Cherishing love and the person who gives it

Love is the reason

I know in my heart of hearts that if I did not have the love of Brian and despite the difficulties presented by the distance between us and the restrictions by reason of how the pandemic has ravaged my country through government ineptitude, I would have lost mental competence.

This is what keeps me going, hopeful, and expectant. We talk, supporting and encouraging each other. I have many close friends, but there is something more that comes from someone you love. That something in love, in concern, in comforting words, the sound of his voice, the sight of his radiant smiles, makes a whole lot of difference.

Love is the purpose

We live in the hope that soon this whole situation will blow over, or considerations will be better calibrated for those who have had to put many critically important things in relationship on hold, out of necessity.

We could never have anticipated that when we kissed goodbye in Johannesburg in mid-January we would not have met again for at least three between then and now. Maybe by Christmas, we’ll be together again. I cherish the love I have, the man I share it with and the beauty of knowing that it all makes sense with him in the picture, in my thoughts and in my life. Thank you!

Is God trying to make His way home?

Mystery is awesome

The mysteries of life and what we choose to believe. I have many questions for which there are few answers. Something inside me suggests I ponder and meditate within rather than give voice to the misgivings, the misunderstandings and absence of clarity on matters I am trying to find rhyme, reason or rationale for.

Reason stands out as the place where I am allowed to consider, dispute, be persuaded, be convinced or otherwise. It is where the mind is exercised with knowledge and example, bringing you from what you understand to a place of faith and assuredness.

Rationale is for me something different, where situations and circumstances have to be given a basis for their existence without esoteric or ethereal underpinnings that cannot be explained away.

One of us to see

Much of what one might consider spiritual sits on a tripod and maybe a fourth leg of finding out more. The quest for knowledge, understanding, wisdom and experience must never cease. Curiosity ensures you do not fall to the delusion of having acquired all that is to be known.

In One of Us, a song first recorded by Joan Osborne and written by Eric Bazilian, I find myself gravitating to the cover by Prince in his multi-CD Emancipation album, which is a cut down version of the original lyrics. The lines below evoke a sense of awesome wonder to which one can only be forced to respond.

If God had a face, what would it look like
And would you want to see it
If seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven
And Jesus and the saints and all the prophets?

[PrinceVault: One of Us]
[AZLyrics: Prince cover of One of Us]

We may or may not know what God looks like, the Bible says we are made in God’s image, but what representation or perspective is that? Are there physical, mental and/or spiritual dimensions to that imagery? [Knowing Jesus: Image of God] Further on in the Bible, it says, Moses saw parts of God, but not the face. [Bible Gateway: Exodus 33:18-20]

Spirited to new truth

Three questions bring the weight of the matter to the fore, the mystery of God’s face, whether we would want to see God’s face out of whatever human need presents and if after seeing we would be so convinced as to believe everything we have heard before.

Then that conversation between Moses and God, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” There is no life to live on earth once that encounter becomes a reality. It makes you wonder if the context of life is death or being spirited away from an imperfect earth like Enoch, Elijah or Jesus at His ascension. [Wikipedia: Entering heaven alive]

Sometimes, I wonder if indeed, we are ready for that experience and that is probably why, God is not one of us.

[]

Thought Picnic: Minded mindfulness, mindless mindlessness

A vile mind

I sometimes marvel at the machinations of the mind, the workhouse of activity too vast for expression in word and in deed.

This factory whose gates are closed to all but the principal is at its worst, a snake pit of poisoned prejudices, a cockroach haven of distaste, and a rat’s nest of disgust.

The things we see and hear that are processed in the mind yet tempered by good judgement in what we do is a sign of not only maturity, but of the unique advanced cognitive and reasoning capabilities of the human-being.

A managed mind

It is why we never really say what we are thinking or find ways to say what we are thinking in order not to cause offence or to be seen as stupid.

It is for this that many are grateful that whatever goes on in the mind usually stays in the mind, screened from prying eyes and disconnected from the presumed hacking genius of supposed mind-readers. Just the horror of having your mind read out aloud.

