By DONALD DeMARCO
Psychologists who study perception tell us that we interpret things against a background. We notice what is called the figure, but we interpret the figure in relation to a background which we do not notice. A candle is holy when set on an altar, romantic on a piano, eerie in a jack-o-lantern, and elegant on a table. Toys are clutter when strewn on the floor, but are treasured gifts under the Christmas tree.
Against what kind of background to people interpret the unborn child? There are two competing backgrounds. One is “choice” and the other is the “sanctity of life.” How do we know which background gives us the truth of the unborn child?
One interesting feature of old movies is that they are set in a radically different kind of background than those of contemporary vintage. 1957 was the year that the Soviet Union launched the first space satellite, Sputnik I. Slinkys, Frisbees, and Hula Hoops were popular. American Bandstand made its television debut and Elvis Presley purchased Graceland. The cost of a new house was $12,200 and a gallon of gas averaged 24 cents. Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States.
It was a different time with a different background including a widespread anxiety over being contaminated by atomic radiation. One concept that decidedly was not part of the background was “choice.” Abortion was understood as killing an unborn human being.
1957 was the year that Universal Studios released The Incredible Shrinking Man. The main character, Scott Carey, played by Grant Williams, passes through a strange radioactive mist while boating. There is no immediate effect, but he slowly begins to shrink. His wife notices that his clothes are unexplainably too large for him. His wedding ring slides off his finger. He resides temporarily in a dollhouse. He is menaced by a cat, and then by a spider. He becomes so small that no one can hear his screams. His size now is approaching the zero point, or the microscopic size of a zygote. Is he still a human being?
At the close of the movie, Scott finds himself on a basement windowsill looking out at a starry night. He wonders whether someone as small as he is has any meaning. Existential screen writer Richard Matheson provides an answer: “So close — the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly I knew they were the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle….And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!”
Viewing the Scott Carey character shrinking to a decimal point and observing the enlargement of the unborn child from a one-cell zygote to a mature organism of 35 trillion cells is looking at the same object from opposite ends of the telescope. One gets smaller; the other, larger. But both remain the same being, namely a human being. The movie title employs the word “incredible” to describe its character’s diminution.
Yet the enlargement of the unborn child is at least equally “incredible,” in the sense that it is inexplicable. The movie’s protagonist is “incredible” because his metamorphosis is unknown to us. But the enlargement of the human being, from a zygote to an adult is not only believable because it is observable but even more stupendous than the process of shrinking because the unborn not only increases in size, but develops. His development is not simply an enlargement but a growth in which new modifications arise that are appropriate for each ensuing stage.
In the movie, Fantastic Voyage (1966), a surgical team is microminiaturized and injected with a hypodermic needle into a patient. This Lilliputian team endures a truly harrowing odyssey as it maneuvers to the location of the pathology where it applies the therapy. These stouthearted medical missionaries, “micro-biologists,” finally make their exit from the patient, appropriately enough, through a tear. There never was any suggestion in this motion picture that a person loses his humanity once he is shrunk to a certain lowly size. Nor does this suggestion arise in the more recent 1989 movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (titled The Micro-Children) in its Japanese version.
Existence, nature, and intrinsic value are not controlled by size. In 1968, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity appeared. Here, the future Pope Benedict XVI returns to the familiar question that Scott Carey once again raised: “What is man! (‘…that little speck of dust’) that God is mindful of him?” He answers by pointing out: “The boundless spirit who bears in himself the totality of Being reaches beyond the ‘greatest,’ so that to him it is small and he reaches into the smallest, because to him nothing is too small. Precisely this overstepping down into the smallest is the true nature of absolute spirit.”
The gap between the largest and the smallest human being is infinitely small in comparison between the gap between being and nothingness. If something exists, it stands outside of nothingness. As the screen writer reminds us, from the perspective (or background) of God, there are no zeros. Scott Carey sees himself in relation to the infinite — God — as his background. In this figure/ground perspective he understands that he has meaning and is human.
If time could be reversed, we would all be getting smaller as we approach the zygote point. At no stage, however, would we forfeit our humanity. Whether we shrink or develop, our alteration does not efface our humanity. The Incredibly Shrinking Man has been named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant. We might add, that it is “morally and philosophically” significant as well.
(Dr. Donald DeMarco’s latest book is Why I Am Pro-Life and Not Politically Correct, available at amazon.com.)
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