Monday, September 9, 2013

"You Destroyed a Miracle"

 
A letter to the editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times by me appeared in the September 1 issue under the title, "Says every abortion destroys a miracle."   The letter said:

   “You destroyed a miracle,” Mr. Still said…
   I’ve always been fascinated with life in miniature.  When I see an iridescent wolf spider no larger than a sesame seed, or another amazing wild creature around the house, I’ll run for the magnifying glass.
   Science recognizes that fertilization is when a unique person is created.  The biological entity that begins then is the same biological entity that’s born, the same that grows into a toddler, teen, adult, and mature older adult.   It’s only to justify abortion that the words “life,” “person,” or “human” are re-defined to exclude the prenatal human individual.   ”Prochoice” is a philosophy that requires a person to have certain characteristics before he or she has a right to live.
   Whatever the news is about North Carolina legislation or the closing or opening of “Femcare", and however biased the coverage might be, none of it changes the reality that every abortion destroys a miracle.  Not a cockroach or a parasite either, but a living human being.

Link to the letter.

2 comments:

M.H............................ said...

Mr. Still wrote the inscription shown in the photograph to my dad.

M.H............................ said...

Death of a Fox
Last night I ran a fox over
A sudden, brilliant flash of gold
A setting sun of gilded fur appeared in my car's beam
And then the fatal thump
I asked the fox to forgive me
He spat as he died
I asked God to forgive me
I don't believe He will
Is there no pardon anywhere?

-James Still, from the Wolfpen Poems

I remember the day Mr. Still wrote this poem. He came into the community kitchen at the Hindman Settlement School at supper time and set the single sheet of paper on the counter, as he did with so many of his newly written poems. He suggested that I go up the highway and pick up the body of the fox. He didn’t say at the time that he had ran over it himself. Had I known, I probably would have recovered and buried it for him. I only learned this part of the story just now, from a transcript of an interview he did with Noah Adams, of NPR’s All Things Considered, broadcasted 11/10/1995.