Building a Culture of Life: From Antiquity to Modern Era in the United States
Building a Culture of Life
Building a Culture of Life takes the reader on a journey to understand the complexities that have lead us to the modern era choices on such diverse topics as contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilization, cloning, stem cell research, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.
Beginning in antiquity, we note that people have both celebrated new babies and killed them, typically because of physical defects or female gender. All manner of toxic substances have also been used to prevent pregnancy and abort an unwanted pregnancy. As unsettling as these practices sound in the modern era, most of the changes over time are one of technology.
In order to understand what follows, the reader is then introduced to eugenics, racism, and genocide, attitudes that degrade respect for life and the dignity of individuals. From there, the lives of Margaret Sanger and Norma McCorvey prepare the reader for an in depth discussion of why women seek abortion and how abortion is publicly funded.
A discussion of prevention and termination of unwanted pregnancies takes us far beyond contraception and abortion. It leads us also to discuss abortion survivors, human sex trafficking, rape, incest, neonaticide, and infanticide.
Modern technology has also offered in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and genetic engineering; society also discusses human cloning, euthanasia and assisted suicide.
All these topics are treated with a minimum of technical detail so that the impact on respect for the life and dignity of individuals is emphasized while we find a path to the future that preserves both.
In conclusion, there is a discussion of resources available to those women who find themselves in desperate and untenable situations that make them consider abortion as their only option. State controlled community resources, charitable pregnancy resource centers, and healing after such traumas as rape, incest, and abortion give us hope for “building a culture of life.”
–George A. Brooks
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CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1: The History of Abortion
From Ancient Times to Modern Day in the United States
2: Creating a More Healthy Society
Eugenics, Racism, and Genocide
3: The Life Work of Margaret Sanger
The Rise of Planned Parenthood
4: The Story of Norma McCorvey
Roe v. Wade and the Expansion of Abortion
5: Perspectives on Abortion in the United States
Who Seeks an Abortion and Why, Complications from Abortion, Public Opinion on Abortion
6: Funding Abortion for Family Planning
Medicaid, Title X, the Hyde Amendment, Politics, and Public Policy
7: Unwanted Pregnancy: Prevention and Termination
Abstinence, Contraception, Morning After Pill, Abortion Pills, Aspiration Abortions, Partial Birth Abortions, Late Term Abortions, Abortion Survivors, Human Sex Trafficking, Incest, Rape, Neonaticide, Infanticide
8: Creation and Termination of Life: The Domain of God and Man
In Vitro Fertilization, Stem Cell Research, Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, Cloning, Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide
9: Building a Culture of Life
The Pro-Life Movement, Alternatives to Abortion, Healing After Abortion, Community Resources, Pregnancy Resource Centers, Legislative Activism
Summary
Appendix A: A Timeline for Contraception and Abortion
Appendix B: Notes for a Novena on Building a Culture of Life
Note to reader: In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court in June 2022 and the overturn of Roe, I have created a lecture on the future of the Pro-Life movement. Therein, I make the case that we cannot continue only to do what we have done in the past. We must create a society that honors motherhood and guarantees to pregnant women all of the benefits and opportunities that non-pregnant women have. Contact me regarding giving this talk to your group.
Please also consider reading my book “A Timeline of the History of Humankind,” which I hope will inform readers that we are all one family derived from the same remote ancestors. I hope one day we can learn to live together with respect and dignity for all.
http://covenantbooks.com/books/?book=a-timeline-of-the-journey-of-humankind
A Timeline of The Journey of Humankind: From Nothingness to Modern Era, a Western Civilization Perspective
The story of humankind begins 13.8 billion years ago when the universe came into being instantly everywhere at the same time. There was only darkness until the stars began to light up. This begins the long journey of humankind, through the formation in supernovae of the elements that will form our bodies to the formation of the sun, the earth, and the moon until our home brings forth life.Our planet has survived numerous events that threatened to extinguish that life, but ultimately our most remote ancestors began to walk the plains, mountains, and valleys of Africa. In remote prehistory, groups of people migrated out of Africa eventually to populate the whole world.The author provides a timeline for the major events that eventually shaped the modern world. In the earliest settlements, humans domesticated plants and animals. Over time, they formed city-states. Civilizations rose and fell, passing along little snippets of knowledge to those who followed. The journey acquaints the reader with these great civilizations and the people who gave us the arts and sciences and the rules of law for living together. The civilizations of Athens and Rome became the foundation of western civilization.In the last two thousand years, world history is dominated by the spread of Christianity. Therefore, the journey takes us through those events in Judea to the kings, queens, popes, and emperors of Europe while events are also unfolding in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas.The modern world has been largely shaped by the colonial period beginning about 1500 AD. Much attention is given to events since then which are proximate to the world we experience today. World Wars I and II then shaped most of the modern nation states in which we live.The author allows the reader to stand apart and be an observer of the journey of humankind. We have taken many different paths to arrive in the modern world with wonderfully diverse appearances, languages, and traditions, but we are all one family. The author hopes we will embrace our differences and act together as the family we are while shaping the future.