Video
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
A sonogram for baby Jesus?
By Frances Kissling
I love Christmas. I love the secular parts of it - presents, a big meal with friends or family; Macy's window; Season's greetings/ Merry Christmas - I refuse to get hung up and stingy about what people want to say in wishing the best to each other. I love all the new music and the traditional carols and I put money in the Salvation Army kettles. And I love the religious part of it. As a child I had an advent calendar and every day I opened a different window in anticipation of the birth of Jesus. There was a nativity scene on a table in our living room and the rough hewn trough looking thing that served as the crib for the baby Jesus was empty till Christmas morning. All the baby Jesus' were so lovely; bisque figures with fine features a beatific smile. I knew he loved me and loved him. And so when I saw the "Here He Comes" ad which showed the baby Jesus waiting inside his mother's uterus in a 3D sonogram I just burst into happy laughter. I want one to hang on my wall. I want it to be my Christmas card.
Bravo to www.churchads.net in the UK for doing it. Babies are wonderful. Being pregnant and expectant - awaiting the birth of a baby you want must be among the most special things in the world. And the sonogram on the refrigerator of mom and dad and the expectant grandparents is the modern symbol of all that is good about deciding - or - accepting the unexpected new person who will be part of your family. It also brings to mind the fact that all sorts of people are having babies - traditional married couples, gay couples, women on their own - that's part of the modern understanding of the birth of Jesus. Here come all the babies and all the families that welcome them. Poor people uncertain of how they will care for the baby are having them and loving them and often finding ways to care for them. Women in poor health consent to risking their lives to bring much wanted children into the world. God bless them all.
I don't want to forget or ignore the 10 million children under the age of five who die each year because they were born into poverty and ill health or the 300,000 plus women who die in pregnancy, but I do want to celebrate the millions and millions of births each year that are modern miracles of faith.
And then, some silly people who are obsessed with abortion tried to spoil a good thing. Pro-life Wisconsin decided to be the grinches who stole Christmas. The wanted to interpret these joyous billboards as an anti-abortion message and instead of allowing people to feel the joy and inspiration and holiness that the birth of Jesus' symbolizes they wanted us to think about abortion.
This happens every Christmas. It's a tough time for supporters of abortion rights who have just as much excitement and take just as much joy in expecting a baby in their family as does everyone else, but end up feeling defensive and grumpy about the baby Jesus being hijacked for political gain. Some pro-choice secular Grinch, at the National Secular Society in the UK had to go and complain that "The image is too specifically associated with pro-lifers to be seen in a benign context. They should go back to angels and cribs."
Well, I'm hoping that those of us who are pro choice here in America will allow ourselves to enjoy this modern depiction of the baby Jesus awaiting entry into the world in his mom's uterus. It's a great and happy and anticipatory message. Mary and Joseph, certainly a nontraditional family and their precious baby boy are a perfect symbol for the complex modern world in which we live.
Frances Kissling is Visiting Scholar Center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and former president of Catholics for Choice.
By Frances Kissling |
December 4, 2010; 10:26 PM ET
Save & Share:
Previous: An Islamic sermon for the world |
Next: What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Reading "texts of terror"
Posted by: callifeadvocates | December 10, 2010 8:14 PM
Report Offensive Comment
lepidopteryx, it's actually a much more complicated scene than that -- Mary worries that she's not worthy, and then accepts the honor and says yes, she is the handmaiden of the Lord and rejoices in His justice and righteousness.
Posted by: novangla
Mary never has the option of saying "No." The angel doesn't say, "Hey, look, God wants a son, and he really digs you, and was kind of hoping that you would be willing to carry, birth, and raise the little tyke. Is that cool with you?"
Rather the angel said, "You will bring forth a son." It wasn't a request, it was a statement of fact.
Posted by: lepidopteryx | December 8, 2010 10:12 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"Standing by Peaceful Waters"
Posted by: backspace1 | December 7, 2010 11:13 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Oh look more propaganda from the cult of the holy fetus.
Posted by: Nymous | December 6, 2010 10:33 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Considering all the people who have been killed in the name of Jesus, it is too bad his mother did not have an abortion.
Posted by: alterego3 | December 6, 2010 9:36 PM
Report Offensive Comment
A sonogram for baby Jesus? I think Joseph would have found a DNA test more interesting.
Posted by: maggots | December 6, 2010 7:47 PM
Report Offensive Comment
AREYOUSAYING comment is correct if projected in the past. About twenty or more years ago, the accusations against priests were common knowledge, but either the priest was just moved or nothing was done.
Posted by: ThishowIseeit | December 6, 2010 6:25 PM
Report Offensive Comment
He looks more like mr magoo or winston churchill than any jesus pictures I've seen.
... it must be an inside joke for you christians, right?
Posted by: eezmamata | December 6, 2010 6:02 PM
Report Offensive Comment
lepidopteryx, it's actually a much more complicated scene than that -- Mary worries that she's not worthy, and then accepts the honor and says yes, she is the handmaiden of the Lord and rejoices in His justice and righteousness.
Posted by: novangla | December 6, 2010 5:37 PM
Report Offensive Comment
NewsBusters| Lefty Voices in 'On Faith' Choir: Christmas 'Tough Time' for Abortion Rights Backers, Ants-on-Crucifix Video Not Blasphemous
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/12/06/lefty-voices-faith-choir-christmas-tough-time-abortion-rights-backers-
Posted by: StewartIII | December 6, 2010 4:50 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Mary and Joseph, certainly a nontraditional family and their precious baby boy are a perfect symbol for the complex modern world in which we live."
Are you nuts? So glad that little ad titillates you, dear. Now go home!
Posted by: GDWymer | December 6, 2010 4:39 PM
Report Offensive Comment
To AREYOUSAYING: Not one Catholic that I know (and I am Catholic) "look(s) the other way" regarding the pedophilia scandal in the Church. We are as outraged as those outside of the Church and have been supportive of those trying to change the Church. Don't know why this ad campaign brings up this subject in any case - guess another opportunity for anti-Catholic rhetoric.
Posted by: kgwillison1 | December 6, 2010 4:22 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The Pro-Life Wisconsin ad seems completely appropriate, especially in the season of Advent. That is to say, while Mary was still pregnant and had not yet given birth. Why does it threaten the pro-abortion side so much to remind people that Jesus (like all of us) was once a fetus?
Posted by: stpetric | December 6, 2010 11:48 AM
Report Offensive Comment
How do we know that Mary wanted to have a baby? She wasn't exactly given a choice in the matter. According to the Gospels, God simply told her that she was going to be his baby-mamma; he didn't ask her if she wanted to be.
Posted by: lepidopteryx | December 6, 2010 8:38 AM
Report Offensive Comment
It's all so fascinating that Catholics are obsessed with the unborn and then look the other way as some of their priests bugger little boys.
Posted by: areyousaying | December 6, 2010 8:12 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Cute idea, but the piece of tissue above the baby looks like a leafblower tube made of flank steak and it's really turning my stomach. Since they photoshopped the halo in, couldn't they remove the parts that only a doctor wouldn't find icky?
Posted by: UsedToBeGOP | December 6, 2010 1:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Why are all you people even giving any recognition to unbalanced
woman? What she is doing is attracting attention away from the Wisconsin Ad and to herself and her bent frame of mind.