I did not learn to appreciate history until long after I graduated from college.  Since then, I’ve developed a love of history.  While doing research for another article on this blog, I learned a little about the history of Eugenics in the United Sates.  What is Eugenics, you ask?  Good question.  Most people that I know have no idea what it is either.  Why was Eugenics not taught in your U.S. History class?  I can’t give a definitive answer, but I have a good idea.  Eugenics is a deep, dark secret in American history, very close to the disastrous kidnapping, relocation, and robbing of all their property, of Japanese Americans in World War II.  FDR did this without any thought and most Americans accepted it without question. Back to Eugenics.  If you type “Eugenics” in www.ask.com you will get this definition: “The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.” 

In the book, “Darwin Day in America” by John G. West,[i] Chapter 7, is titled “Breeding Our Way out of Poverty.”  This chapter thoroughly documents the Eugenics movement in the United States.  I read with horror what transpired with Eugenics.  This movement took science by storm throughout America from 1890 to the 1960s.  How could intelligent men, such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, The Rockefeller Foundation, Ralph Waldo Emerson and many distinguished scientists such as Professor Edwin Conklin, a biology professor at Princeton University, could believe and propagate such evil as was propagated by the Eugenics movement? 

Psychologist Henry Goddard introduced the term “moron” into the English language.  According to West Goddard was obsessed that “feeble-minded” Americans were degrading the country’s racial stock.   West describes the case of Deborah Kallikak -  In 1912 Goddard wrote a book titled “The Kallikak Family:  A Study in Feeble-Mindedness.”  The scientific community received the book with great acclaim.  Deborah Kallikak was born to a single mother on welfare and was believed to be from a line of what Goddard considered "feeble-minded" family members.  Goddard studied the entire family tree to prove his point.  He determined that the family tree was filled with what he called “defectives and delinquents.”  

Goddard went as far as the American Revolutionary War and found 480 descendants of which he found that 143 were feeble-minded.  He did not specify how he came to that conclusion.  Deborah was in the feeble-minded category, although all her teachers refused to consider her as such.  Convinced of his position Goddard urged that the nation apply biological science to its social-welfare policies.  In Washington D.C. Dr. Woods Hutchinson of the New York Polyclinic preached Eugenics at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.  Hutchinson proposed that all American children be given a Eugenics inspection by their third year in school.  As soon as a child was identified as feeble-minded he/she would only receive training befitting such a child.  Then they should be segregated in farm colonies or sterilized. 

Eugenics was promoted as a way to keep the race free of “less than desirable traits.”  What is most galling is that a determination of such so-called feeble-mindedness was a subjective decision, based on purely metaphysical criteria and not on any scientific measurements that could be tested.  Once a prominent scientist called you feeble-minded then you were stuck with this label – totally arbitrary and capricious. 

The Eugenics movement drew direct inspiration from Darwinian biology, according to West, and later became known as “Social Darwinism.”  Professor Edwin Conklin stated “nevertheless a good many defectives survive in modern society and are capable of reproduction who would have perished in more primitive society before reaching maturity. Such defectives survive by charity and are allowed to reproduce.”  West points out that Eugenists seemed certain that once man took control of his own evolution, he could do an even better job than nature.  Confident that modern biology had revealed to them how to breed a better race, Eugenists set about putting their “scientific” ideas into action. 

Eugenics had such a solid following that government started passing laws to promote its agenda.  The first law was to limit marriage and immigration.  Connecticut enacted the first Eugenics marriage law in 1896.  By 1914 more than half of the states had imposed new restrictions on the marriage of persons considered feeble-minded.  Immigration laws were also targeted by Eugenists, who believed that biological defectiveness from foreign countries contributed to social welfare programs.  By 1920 Congress held hearings on the “Biological Aspects of Immigration.”  In 1924 Congress adopted a new immigration law, which curtailed the number of immigrants allowed from southern and Eastern Europe.  Although they did not specifically call Southern and Eastern Europeans “feeble-minded,” the implication was clear.  Now how they made the jump of including Southern and Eastern Europeans with this category is unknown.  As of 1956 when my Southern European family immigrated to America from southern Italy, this immigration statute was still in force.  