A better mind

At the same time, we are all capable of thinking better thoughts, of good, of niceness, of beauty, of consideration, of wisdom and of love. We can direct our thoughts in such a way that it does not dictate the wrong actions.

Yet, the mind is what it is, a factory whose function is only really known when the products come out at the end of the line.

Thought Picnic: Paper bound in leather and glue

The memory from before

“It’s only a book, paper bound in leather and glue.”

These were the words of a song I heard on a children’s programme too many decades ago for me to remember who sang it or what the name of the programme was.

However, the tune and the music were striking enough for the lyrics to stick in memory that any time I remember the song, I feel like I am watching that programme again.

The book is just what it is; paper bound in leather and glue. Yet, what is written in the book might be useful or it might be useless. The evolution of the book through history is long, from cave drawings through Egyptian papyrus, parchment, animal skins, paper, printing and now petabytes of electronic data.

Words unread are nothing

The book stands as a record unaltered, words written for posterity which might be reprinted, edited or laid waste if no desired for the knowledge contained therein endures.

The words however do not come to life of their own volition, nor does the book animate like some living thing, the words have to be read and comprehended, then in the mind of those that process the words, the book gains potency in the actions or reactions of people.

The value we place on a book should be based on the derived content brought to use by the reader, properly understood in its context, setting, relevance and intention.

Where we miss these elements, the book becomes a guide for malevolence, something misread, misunderstood or misinterpreted, something read out of context, applied to the wrong setting, finding no particular relevance or pandering to the wrong motives and the seeds of destruction are sown to reap a harvest of carnage.

Wholly unholy acts

Yet, even in these modern times, we have people of the Book, religions tied to holy tomes that appear to have all the answers to life and living, read and use to destroy life, liberty and livelihood as a demonstration of power and influence.

The barely educated wielding tyranny like a deaf child being handed a loaded machine gun and at the same time shouted at to put the gun down. The danger not being in the book itself, but in how what was apparently learnt from the book is demonstrated.

That we give the books names and titles, does not change it from it physical and material constituents, and whilst the words therein might bring great meaning to some, the body should not by that suddenly become sacred, except where the words need to be preserved, and alternatives abound.

Book your context right

For instance, if I downloaded a holy book unto my laptop and then destroyed the laptop, would I suffer as much sanction as if I burnt the book? We need to be reasonable and exercise a lot of reasonableness about the things we so easily elect to have offend us.

As a repository, the book does have value, it archives and stores knowledge, but it is not the end of the world, it is paper bound in leather and glue.

Nigeria: Finding an accommodation for ourselves

Dreaming of the unreal

As Nigerians, we have perfected the art of analysis paralysis to the point of proffering solutions that are forgivably idealistic but have no semblance of realism or practicability in the light of prevailing circumstances.

There is nothing wrong in seeking Nirvana, our own Shangri La, the Utopia of perfection for our country and situation, it is the substance of hope and a possibility but it needs some grounding in what is reasonable and realisable or else we become dreamers and theorists, builders of castles in the air and act as if inebriated to the point of hallucination and delirium.

The burden of the past

On the other end, it is the past and history that holds us back, our memories too keen that we are unable to see change happening before our eyes as a dogmatic sense of permanence in the character and demeanour of others become the unaltered view of the people who might have changed – distrust and negative perceptions becloud our judgement to our detriment of seeing the mildest good in others.

Indeed, there are men that have done unspeakable evil, if there are means to bring them to justice then we should avail ourselves of those means to the fullest extent of the law. What is not proper is to take the law into our own hands and constitute ourselves into a lynching mob of prosecutor, jury and judge – process is the hallmark of a civilised society and the people who inhabit that community.

Beyond the obvious wrongs

I believe that for all the wrong the man is capable of doing, they are also humanly and humanely capable of good either as a nature of their humanity or in expiation for the wrongs done before – it might be difficult to find context, purpose and intent in doing those things, but for whatever good is on offer, it must find some commendation much as the wrong can find excoriation – both are worthy of acknowledgement.

The Good Samaritan in the bible was not a religious man, the religious man passed to the other side of the road, nor was he a pious man, he was just a man who saw a fellow man in need and out of their shared and common humanity he did everything to help the wounded stranger who had no name nor identity apart from the fact that he was just another man in need.

