I was thinking of this post today with all the Dr. Seuss news going on.
—
Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss was written in 1954. Did the author mean it as a pro-life book? Probably not, as apparently he and his wife were pro-choicers. Seems like if nothing else he would have wanted more youngsters to have the opportunity to read his books. “Pro-legalized abortion childrens’ author” seems oxymoronic to me.
But I think the book is a great metaphor for the pro-life position. Consider the theme:
A person’s a person, no matter how small.
The ones in danger in the book were called Whos, not whats. Horton the elephant was mocked and reviled for wanting to save the ones no one could hear.
All the rationalizations can’t change the simple scientific fact that the unborn are living human beings and the simple moral fact that it is wrong to kill them just because they are unwanted. The size of a human being is irrelevant to her worth. The “morning after pill” kills a human being after reproduction, as does every other form of abortion.
Matthew had a good point in the comments: The world needs a lot more defiant faithfuls like Horton – 100%!
P.S. The Foot Book was really about gun control and Green Eggs and Ham was about traditional marriage. Probably!
Hat tip: Apologetics.com radio show
Hold up: Green Eggs and Ham was about traditional marriage? I know that story almost verbatim, but that never occurred to me. Where is that documented – I’m curious now
I had always believed Green Eggs and Ham was written in response to a challenge from a colleague of Dr Seuss to write a complete story using a very limited vocabulary of x amount of words.
Ha! You may have the right version of the story. Details are sketchy . . .
For that matter, how is The Foot Book about gun control?
I was kidding about both. Sorry it wasn’t more clear!
See, now I feel foolish. Like, more than normal
Don’t feel bad — my stupid humor has that effect sometimes!
You were kidding, perhaps, but The Lorax was indeed an environmentalist story … and they’re trotting it out just as one.
Right, and The Butter Battle Book was arguably even worse: Its thesis seems to have been that the Soviet empire wasn’t evil at all—the difference between murderous, oppressive, expansionist Communism and free countries is equivalent to preferences about which side of one’s bread to butter—and anyone who thought otherwise was some kind of foreigner-hating crazy warmonger.
By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I hear the new Lorax movie is pretty bad.
Glad you clarified, because I was just as confused as the others.
But “The Sneetches” was about racism, and specifically used the star (Star-Belly vs. Plain-Belly Sneetches) because that was the distinguishing mark that Hitler used on the Jews. And, of course, the unabashed environmentalism of “The Lorax”. So, I know that Dr. Seuss did occasionally go off in directions like that, so it was just barely within the realm of possibility that he was being political in other books.
Is there any doubt about the teletubies?
I’m glad it was you, Matthew, and not me! Whew!
Ha! I find it more amusing (now that I’m over my initial foolery) that we’ve all focussed on the PS note rather then the main content.
It is an interesting note to learn that Dr Seuss was pro-abortion when the story of Horton Hears a Who fits the pro-life cause so very easily.
I wonder how a more politically correct version would be written nowadays? “A person’s a person, only if we want them”? … Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, huh?
(PS. The world needs a lot more defiant faithfuls like Horton – 100%!)
Great point about the 100% — I added that to the post.
And I added “Probably!” after the P.S. that caused so much confusion.
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.” So pro-life!
Pingback: Horton Hears a Who? « Daniel Lovett