Big D   Our forced-motherhood friends use deceptive language and lies of omission.   As you must know, lies of omission are quite acceptable in your society even though lies of commission are considered extremely bad.

T.L.C.   What’s the difference?

Big D   A lie of commission is when you intentionally say something untrue with the intention of deceiving someone.   A lie of omission is when you intentionally withhold vital information with the intention of deceiving someone.

T.L.C.    So in both cases, the intention is to deceive?

Big D   Correct.   A lie is not in the words, or lack of words; it's in the intention of the deceiver.

T.L.C.   Are you saying that when the forced-motherhood promoters intentionally avoid telling us about Genesis 2: 7 ' that that’s an example of a lie of omission?

Big D   Yes.   Once again, I have conned them into screwing up the truth.   The leaders preach vehemently about telling the truth, while, at the same time, they withhold vital information that could significantly affect someone else’s decision.

T.L.C.   Well, they didn’t exactly withhold it.   I could have found Genesis 2:7 all by myself.

George Washington       George Washington       ...

Big D   Did we not just talk about justifying one’s position?**[01]   Have you heard the story about George Washington and the cherry tree?

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T.L.C.   Yeah, I learned that in first or second grade.

Big D   Please tell me the essence of the story as you remember it.

T.L.C.   Sure.   George, when he was a young boy, got a new hatchet, and shortly thereafter his dad found the cherry tree cut down and came to George and asked if he did it, and, George said, “Father, I cannot tell a lie.   I cut down the cherry tree.”

Big D   So your teachers used that story to teach you to tell the truth?

T.L.C.   Yes.   What’s wrong with that?   It’s a good parable about telling the truth.

Big D   One tiny little detail.   It’s a lie.   The story is a fabrication, a fake, a farce, a fraud, a sham.   The story is completely untrue.   Contrary to popular mythology, George Washington did not cut down a cherry tree.   Do you see anything even a little bit screwy about using a lie to promote telling the truth?

T.L.C.   Yes, of course.   It’s hypocrisy in action.

Big D   Then, do you see anything even a little bit screwy about a man who follows the teachings of Jesus using lies to promote his cause?

T.L.C.   Yes.

Big D   Why?

T.L.C.   Because a Christian is, by definition, a man or woman who follows the teachings of Christianity, the teaching of Christ, the teaching of Jesus.

Big D   Did Jesus use lies to promote the word of God?

T.L.C.   Not that I’ve ever heard about.   He said, “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

Big D   One of the Ten Commandments is an admonition against lying.

T.L.C.   The eighth commandment, “Thou shall not bear false witness.”

Big D   Apparently, the use intentional deception to promote their fairytale is perfectly acceptable to them.   They’ve set themselves up as the“ pillars of the community” ' —the ones children are supposed to look up to as role models—“The moral majority,” to use their own words.

T.L.C.   And yet, they have the nerve to claim Bill Clinton was immoral.

Big D   Well, what President Clinton did involved sex, and as you well know, nothing in their minds is as immoral as sex outside their religiously-prescribed way.    The political partners of the Fundamentalist Christians,  the right wing extremist who have taken over the Republican Party,  spent eighteen million dollars investigating Bill Clintons sex life in an attempt to destroy his presidency.    The forced motherhood peddlers stood shoulder to shoulder in that attack on President Clinton.  

T.L.C.  I know.   They belittled Clinton at every opportunity and yet, they’ve said hardly a word about their anti-sex, anti-abortionist buddy, Charles Keating.   Before his criminal conspiracy surfaced, Keating was one of the movement’s most outspoken anti-abortionists.

Big D   Well, of course their not going to speak about him.   Their silence is simply another example where avoiding the truth with the intention of giving  a false impression.   Keating only engaged in securities fraud, bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy, misappropriation of funds, and racketeering.   There was nothing sexual there.   And besides, Keating’s shenanigans only cost the taxpayers 2.6 billion dollars.

T.L.C.   Didn’t President Clinton’s actions with Monica Lewinsky cost the taxpayers a lot of money?

Big D   No his actions cost nothing.   The Republican witch hunters generated those costs in their effort to disgrace the Democrats and have ammunition for the 2000 election.

T.L.C.   What about Newt Gingrich and Jimmy Swaggart? ° and the host of other morality peddlers who have proven themselves to be sexual hypocrites?