The old cow is smart

We sometimes need to rise above the petty prejudices and dogmatism that blinds us to issues where a pragmatic approach can be as useful as the advice I received long ago to have as much sense as an old cow to eat the hay and leave the baling wire.

Many of our old Nigerian leaders come with a lot of baling wire and very little hay, but the old cow knows the food is the hay and the baling wire is certainly not part of her diet, the cow does not abandon the hay just because it is nicely or crudely baled – that is knowledge, it is wisdom and it is being pragmatic and as humans, we are indeed capable of even better judgement, that comes with discrimination and discernment.

Imperfect people

I have learnt not to totally condemn those of questionable nature and as it were unaudited sources of wealth, we have no systems and processes in place to address those injustices properly, however, that I accept the little good they can bring to their communities does not mean they are totally absolved and rehabilitated, one can elicit the good from the bad in appreciating the multidimensional nature of human beings and that is a good thing.

In the end, for some, pennies from heaven are as valuable as pounds in the pockets of those who do not need the help offered.

Way to go

For a better Nigeria, we might only be able to negotiate returns of some of what was looted by reason of uncompromised leadership that can wield the necessary leverage and use the bully pulpit to make these people amenable to those demands, beyond that, we need strong and independent institutions from here on to tackle the cancer of corrupt enterprise and malfeasance that infests all levels of endeavour in Nigeria.

However, today, thief and chief, sinner and saint, honest and dishonest, honourable and dishonourable, corrupt and incorruptible, unreasonable and reasonable, dogmatic and pragmatic, the rich and the poor, indifferent and concerned, apathetic and sympathetic, religious and nonreligious and every Nigerian will just have to find an accommodation for each other to do what we can to take the country forward.

Give Your Voice To Rights That Don't Matter To You In 2013

Harmony from afar

The old song goes, “I’ll like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony …” We all know that the world is singing many songs and mostly never the same words, or the same tempo and harmony is so distant that we hold hands and sway our heads into a dreamland of Utopia hoping it signifies peace and harmony.

To sing we need a voice and to that voice we need the words, lyrics that represent our humanity, our struggles, our victories, our losses, our pains, the quest for justice, the call for war, the identities we have or the differences we want to project – there is much for song and much to do.

A world riven

The voice is important, it is critical to producing the sound we need all to hear to bring people to listen so that they can reason and then hopefully they can agree.

We live in an unequal world riven with great injustices, wars, disease, poverty, dispute and much else with people populating the broadest spectrum of extremes between palatial comfort and atrocious discomfort – we cannot stand still and watch the world go by.

Lend your voice

I challenge you to lend your voices this year to that which is just, that which is fair, that which lifts and confers rights on the least amongst us and the most different from us.

We should extricate ourselves from rules, creeds, customs, beliefs, traditions and cultures that bind us to age-old systems that persecute and prosecute others needlessly and become the Good Samaritan of humanity setting people free to be the best they can be because of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity we all belong to.

Stand!

Let colour, tribe, language, region become insignificant and enter the global village of what allows us to laugh together rather than cry in anguish, what makes us shout in unison than shoot at each other and what lets us embrace those we once saw as lepers rather than ostracise them.

There is much to stand up and be counted for in the quest for human rights and the protection of the same, the campaigning against abuse; the abuse of children, of women, of the vulnerable and of the powerless, rolling back the cloudy pall of sententiousness for the fresh air of acceptance and the fight against institutionalised corruption, racism, rape, victimisation and oppression.

Your voice, the seed

This is not a call to forsake your values but to use your values better to give value to others that you might once have been tempted if only in the slightest to deem worthless.

The voice amongst our friends, in our communities, in our societies, in our countries and well beyond that into the world is what will make the difference to both your lives and those of others around you.

Appeal to reason and reasonableness, persuade but do not dismiss, disagree but refuse to be disagreeable, you are allowed to be irreverent without being disrespectful – call out the hypocrites and expose falsehood – stand with the honest, just and true always because they will always matter.

Know yourself, know others

There is no shelter in excuses and using moral equivalences to justify your position stop you having the essentially critical self-examination and self-scrutiny you need to adapt and change for the better.

