Compelling Interest - Review

http://christianaudio.com/compelling-interest-roger-resler-1

40 years after Roe vs. Wade, Compelling Interest, by Roger Resler offers an interesting look behind the scenes of the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the United States.  From the appalling ignorance of the attorneys handling the defense, to the twisting of language and history to manipulate the court’s decision, Resler makes a convincing case for life.  In his interviews with experts and research into other historic court cases, the author demonstrates that the justices and defense attorneys allowed the legal team pursuing the “right” to legal abortion to bamboozle them.

In Resler's reading of his audiobook, actual conversations with the founders of the National Right to Life Committee,  author and speaker Randy Alcorn, bioethics professor Dr. Gerard Magill, and other experts add objectivity and credence to a usually explosive topic.  Doctors' descriptions of the abortion process at every stage of pregnancy are graphic and disturbing.

In the end, the key point I detected, was NOT whether the embryo, fetus, baby or "tissue" (as the attorney for the plaintiff chose to refer to it), was a living, human being.  The question of life starting at fertilization/conception had been scientifically and irrefutably proven long before this case came to trial.  The question before the court was whether this "tissue" had any "Constitutional Rights or protection" due to it.  Unfortunately, as no precedent had been established, the best the defense could come up with was that "natural born" citizens were due protection of life, liberty, etc. under the Constitution of the United States.  Sarah Weddington, attorney for the plaintiff, argued that this meant that since the "tissue" was not yet born, it had no rights.  The Supreme Court justices fell for it.

In the ensuing arguments about how early a fetus could survive outside the womb, "quality of life" issues were introduced.  Now we have a disturbing precedent.  If the "quality of life" that a premature baby can enjoy is not of the quality deemed necessary by the court, what about the "quality of life" of the disabled, the elderly, the poor?  It is frightening to see these very issues beginning to be addressed 40 years later.  

I don't know about anyone else, but after giving birth to 4 children, I greatly respect the life that grows inside a woman's womb, however conceived, and however little "hope" there is for "quality" for that life.  I also do not want anyone but my God deciding when my "quality of life" has ended and so, therefore, must my actual life.  

As a narrator, the author has a deep, commanding presence and the interspersed voices of experts he interviewed for the book offer a pleasant variety and help to keep the reader's interest.

I do not recommend this book for anyone under the age of 16, due to the subject matter and graphic descriptions of the abortion process.   

Compelling Interest – Review

By Roger Resler, © 2012

ISBN-10: 1618431137

ISBN-13: 978-1618431134

www.christianaudio.com       12.4 hrs.         $14.98

read by:  Roger Resler and various guests

Thank you to www.christianaudio.com for the opportunity to review this book.  A free copy was provided for that purpose, no other compensation was received.