On Abortion (revised)

On Abortion (revised)
By Charles Sullivan






It is a disturbing and terrifying thought that, in a society as advanced and brilliant as ours, we have declared ourselves entitled to arbitrarily and selfishly suspend precepts and morals simply because they are not convenient at the time.

Have we, as a society, come to the point where individuals have the right to not only judge the worth of another human being’s life, but to carry out sentencing based on the decision?

Have we learned so little from history?

The historian Santayana stated that “those who forget the past are oft condemned to repeat it.” When individuals have had the power to arbitrarily choose one life over another based on their own reasons, massive slaughters have resulted, and those responsible have rightly been held up as glaring examples of something worse than monstrous, deserving of our anger and hatred. We spend enormous amounts of time and resources hunting these animals down or doing what it takes to remove their power from them. The Hitlers, Stalins, Saddam Husseins, Mao Tse Tungs Talibans, and Khmer Rouges are all easily recognized, yet we as individuals have no right at all to voice outrage at their activities when we end a human life simply because “it” ‘intruded’ into our lives at an inconvenient moment.

Have we learned so little from science?

When two living creatures, made up of living tissues and cells, unite physically for the purposes of procreation, whatever parts of themselves are exchanged in the process are living too, and therefore viable. Funk and Wagnalls’ Standard Dictionary defines tissue as “an aggregate of cells with a particular function.” It defines cells as “the fundamental structural unit of plant and animal life.” By declaring a new life to be an “unviable tissue mass”, we are trying to relegate it to the status of annoying leftovers to be removed. However, truth and science do not allow this luxury, for the very words we use to try to justify our actions scream to us the fallacy of our argument and the culpability of our mindset.

Have we learned so little from medicine?

The basic tenet of Hippocrates’ timeless oath is to “do no harm.” By tradition, doctors subscribe to this code as the ethical and moral basis of their vocation. We have come so far in medicine that we can do most anything from the mundane flu vaccination to the almost-miraculous organ transplant. Medicine has learned what causes humans harm, and in some cases has permanently eliminated the threat. Yet only half the patients entering abortion clinics come out alive. If such “doctors” were in any other line of medical work, they would be publicly investigated, exposed for the barbarians they were, and removed from practice. Their licenses would be permanently and rightly revoked. Yet we allow these people to practice, and enact laws to penalize those who would oppose them. By the very standards of the man to whose oath they subscribe, these people are not doctors, so why do we allow them to do their work on our “loved ones’” bodies?

Have we learned so little from the human spirit?

Humans have an innate desire to survive that overrides all other desires within. Indeed, newspapers abound with astonishing accounts of people who have lived through a staggering array of situations. The survivors have had a theme in common: their will to live, their desire of life and for life, came to the forefront of their beings and got them through. A nation sits, spellbound as a toddler named Jessica is rescued from a well in Midland, Texas. Celebrations over her safe retrieval occur on a national scale. Her rescuers are lauded as heroes, and well they should be. We weep amazed at a Jessica Lynch telling her rescuers “I am a soldier too”. The heroes of 9-11 are too numerous to count, and too worthy to forget. But can we honestly entitle ourselves to the true joy such moments contain when we are confronted by the inconsistency of our precepts? Prayers by the thousands are offered for the rescuers who save a trapped child. Near-maniac efforts become commonplace at such scenes. An entire nation unites in help and support as victims of a bombing are searched for and rescued. We clamor for action to bring the perpetrators to justice. But yet we dismiss as fanatics those who so openly try to rescue a tiny, defenseless unborn person from a violent death at the hands of an abortionist. But we do not merely dismiss such people: we arrest them and enact laws to stifle their efforts and silence their cries. We crouch behind the battlements of our ivory towers and haughtily justify our judgmental declarations by crying “civil rights” and “personal freedoms”. But how secure are the walls of that ivory tower when the moral relativism we muster is burned away by its confrontation with the unchanging truth? How do we choose to ‘perceive’ or ‘explain’ the truths that have broken through our defenses to scorn and mock us, reminding us that truth does not change itself in any way whatsoever to fit our conventions and is not obligated to do so?