There is a voice in you that needs to be heard, in your experiences, your intellect, your unique thinking unclouded by indoctrination, and the better world you want to see – Speak up, stand out, make waves – for when your voice is heard for the least amongst you, you protect both yourselves and others from future oppression that could be overwhelming and unassailable if in your silence you lost those who would have done everything to stand with you and for you.

Make it a year where you fight for rights that mean nothing to you but mean the most to those whose lives and the pursuit of happiness depend on it.

Happy New Year!

Thought Picnic: In Support of Activism

Causes without course

Recently, I have found myself attending meetings where the ideas discussed are far from mainstream.

From a pragmatic perspective, there is no reason for those ideas not be part of the package of the good life of humanity but for all sorts of reasons due to history, culture, traditions, creeds, tenets, laws, religion, beliefs or politics people suffer unmitigated and unnecessarily bad consequences.

The voices are many

In such cases, the cause might well be lost for the individual but it does not have to be lost for society.

What keeps that cause alive is the voices, the many voices of those in favour, those against and those somewhat indifferent but available to be persuaded of the arguments of all sides.

Now, I know that certain voices are extreme, strident, aggressive and uncomfortable but that is the nature of activism and the drive for change.

The method is insignificant

There are times I have not agreed with the methods used but I very well appreciate the broader intentions, which are to achieve a goal that would do humanity a lot of good.

We have seen this in the rights movements to enfranchise the masses, women and then minorities, the activism to extend rights to the underprivileged and much more.

The battles are diverse and unceasing, but the victory for humanity even after great setbacks is only in a matter of time.

Channelling the inconceivable

This brings me to an interesting case of historical literature published in 1868, in the novel Phineas Finn, there is a recorded conversation as to how public policy is formulated and it is interesting that in the political arena, this seems to fetch true all the time.

Attributed to Anthony Trollope, this how the conversation went and I highlight the words that show the progression from inconceivable to essential.

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; – and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”

“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, “to have taken the first great step in making it.”

“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr. Monk, – ”taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”

The initiators were not popular

The previous two paragraphs indicate that the discourse about a cause must never die and apparently the first step leading to the adoption of such policies would normally have been planted as a seed by those at the time of conception society might have castigated, excoriated, persecuted, prosecuted and even martyred but that is for history to discover and eventually document.

It is why I am never discouraged when a greater cause hits the buffers because of the political discourse of the day, it will never be the end and much will change over time to bring the good to bear of what is currently unacceptable but tolerated.

The Overton Window

Joseph P. Overton then came up with an aspect of political theory that illustrated the narrow window within which an idea might gain acceptance and consequently evolve into policy. This became known as the Overton Window.

The degrees of acceptance in increasing order of acceptance was listed as follows:

• 1.    Unthinkable
• 2.    Radical
• 3.    Acceptable
• 4.    Sensible
• 5.    Popular
• 6.    Policy

Someone will always have to think the unthinkable which with time after convincing others might be seen radical but over the course of time the argument is persuasive enough to be acceptable and might well become sensible enough to be offered as a popular choice by which time there is enough support to make it policy.

Change is inevitable

There are positive and negative trajectories to this but I believe the momentum for change will be for the better if amongst the articulate and prominent voices we have, those who are able to convey with great conviction the reasonableness of an idea that the unreasonableness of the status quo will have to be abandoned.

That is why I am in support of all forms of activism, some could well be counter-productive but in that quagmire the ideas will eventually find refinement and any reasonable person engaging logic with critical thinking and objective discernment will become an ally in the cause for the advancement of humanity, in communities, in societies or in nations at large.

The two-state solution for Palestine and Israel is not inconceivable, having women ordained as bishops in the Church of England is not impossible and the notion that homosexuality is unafrican has a course to travel from unreasonableness to a fact of reality – it has always been part of humanity.

Technical tinkerers are the worst

Taking calls for old jobs

Late last week, having left a project in which my contribution was critical, I got a call from the project manager about some issues that they had encountered and were having problems resolving.