Big D   You’d be hard pressed to find a greater hypocrite than Gingrich.°  Gingrich was having an adulterous affair the same time he was spearheading the moral values attach on President Clinton.   

T.L.C.   Are you telling me that while preaching moral superiority, Gingrich was doing the same thing that Clinton was being harassed for?

Big D   Well, not exactly.   We know that President Clinton had oral sex in the White House at least once.   He later reconciled his marriage and is still married to his wife, Hillary Clinton.   We don't know the details of the Gingrich adulterous affair except that after his hypocrisy was made public, Gingrich abandoned his wife for that other woman.   

            But the forced-motherhood peddlers simply don’t talk about these people.   They’ve become “non-persons” in the anti-abortion camp.

T.L.C.   The anti-abortion position of Senator McCain and that of Mr. Bush were almost identical, so in the 2000 Republican primary, why did the anti-abortionists go to such great lengths and spend so much money badmouthing Senator McCain and glorifying Mr. Bush?

Big D   That’s another act of deception—another act of “forgetting” to tell the whole truth.   The issue in the Republican primary was not abortion as the Christian right would have you believe.   Campaign finance reform was the real issue.   McCain’s main message was campaign reform.   Bush vehemently opposed it.

            The anti-abortionists are adamantly opposed to campaign finance reform because it would interfere with their ability to spend millions of dollars of Christian-contribution money influencing political elections.   This would be a serious blow to their plan to create a Christian-controlled America.°   

            Another thing to consider is that Mr. Bush owes the Christian right wing some  big favors and Senator McCain does not.   If Bush gets elected they will get a significant push toward their agenda to create a Christian theocracy in America.

T.L.C.   So if you wanted to stretch your imagination far enough, this whole anti-abortion controversy could be seen as a money-generating scam° designed to create power and control  the fundamental Christians.  

Big D   Amassing power, money and political control?   How could you even consider such a possibility?   In all of recorded history, Christians have never every done anything like that.

T.L.C.   Oh, I’m sorry.   I didn’t mean to imply that that’s actually the case.   I just mentioned it because you taught me that I should look at every possibility and every consideration, and what I just said, although remote, is still a possibility.

Big D   Wake up, Stoney, I was kidding you.   You don't have to stretch your imagination even one iota.   You simply have to  look at the Christian track record.   Historically, the Christians are notorious for engaging in activities designed to gain money, power and political control, and, over the centuries,  what they've done for money and power includes the vilest and foulest and most despicable activities that humans could possible imagine.

T.L.C.   You mean things like selling indulgences?°

Big D   Yes, but that's trivia.   I'm referring to much more sinister activities such as arson and murder.   Remind me to tell you about the  the ancient library at Alexandria.°   Remember the words of Jesus, "By their fruits, you shall know them."

T.L.C.   Yes, of course I remember.

Big D   Then let your readers look at the evidence and make up their own minds.   Advise them to “seek the truth above all else” and also to “let the chips fall where they may.”

T.L.C.   The evidence indicates that regarding intentional pregnancy termination (inpreterm/abortion) and regarding public prayers, the forced-motherhood advocates are not following the Bible and they are not following the teaching of Jesus.   So who are they following?

Big D looked at me with that triumphant look on her face. 

T.L.C.   Obviously, I didn't need you to answer that question.   Tell me about the deceptive language, please.

Big D   The anti-abortionists have been extremely clever in designing the language and spinning the truth to make their side sound like the good guys.   Pro-life sounds great until you carefully examine the costs and consequences of the actions and the prohibitions promoted under that name.   The “Pro Life” label implies that its position is in favor of and supports life, while the opposite side is against life.   **References

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          The term, pre-born baby, another of their recent rhetorical creations, gives the impression there is no difference between a fertilized egg so small that it’s hardly visible and a real flesh and blood, seven-pound baby.' 

Big D   As long as we are making differences, here's another vital distinction that the forced-motherhood promoter simply ignore.   We've already shown you the evidence ' proving the you as an adult human being are not your physical body.   

T.L.C.   Tell me that again, please.   

Big D   Scientists have proven that there there is no such thing as physical matter; that everything we think of as matter is actually energy -- energy that is always in motion.  

T.L.C.   OK, I'm energy, not matter.  So what?   

Big D   Here's the "So What?"   The evidence regarding the nature of what a human being is knocks the foundation out from under the forced-motherhood argument that aborting an embryo/fetus is murdering a human being.   

