only the particulars differ. In this case, the what is normally a temporary condition, being located in side the mother’s womb, the holder of power is the mother, and we prefer terms like “product of conception†rather than that hideous word “property,†but when a woman makes the claim, “it’s my body, it’s my choice†whether you agree with that logic or not, that is certainly a claim to property rights, with the emphasis on their supposed right to dispense with their property as they will.
Let me take time to speak to those who make such statements. In “Frozen Generation”, by no means do I mean to argue with your claims to such power over the lives of your children. I merely apply the logic of the above argument to potential future technology and ask where your power to dispose of your property ends, should technology offer more lucrative means of disposal than the current options. You’re free to answer the question however you please.
I and other pro-lifers think this scenario is a nightmare, but if you’re pro-choice, maybe it’s a dream come true. After all, not only would no one ever again die waiting for an organ transplant, the “wanted” children are protected(in theory) from childhood predators because these non-persons would provide an “appropriate” outlet for their “natural” sexual urges.
If, however, you’re just as horrified by such ideas as I am, I leave you to justify to yourself why it’s wrong to artificially grow POCs in a lab and enslave them, etc., but not wrong to slice and dice and throw what’s left in the trash.
But I digress.
Let’s get back to roots. The root of rights of the unborn extend to the root a racism in yet another way, and it’s one few know about, and certain people vehemently deny.
My husband had an excellent piece on this when he answered a challenge to name the Top Ten Worst Americans. It probably won’t surprise you, since he’s my husband, that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger came in at #1 on his list (which means if you go read it you’ll have to scroll a bit.) But his reasons may surprise:
…Sanger established Planned Parenthood with the goal of less “unfit” people breeding, including Blacks and other minorities. Sanger was undeniably a Fascist. She wrote, “Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.”
From Sanger sprang out a movement that treats children as a disease and finds the best solution to misery in human life as its destruction.
Julian Malveaux, a hard leftist, concluded that Sanger was a racist:
For all her positive influence, I see Sanger as a tarnished heroine whose embrace of the eugenics movement showed racial insensitivity, at best. From her associates, as well as from some of the articles that were published in Sanger’s magazine, The Birth Control Review, it is possible to conclude that “racially insensitive” is too mild a description. Indeed, some of her statements, taken in or out of context, are simply racist. And she never rebuked eugenicists who believed in improving the hereditary qualities of a race or breed by controlling mating in order to eliminate “undesirable” characteristics and promote “desirable” traits.
Words that Sanger used like the “unfit,” and “morons,” were euphemisms for Blacks and other racial “inferiors” in a racist time. Many of Sanger’s associates worked with the Nazis. Today, her group are missionaries of death, spreading it to the four corners of the globe. As for her own attempts at making a master race, of breeding out “the unfit,” Planned Parenthood continues to work hard today, as 45% of Black babies die from abortion and 62.5% of Planned Parenthood clinics exist in areas with higher than average Black populations.
Blackgenocide.com adds to the grim statistics:
Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion
On average, 1,452 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.
This incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 10 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated “Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America’s Black community would now number 41 million persons. It would be 35 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member.”
So not only is Abortion based on the same kind of logic that brought us slavery in America, the current movement began at least partially with racist intent, and to this day continues to be carried out in a racist fashion that targets, and is decimating, the Black community.
And now my secret is out of the bag. Though most have been lauding me for a gymnastics feat of Olympic proportions, it really came quite easily to go out on both limbs at the same time, by keeping in mind the connecting spiritual roots of the two issues, roots that some people are bound to be outraged at me for exposing.
To balance this article out, let me add a couple things. “Frozen Generation” raises questions for pro-lifers, too. One such place is when the narrator, Azura “Mama†Borden, says of herself:
God appointed me to deliver the captives to safety, as Harriet Tubman had in centuries gone by. Only Harriet never hid her passengers in her own womb.
Granted, I only carried six to term. The rest I re-transplanted. Far too many completed their gestation in the artificial womb at my counter-breeder in the Deep South, of all places. It couldn’t be helped. Many would send money to help redeem these precious souls, but few stood up for the greatest need. Carrying them to term.
And the same it is today. Pro-lifers give money to pro-life causes, we even stand with signs and march in the streets. But how many take time to help out a mother who chose to raise her baby rather than kill her? How many adopt? Today, we don’t freeze aborted babies, but we do have thousands of frozen embryos left over from IVF, some of which are awaiting adoptive mothers willing to carry them to term through Nightlight’s Snowflake adoption program. How many of us, if God wanted us to step up, wouldn’t need struck barren before we would even consider it?
The question for pro-lifers is not only, “How far are you willing to go to stand for what you believe in?†but “How far is too far?†This ethical question is also left to the reader to sort out, but can be stated succinctly: in order to save a few babies, Azura Borden participates in the murder of many. Did Azura make the right ethical decision? I know what her argument for so many years was, more are alive as a result of her actions than if she had elected to stay home and do nothing, but I struggled within myself over this issue, and still am uncertain.
One more thing I’d like to leave you with. Those of us on the pro-life side, we all know that abortion is a sin, but what does the mother who had her own children murdered see in our eyes and hear in our words? Murderer? Reprobate? Deep in her heart, though she may deny it, she already knows this. Abortion is psychologically devastating for women. They even have a name for it, Post Abortion Syndrome. It’s true we live in a culture where more and more, we’re having to go over the “you are a sinner” thing first; one won’t seek forgiveness if they are not consciously aware of the need. But ultimately, the truth that this mother needs to hear is that despite her sin, God still loves her, and will forgive her.
If that’s you, and you haven’t yet drank of the living waters in the cup of forgiveness, please see this list of organizations offering bible studies to show you the way to healing and wholeness.
More links on this topic:
blackgenocide.org—Chart Comparing Abortion to other historical genocides
The Roots of Racism and Abortion
Racism, abortion, and black genocide
Margaret Sanger, Racist and Pro-Abortion:
Racism and Murder Why you should oppose Planned Parenthood! (the title uses the n-word)
WorldNetDaily: Planned Parenthood charged with racism
More links on Andrea Graham and her work:
Official Bio on the Lost Genre Guild