I agreed to take calls from the technical people and see what I could do to help. When the call finally came through and I was told what they had encountered my intuition and experience just felt it was a non-problem that had been complicated by unnecessary tinkering on the one end and a basic inability to understand abstraction with technologies.

A template is a template is a template

The environment we built provides for the ability to document the settings on one environment using a portable format and wizard assisted method in an export process and the using the same wizard to import the settings into another environment.

This follows a basic template format which allows for common elements to be transferred but requires that some unique elements be edited to reflect the new environment. All those elements had been documented.

One of those elements deals with recording the status of the environment, but the references are not updated and hence technicians cannot check the state of the environment for operational effectiveness – the simple solution is to delete the foreign references and select the local references.

Tinkerers are the worst technical people

Now, I know technicians like to see what goes on under the bonnet; I have no problems with that. I like to know how a television works because I studied electronic engineering but I don’t at a whim go poking a screw-driver in the back of my television just because it is fun, I could be electrocuted, quite easily, even if I knew exactly what I was doing.

I sometimes give deference to the simple notice – No user serviceable parts – I wonder if that appears on modern equipment nowadays, I suppose the warning is more the risk of losing your warranty if you try to tinker with the innards of your equipment.

After the conversation ended, I just knew the smart guy had tinkered with the template directly and wrecked the environment and was now looking for assurances that if he continued that dastardly act the functionality of the environment could be guaranteed.

The absence of logic and reason

Since I was away from home, I could not simulate the conditions he was describing, in fact, I should have asked at the beginning what symptoms had been presented to them before the tinkering started.

The problem with many technicians and engineers today is that they lack analytical skills, they’ll rather tinker and test unsound assumptions with trial and error – they might eventually solve the problem but you can never get them to walk you through the problem discovery to problem resolution because the critical ingredient for analysis is logic and reasoning and that is usually missing.

I fear something in the educational system has deprived many technical personnel of the ability to just stand back, review the situation, work out scenarios, dry run possible resolutions and test assumptions against sound logic. They can see what but never seem to know how or why.

They have to be seen doing something and thinking is not part of doing something, it is scary, I can assure you it is – because what ends up happening is every single issue requires a complete rebuild once they hit a bottleneck - that is time and money.

Doing it right the first time

From my wealth of experience, I have rarely had to rebuild anything I have built myself because of the time taken to understand what I am doing in the first place. However, in many cases I have had to rebuild what others have done because it becomes evident that certain omissions in the construction process are critical to the operation or performance of that environment and that omission cannot be corrected in live systems.

I am sometimes left completely exasperated by the lack of meticulous application of technical expertise in some of these places, I take my time because my philosophy is what is worth doing at all is worth doing well - the first time.

Yes, he did

Anyway, I was called by the project manager again today to arrange another meeting with the technical people and somehow they had tried to call me a couple of times during the day, well, the reason why I had not gotten the call was because the tinkerer had transcribed my number wrongly.

So, we chatted and I had to get the first bit of information out of him, indeed, he had edited the template directly – I simply said, I cannot believe that you edited the XML file, anyone should know that an automatically generated file is not there for tinkering.

Basically, even if you can identify the elements that need changing, there is no telling what other related elements are linked by coded or encrypted values, but in true cowboy fashion, he had edited the file and corrupted the environment.

Now, there is no way how I could then engage in a conversation with this tinkerer on the level of an experienced and learned technician with the expertise to distinguish himself properly.

And indeed, the conversation did get to a point where he remonstrated that he had not just started working with these environments and I was getting irritated with what was turning out to be an abject waste of my time.

The impossible question

By the time we got to the end of the conversation, he wanted to know if he could trust the environment he had built, well, I trust the environment I built, I trust the use of templates to transfer settings and I trust my ability to leave black boxes alone if I decide to use wizards to perform otherwise time-consuming activities.

I could not vouch for his skills or expertise and in the end, he decided I was not helpful at all, I am glad it ended that way because I would be an idiot to vouch for the kind of stuff he had been doing.

I called the project manager and gave him a piece of my mind asking that next time I would rather converse with others with constrained cowboy tendencies whilst intimating him of the fact that my time had really been wasted almost unforgivably.

