Star Trek was Pro-Life Now They Want to Make it Pro-Abortion
By
James Scott Trimm
(An earlier version of this blog wrongly reported Disney owned TV rights to Star Trek, based on inaccurate reporting found on the internet.)
I have been a lifetime fan of Star Trek. I was born in 1966, the same year Star Trek was born. I grew up watching the original series, reading the earliest novels, the Gold Key comics, and the animated series. When I was thirteen Star Trek the Motion Picture came out, with even more books and a Marvel comic version. Just as I was becoming an adult, Star Trek the Next Generation came out. Star Trek was a huge part of my life, and helped shape my life philosophy. In fact I have two books, in my library, dating to my childhood, on that very topic (among well over 100 Star Trek Books in my Library): Star Trek Speaks and Meaning In Star Trek. Without realizing it, I modeled myself after Spock, choosing the Stoic philosophy and with 3-D Chess as a pastime.
I was delighted with the Star Trek Continues fan production (2013-2017) from Vic Mignonga (Who is a Christian), because it made a point of making the types of episodes that were in keeping with the original vision. (I encourage Star Trek Fans to watch it, it is real Star Trek).
Recently the Star Trek TV website published a blog titled Star Trek Has Always Advocated For Choice which attempts to make the case that Star Trek has always been pro-abortion. The blog makes a strained and twisted argument based on the STNG episode The Measure of a Man that supposedly supports abortion. In fact this episode is a Pro-life allegory. In this episode Picard defends Data's right to life, from those who do not believe he has a right to life, and who want to dismember him, What a clear pro-life message.
But the pro-life message was an even bigger part of the original vision of Star Trek. Star Trek was born the same year I was born (1966). It was also the year of the death of Margaret Sanger., the eugenics and abortion activist who was the founder of the original Planned Parenthood and is recognized as the founder of the modern "reproductive rights" (double speak for "abortion") movement.
Just a few months after her death, the original producer of Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry) produced the season one episode Space Seed The episode was originally written by Carey Wilber to involve heroes from ancient Greece, but was revised by show runner Gene L. Coon and Roddenberry himself to involve genetically superior humans, who left earth after the Eugenics Wars originally set in the 1990s. It is no surprise that the villain's name was Khan Noonien Singh, echoing the name of Eugenics activist Margaret Sanger.
This episode not only inspired the sequel in Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan, but sent ripples thru the Star Trek universe and it's sequels. The idea that earth outlawed eugenics after the Eugenics Wars which became a foundational part of earth culture in the series.
This eventually led to an episode of STNG titled The Masterpiece Society which involved a colony which had left earth hundreds of years earlier to build a eugenics based society. The colony is facing destruction from a stellar core fragment from a disintegrated Neutron star. Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge who was born blind, discovers a technology that can save the colony, as part of the technology which was originally developed to create the visor that allows him to see. This irony is the central message of the episode with some amazing pro-life dialog coming from Geordi who points out that he would not have been allowed to be be born on their colony. Here is the amazing Pro-life dialog:
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : So... guess if I had been conceived on your world, I wouldn't even be here now, would I?
Hannah Bates : No.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : No. I'd have been... terminated as a fertilized cell.
Hannah Bates : It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life with disabilities.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I should be here, whether or not I might have something to contribute?
...
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : Oh, that's perfect.
Hannah Bates : What?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : If the answer to all of this is in a VISOR created for a blind man who never would have existed in your society. No offense intended.
Anyone who is seriously familiar with the subject knows that Star Trek was specifically Pro-Life and that it's anti-eugenics pro-life stance was woven into the fabric of the show...
