Witness to Roe
January 16, 2007
In March,
1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese came home from work at three in the morning. As she walked from her car to her apartment
building, a man approached and stabbed her. She
screamed. Someone in the 10-story building
yelled out, “Let that girl alone.” The
attacker left, but came back twice to finish her off. As it
turned out, 38 people witnessed this assault, though none came to Kitty’s aid. No one even called the police until the third
attack, but by then it was too late. Imagine
enduring the painful, burning sensations of multiple stab wounds and bleeding to death all
alone on a dark night. It was a truly
horrible fate. An analysis
by psychologists, supported by experiments, suggested two reasons why no one helped. The first
was a ‘state of pluralistic ignorance’, meaning "each person decides that
since nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong”. For
example, someone smelling smoke in a restaurant may wonder how serious it is. If no one rushes for an exit, he’ll be less
inclined to leave also. The second
reason was ‘diffusion of responsibility’.
The more witnesses there are, the less responsibility each individual feels. In Kitty’s case, the tenants probably assumed
others would help. Unfortunately, their
assumption was wrong. Fast-forward
to the present. We’re familiar with Roe
v Wade’s legacy: 48 million unborn children killed, hundreds of their mothers dead
due to complications, and tens of thousands suffering post-abortion syndrome. This may
sound like an Alfred Hitchcock horror movie, but it’s not. It’s real.
So too is the pain these babies silently endure as their limbs are torn from
their little bodies, their brains are sucked out, or their skin is burnt. Contrary to
popular belief, unborn children are capable of feeling pain much of the time they are
in-utero. Stick a baby in his palm ten weeks
after conception, and he’ll pull his hand away while opening his mouth to cry out. This baby has the sensory nerves needed to feel
pain and send messages to the thalamus - a portion of the brain functioning by this time. Total brain development is not necessary to feel
pain. Anencephalic infants are born without
their cerebral cortex, yet react to pain stimuli just as infants having intact brains do. As early as
18 weeks, an unborn child injected with a needle releases stress hormones, just as adults
do when experiencing pain. Additionally,
22-week old preemies, who have the same pain-sensing system as unborn children that age,
exhibit the ability to feel pain. Not only do
the unborn feel pain, recent developments suggest they feel it with even greater intensity
than adults! The myelin sheath, which
insulates nerves in adults, is not entirely formed by birth, thereby leaving portions of
nerves exposed. Consequently, pain is not
only felt at the point of impact, but also in body tissues surrounding exposed nerves from
the point of impact to the brain. The pain
Roe has inflicted is incomprehensible. Regrettably,
it is unnecessarily repeated year after year. Legalized
abortion is not a disease awaiting a cure in the distant future, nor a natural phenomenon
beyond our control. Ending it does not
require untold billions of dollars or risking lives in a military campaign. The primary
obstacle to ending Roe is simply a lack of votes for government officials that will seat
pro-life Justices. Are we
doing our part to end this tragedy, or are we witnesses who look the other way? Have we fallen into the fallacy of
‘pluralistic ignorance’ by tolerating abortion because many embrace it? Do we sooth our conscience through ‘diffusion
of responsibility’ by convincing ourselves others will solve the problem? Granted,
overturning Roe won’t prevent every single abortion, just as laws against murder have
not stopped all murders. However, such laws
do provide a tremendous benefit by protecting the vast majority of the population and
creating a framework for a civilized, compassionate society. Countless
unborn babies will face painful deaths, alone and in the dark, not unlike Kitty. They need our help to save their lives. Will we respond by coming to their aid, or will we
close the window to our heart in an effort to dampen their recurring screams? Information for this
article was obtained from Dr. John Willke’s book, Love Them Both, and
Christine Silk’s article, Why Did Kitty Genovese Die?
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