T.L.C.   How's that?   

Big D   First, the forced-motherhood promoters deny that humans are energy beings.   Second, they claim that a human being is his/her body.   Third, they make no distinction between the being  (the spirit, the soul, the entity, the consciousness)   that enters the a human body and the body itself.   Fourth, they ignore the five-hundred and two references in their own Bible, many of which, such as Genesis 2:7   and  Ecclesiastes 11:5, RSV, ' make clear distinctions between the spirit that inhabits the body and the physical body itself.   

         Let's take this into your own personal  life and examine the significance first hand.   How about on the day you were born, were you your physical body then?

T.L.C.   No.  

Big D   How about before you were born.   Were you the mass of growing tissue in your mother's womb that we call an embryo/fetus

T.L.C.   No.  

Big D   How about at conception.   Were you that single fertilizes egg? (Technically called a zygote.)

T.L.C.   No, but the no-choice people claim that God steps in and creates a brand new being every  time a sperm and egg unite.  

Big D   Yes, We've already talked about God's instantaneous, supernatural, transcendental magic act and, as you will recall,  nobody, not even the investigators for the United States Supreme Court could  found any evidence to support such a proclamation.   

So, let me ask this again, at conception, were you that single fertilizes egg? 

T.L.C.   No.  

Big D   If you weren't a fertilized egg, you weren't an embryo, you weren't a fetus, you weren't your newly-born body, and you are not your adult physical body now,  what were you and what are you?   

T.L.C.   I am an eternal, non-physical being temporarily living in a physical body.

The same is true of every other being.    The same is true for every other zygote, embryo, fetus, and newly born physical body.   We need to clearly define what a baby is.  

T.L.C.   Ok, what is a baby?

Big D   A baby is a newly arrived entity who happens to be in a newly born human physical body.   A zygote is not a baby.   An embryo is not a baby.   A fetus is not a baby.   A newly born human body is not a baby.    A baby is an eternal being functioning in a newly-born human body.  

T.L.C.   So is  a baby is a combination of matter and spirit?   

Big D   That's what the evidence tells us.  And so are you.  

T.L.C.   I am?

Big D   That's what the evidence tells us.   Please answer these questions:  What and where is the life?  What and where is the spirit that the Christian bible so frequently refers to?  How do you relate to your physical body?   You say it's my body.  Who/what is the "me/my" that controls your physical human body?  

T.L.C.   I don't know.   

Big D   And neither does anybody else.  That is why  intentional pregnancy termination (inpreterm/abortion) is a religious freedom issue.   

         Unfortunately, the fantasy belief about when life begins is spread around as if it were an actual, provable fact.   You’ve probably heard Adolph Hitler’s classic line, “Tell a lie often enough, loud enough, and long enough and people will believe it.”

T.L.C.   Sure!

Big D   Well, the same principle applies to fairytales.   “Tell a fairytale often enough, loud enough, and long enough and people will believe it."

T.L.C.   That’s just common sense.   Doesn’t everyone know that?

Big D   Definitely not.   When you look at the conflicting beliefs among the various major religions,°  it becomes obvious that some of them must contain myths and misperceptions.

T.L.C.   But fairytales are not told with the intention of anyone believing them to be earthly reality.

Big D   Are you sure of that?   Perhaps with nursery rhymes, you’re right, but what about the organizations that intentionally indoctrinate children with specific beliefs?  A child under the age of reason (about age seven) can’t tell the difference between an fairytale and a true story.

          As children grow up, when and how do they learn to distinguish fact from fiction?   Parents tell their kids that Santa Claus is a real physical person.   They speak of tooth fairies and Easter bunnies as if they were real.   They tell their kids horrendously false stories about sex, marihuana, and dozens of other things. 

T.L.C.   You mean, like the stork brings babies—if you masturbate you go blind—liberty and justice for all—what will “they” think—your country and the people who run it are the same thing?

Big D   Yes.   Those are examples.   A child brought up on the fairytale about God’s instantaneous, transcendental magic°  at conception is very likely to believe it as an adult because there are millions of other adults who also still believe it.   Believing something doesn’t make it real; even millions of people believing something doesn’t make it real.   When most people believed the Earth to be flat, was it flat?

         Where’s the reality check on fairytales? There isn’t any.   If you’d like, I’ll tell you a little story that illustrates that concept. 

T.L.C.   Please do.     (See the next section below)