They do! My first ultrasound was at 12 weeks and my son seriously looked like an alien sitting indian-style and bouncing around everywhere. I don't remember at what point he actually started looking like a baby.Neeek wrote:You think fetuses are cute? Um...okay. They look more like Sci-fi aliens who will eat you than "cute" to most people.
---
I just finished reading The Year of Living like Jesus: My Journey of Discovering What Jesus Would Really Do, by Ed Dobson, and even though it wasn't nearly as funny as the book that inspired it (The Year of Living Biblically), I was really moved by the author's story of voting.
The author, Ed Dobson, is an Evangelical pastor who used to hang with Jerry Falwell and helped run the Moral Majority lobby. The 2008 election fell within his year of living like Jesus, and so he wrote about how he came to the decision that voting was an important thing to do, and how he decided who he voted for.
Dobson, a registered Republican, says that most of his evangelical acquaintances vote strictly on the pro-life question - the rest of a candidate's political views are completely irrelevant. During his Jesus year, however, he wanted to vote for the candidate who was most like Jesus, so he came up with three major areas of Jesus' teachings to look for:
1) The treatment of the poor and oppressed
2) The treatment of one's enemies
3) The commitment to peace-making
He did also spend a considerable amount of time considering the pro-life/anti-abortion question, but this was my favorite part:
(He did, in fact, vote for Obama.)Ed Dobson: The Year of Living Like Jesus, page 243-244 (typos mine) wrote:...So maybe the issue of abortion is not as black-and-white as some conservatives think. It's a complicated question.
So where do I stand? I still believe that human life begins at conception and that being pro-life is being for life from conception to the grave. So what are the implications of this statement? Simply put, I am for life. As a follower of Jesus, I am for protecting life before birth and after birth. After all Psalms 139 clearly states that God is involved in our lives from the beginning of life to the end of life.
But here's an important point: being pro-life not only means I'm interested in protecting the unborn. It also means I'm interested in protecting those who have already been born.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those who are dying of HIV/AIDS.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those who are living in poverty.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those who lack adequate health care - especially children.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those in our communities who are into gangs and drugs and will ultimately end up in prison.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those in our communities who are being killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Israel, and places all over the world.
Being pro-life means being concerned about those who are experiencing genocide in countries around the world.
Being pro-life means being all of these and a whole lot more.
I am concerned about those within the conservative movement whose only concern is with the unborn. I agree with them. I stand with them. I support them. But I want to know why in the world they seem not to care about those who are already born.
So I plan to vote for Senator Obama. Even though I disagree with him on the issue of abortion, being pro-life is a whole lot more than being concerned about abortion alone!
Whether or not I agree with Dobson about his views on fetal legitimacy or on his religion, I have to say that it was cool to see someone sit down with their own beliefs and have a serious heart-to-heart. And I think he arrived at the key question: If people are going to vote for a candidate who is "pro-life," what does being "pro-life" actually entail?