Have we learned so little from common decency?

We read accounts telling us of how aborted fetuses are packed into trash bags like yesterday’s garbage and tossed into dumpsters. We also read reports of dogs tearing open the bags and scattering their contents into the streets. Yet the mess the dogs made offends our ‘sensitivities’ instead of the fact that blood-crazed animals are gorging themselves in a frenzy of scavenging through a smorgasbord of discarded human bodies.

Have we learned so little from human possibility?

Humans differ from animals in many ways but especially because of the abilities to reason and create. We can conceptualize, relating one item of information to another and using them together to achieve. It is our greatest asset as people, allowing us to dream, secure in the belief that, if it can be envisioned, sooner or later it can be accomplished. We should shudder at the thought that one of the slain millions may have been the one to have grown up and discovered the cure for AIDS. In robbing that one of their destiny so coldly, we have in turn robbed ourselves of a small piece of ours. When that one precluded life is multiplied by the others whose futures have been coldly cancelled, we are forced to ask ourselves searing questions we have tried to avoid in order to keep the arguments ‘logical’ and ‘sterile’: How much of our own possibility has been robbed? How much of ourselves have we ended in terms of the greatness we could have achieved? What makes us think we can pay that price and live with or through the payment required? Can we live with the finality of our decision without effect or impunity? Can we face our now-limited futures without regrets?

Have we learned so little from each other?

Most human beings will protect the defenseless when necessary. We have, by mutual consent through the power of election, enacted laws to protect such people, yet we become strangely silent when defenseless babies are murdered within their mothers for reasons that would not stand up to the scrutiny our already-existent legal system. We vow to stop the bully: but why not the baby-killer? For in allowing a life to be ended for no worthwhile reason, we pay for what we have done by losing that tiny bit more of our own humanity. How then can we call ourselves morally superior when such things go on? We shower people with accolades as they try to end the bloodshed wrought by wars, or gangs, or drugs. Yet we only heap derision on those who stand for the budding life within a woman. Such a rationalized juxtaposition has its inevitable price: the degradation of our society as a whole, because we then have no real right to deplore one type of death as we all become guilty accomplices to another. By our silence, we give our consent. People naturally tend to gravitate to the aid of the underdog. Why then do we drive off those who volunteer themselves as advocates for the unborn?

Have we learned so little from God?

When Cain killed Abel in Genesis 4, Abel’s blood cried out to God at what had been done. In Jeremiah 31, Rachel refused to be comforted because her children were all killed. Connection of these prophecies to their realizations is worthy of remembrance for it expresses our horror at such slaughters. But have we truly learned from them? We conveniently forget or try to ignore the fact that we ourselves have, at times, become a selective type of modern-day Herod, ordering or condoning the deaths of children for particular reasons of our own. How many cries has God heard? How many of these souls’ tears has He caught? How much longer will we let ourselves dare His response? How much of our arrogance and self-centeredness will His anger forbear? When His justice is finally provoked, what will we be able to say as we beg for mercy from the One who has witnessed us denying the very mercy we crave? Exodus 1:22 fills us with rage at a Pharaoh who so coldly ordered the drowning of all male babies as a means of population control, yet we use the same reason even extending the scope of our killing at times of our choosing to include girls. We rightfully condemn a Susan Smith for drowning her children, yet fail to bat an eye as we drown the unborn in their own blood.

Have we learned so little from life?

We affirm that life is precious, and yet deny it to those whose life might be inconvenient to ours. Would we be as rich if the Helen Kellers or Fanny Crosbys or Albert Einsteins were not born? Have we so casually forgotten that all of life has something to teach us? In overcoming obstacles, everyone has something to share, making us all precious to each other because of the contagious hope we can offer. We dare not live without that hope, for to abort someone before they have a chance to share is a most cruel and vindictive form of robbery. We will never feel the joy of discovering what was going to enrich our lives as we condemn ourselves to an incomplete life.

Have we learned so little?