Dr. Suess Pro-Life?
It’s in all the media lately, with he upcoming theatrical release of Horton Hears a Who, almost as a slogan. But I really noticed it a few weeks ago as we read the story to the boys one evening. But it’s one thing to hear the refrain in your sons’ bedroom and another across national airwaves.
The premise of the movie, of course is that Horton, an elephant finds a world on a speck of dust. No one believes him and after much struggle over the speck and Horton’s sanity, he is finally shown to be right, only as the citizens of the speck themselves find their own speck. But it’s the refrain that serves as the “moral of the story” that interests me the most: A person is a person, no matter how small.
This sounds remarkably like what I as a pro-life person find myself repeatedly saying. Who know that Dr. Seuss was also pro-life? If only Hollywood listened to the words they said deeper than the sound of cash registers.
- Read Why Pro-Life: Caring For the Unborn and Their Mothers by Randy Alcorn
- Read and Watch Horton Hears a Who for yourself
March 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Rev. Brent,
I highly recommend the book Embryo: A Defense of Human Life written by Christopher Tollefsen and Robert P. George. They argue that an embryo is fully human on philosophical and scientific grounds. Regarding identity, a person is identical with their embryo (I was once an embryo so to kill embryo Euphranor would be to kill Euphranor). Regarding science, the embryo contains the developmental program (with DNA and epigenetic factors) that will develop under the right conditions. Tollefsen was on NPR’s Think with Krys Boyd, which I think you can listen to at http://www.kera.org.
Peace and kickflips,
Euphranor
March 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Actually, the late Suess’ wife has asked that pro-life groups stop using that line from Horton Hears a Who because Dr. Seuss was not anti-abortion.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Really? I wasn’t aware of that. Interesting that Seuss himself didn’t believe his own words.
P.S. “anti-abortion” is sure a curious turn of phrase, don’t you think?
March 7th, 2008 at 7:24 am
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