Some so-called administrators should never be let near critical infrastructure for the sanity of the bigger world.

Rising from the Ashes of the Bushes

More than hilarity with Hillary

I must have been way behind the curve when I heard Hillary Clinton campaign with Barack Obama early this morning.

Something the presidential campaign seems to offers us a number of perspectives expressed in fetching words that one cannot ignore the import of what is being said.

Little did I know, when Hillary Clinton said, “America will rise again from the Ashes of the Bushes” [1], she had said this a few times before [2], and it gets to the heart of the matter.

In the cases of Bush 41 [3] and Bush 43 [4], their tenure might well be recorded in history as that of poor stewardship – of the economy, of opportunity and of American prospects. They have made a bonfire of every fabric of what exudes American supremacy, status and independence.

They may well go down in history as instigators of change, not so much because they advocated change, but because they created the circumstances in which the people could no more abide the continuation of their policies, the time for radical change had come.

The Republican approach

What I found most striking about Hillary Clinton’s speech was that she moved beyond the context of making John McCain a personification of George W. Bush and simply used the more effective blanket coverage of Republican policies.

John McCain might well have the fine defence of saying that he is not George W, Bush but it would be apostasy to declare that he is not Republican.

As I have hoped, a few more people are voicing an opinion about John McCain’s judgement [5] in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate and there have been no more a damning assessment of the lady than from General Colin Powell [6] to suggest that she is not ready to be President because that is what a Vice President is supposed to be.

The voice of reason gets aired

The voice of reason seems to be getting louder and clearer to hear within the cacophony of negativity and distractions that pervade every organ of interaction and communication.

It is comforting to hear that Senator Obama is by no means a terrorist, that being a Muslim does not make you a un-American or unpatriotic, that taxes should be reviewed and the issue of redistribution as propounded by some is disingenuous and if Obama were a socialist, one wonders what would be said of the $700 billion government bailout of private enterprise banks.

Reason should and must prevail, this starts from the top at the White House and this allows me to end this piece with Hillary Clinton’s words again – sending the Republicans back to Washington to clean up the economic mess was like “sending a bull to clean up the china closet” [2] – that does not need any further explanation.

Sources

[1] Hillary Clinton: US will 'rise from the ashes of Bush' if Obama is elected - US Election, World news - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

[2] Hillary: America Will Rise Again "From The Ashes Of The Bushes" – Huffington Post

[3] George H. W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] George W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Im-Palin-g McCain's picket [akin.blog-city.com]

[6] Powell endorses Obama for president - Meet the Press, online at MSNBC- msnbc.com

The dishonest rights of the unborn child

Conceiving the time of conception

I had to ask the question from a more practical perspective because I do believe we are being dogmatically conned with information that bares not basis in fact and reality.

I am sorry, that we hear something that strikes an emotive cord with conservative and religious connotations and fail to research the facts of those assertions and prove beyond debate if those views are true or just utter bunkum.

At the Saddleback Presidential Civil Forum, Pastor Rick Warren asked [1] John McCain, What point is a baby entitled to human rights? And he answered, "At the moment of conception," everyone applauded and I was quite befuddled by it all.

Do you know when?

So, I asked the lady who runs the African store above the Amsterdam Metro Station, if a woman knows that she is pregnant at 2 months gestation, to which she answered, the woman might be suspicious but cannot be definite [2] that she is pregnant as it is unlikely that she would have a bump as evidence of pregnancy

You mean, you cannot say that you have conceived [3] on the day that you had intercourse until such a time that it is obvious by missing periods first and then some sort of pregnancy test – that was in the affirmative.

So for 2 months, it is possible that we would have conferred on an embryo, foetus, baby or some non-descript feeling of unease and anatomical change human right whilst not being really sure it is there or not. Very interesting.

She even offered that when she was having her first child, at 6 months pregnancy the doctor said to her she had another unexplained ailment rather than the impending arrival of a child.

Naming the foetus

I felt, I could carry on this journey of the absurd, so when the bump is really so obvious you think at any moment you would be sequestered into midwifery have you ever asked the woman whilst the baby is still in the womb what the name of the baby is? She looked at me with incredulity.

Well, I was just trying to be logical here, there is probability that the unborn child might have rights it wants to exact from the womb just in case it needs to be identified in court.

It would appear that a child is not named until when it is out of the womb and that might depend on when during the gestation period it was born.

The rights as birth

For instance, I was born at 26 and half weeks, over 40 years ago, there was the possibility I would not thrive, in fact, doctors do not try to exercise the supposed right to live on a baby born at less than 21 weeks except in the most exceptional cases where faith, persistence and the sheer will to live of the child defies all medical science.

The issue of abortion allows for this absurd notion of unborn child rights to take prominence where reason should inform us of better arguments for sustaining the life of an unborn child.

I am of the opinion that a women should be able to decide within the first trimester of a pregnancy that she might only have confirmed from about the sixth week if she wants to keep the changes that are occurring in her or not.

Between rights and moral duty of humanity

There are all sorts of reasons why a woman with or without the consent of a partner, with the advice of her doctor and possibly matters of conscience why a woman would decide to terminate a pregnancy. I do not believe they take those issues lightly at all because there can be serious consequences as physical leading to barrenness or emotional scars that could be impossible manage despite the passage of time.

There might be some women, who have turned terminations into a routine, but they can hardly be in any majority and they probably have their reasons.

However, I do not think that the issue at stake for an unborn child is that of rights because it would portend to separate the entity of the conception, embryo and foetus from the person of the body that provides it nourishment.

It would be interesting if medical science offered the means to prevent the nourishment of a child through the umbilical cord by the accident of medical contra-indications whether there can be a legal premise for the unborn child to seek compulsory nourishment because of where it resides before birth.

The matter really is one of our humanity rather than one of legality; we have reached a point in our civilization where we believe we owe that developing child a burden of care or careful nourishment and an adjusted lifestyle.

Conducive conditions for birth

Where we believe that bearing the child would be a source of joy and there is love around to cater for the upbringing of that child.

Where the act of conception whenever it might have happened is through the consent of the parties involved such that neither sees the product from a perspective of revulsion created by the violation of the body.

Where all things are equal, laws protecting the rights of the unborn child are redundant because it would be brought into a loving, caring and welcoming situation.

Unfortunately, things are not as perfect as one would expect for everyone and those situations do need to be dealt with on their merits through famous trilogy of stakeholders as enumerated by Senator John Kerry years ago – it should be between the woman, her doctor and her God.

Thriving on the compassion of society

After the first trimester, the unborn child is probably going to thrive and be born, whilst medical science can allow for abortions up to term, society frowns on issues where after the well into the second trimester the pregnancy is terminated.

At the point, one can see the possibility of acts criminal, not so much for sake of the unborn child but the reasons that society and medical science have tacitly agreed that after a particular period, the pregnancy should be brought to term.

In many cases, these are moral and medical dilemmas, it would be perilous for us to legislate on moral dilemmas where clear codes of conduct based on the expectation of a civilized society should suffice.

What we owe the unborn child

I think it is utter dishonest to suggest that an unborn child has rights at conception when the exact time of conception cannot be determined until well after other events have passed, which could be well into gestation.

In all, we owe the unborn child the duty of care and for those who are expecting the best wishes for a safe delivery, beyond that, those who do not want or need a baby should either abstain or use contraception.

I cannot begin to imagine the legal minefield that can be opened into the legality and legal status of the unborn child to sue for its rights to be established from the question of paternity, a conducive environment for birth, the right of the pregnant woman to refuse to continue to carry the child as opposed to the supposed undeniable right of the child to nourished whilst still in the womb.

I would contend reason and counsel should prevail in these matters rather than try to legalise moral issues that would convert our courts into grotesque theatres of the most absurd activities of humankind.

For all intents and purposes, an unborn child cannot have rights at conception, the person carrying that developing miracle simply owes themselves that that bundle of joy the greatest duty of care, if that is what they wished for and have settled on the idea of parenthood.

Sources

[1] CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL - Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum – Transcript

[2] From Conception to Birth - A Foetal Growth Timeline – Expectant Mothers Guide

[3] Baby planning time - Understanding conception