Another good example of the horrors of Eugenics is the case of Carrie Buck.  Born to parents who were considered feeble-minded, she was taken from her parents and placed in a foster home at age four.  By age 10 her mother was declared mentally defective and incarcerated in a Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the feeble-minded.  Carrie made the best of her circumstances; she performed well in school, attended church and sang in the church choir.  Then, in the summer of 1923, Carrie was raped by the nephew of her foster parents and became pregnant.  Her foster parents, wishing to keep this a secret, had Carrie committed to the same Virginia Colony for the feeble-minded her mother had been committed to.  In 1924 the board of the Virginia Colony decided that Carrie must be sterilized under Virginia’s sterilization law.  Forced sterilizations swept the country.  By 1940 36,000 men and women had been forcibly sterilized.  Half of these were done in California alone, Virginia followed with 4,000.  All told, 36 states performed forced serializations on those classified as feeble-minded. 

Carrie Buck fought the sterilization order and lost.  The case was eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and became the case of Buck vs. Bell.  The Supreme Court also ruled against Carrie and she was forcibly sterilized.  The Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 against her.  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is noted for saying, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  The only justice to vote for Carrie was Justice Pierce Butler, a conservative Roman Catholic. 

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, championed the Eugenics movement.  In a speech at Vassar College Sanger spoke about the “ruinous costs to taxpayers for defectives.” Sanger was an ardent Darwinist and considered blacks, Native Americans, Jews and Hispanics  “lower classes” which must not be allowed to multiply.  In 1939 she started “The N-gro” project as a way to prevent the birth of too many blacks.  Even today, if you look at where the Planned Parenthood offices are, you will find most of them in lower class neighborhoods. The method is abortion; the goal to prevent too many “undesirables.”  I’m amazed at how this is totally ignored by the “tolerant” political left who think that abortion is “a woman’s right to choose.” 

In the aftermath of the Eugenics movement, scholars pointed out how shaky and fraudulent the diagnosis of “feeble-mindedness” was.  Henry Goddard, who studied the Kallikak family mentioned earlier, for example, hid the real identities of the Kallikak family so no one could check his work.  One scholar, through great detective work, did finally discover the identities of the Kallikak family and he conclusively showed that the assessment was a product of prejudice.  Carrie Buck lived a very normal life; she was happily married for 25 years until the death of her husband.  She re-married and remained so until her death in 1983.  By the time of her death she was no longer considered “feeble-minded.” 

Most Americans, although controversial, accepted the Eugenics movement.  Roman Catholics provided the stiffest resistance.  Pope Pius XI strongly condemned Eugenics in a 1930 encyclical.  Protestants such as William Jennings Bryan and Billy Sunday also condemned and spoke out forcefully against Eugenics. 

Fast forward to the year 2009.  We have a culture, which does not consider the unborn as a human being and certainly not a person.  The U.S. Supreme court said so in so many words in Roe vs. Wade in 1973 and many liberal Americans believe it still.  How did Eugenics get such a strong foothold in America?  How did the culture of death such as the “pro-choice” advocates get such a strong foothold in America? These are questions that can be debated ad nauseam.  How did otherwise intelligent people fall for Eugenics?  How do intelligent people fall for “pro-choice” mentality?  Although I cannot point to definitive evidence for how Eugenics influenced the “pro-choice” mentality.  I think it is not difficult to see the inference one to the other.  The same fraudulent evidence for Eugenics is evident in the “pro-choice” mentality.

[i] John G. West, Darwin Day in America, (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2007

 

One of the most hackneyed, robotic comments that I hear from “pro-choice” advocates, including fellow Catholics and other pro-abortion Christians, is that those of us who are pro-life are “one issue advocates."  This is akin to saying that you cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.  But let’s address this common statement to see if it meets logical scrutiny.  What is the “pro-choice” person saying when they make such statements?  Well, for one, they’re saying that they’re having a hard time coming up a case for why they’re not pro-life.  This complaint usually comes up at election time when the ”pro-choice” advocates accuse us of not voting for their candidate based only on the pro-life issue. 

Let’s break down the argument to its lowest component.  If a candidate for public office is a racist and correct on all other issues, would someone be correct in not voting for that person?  Would not that person be accused of being a “one issue” advocate?  If another candidate for public office is an anti-Semite and correct on all other issues, would one be accused of being a “one issue” advocate if one automatically disqualified that candidate for public office?  

The issue here is not being a “one issue” advocate, the issue is a significant misalignment of the moral compass.  The “pro-choice” advocate believes that being “pro-choice” is a minor issue not worthy of concern.  The pro-life advocate considers the issue to be of the highest importance. 

Monsignor George Trabold, Pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Short Hills, New Jersey, in an article in the Catholic Advocate of October 25, 2000 stated that “ Respect for life is not a “single issue campaign.”  Respect for life is the only issue.  Respect for life infuses every issue in our political consideration.” 

“Pro-choice” advocates cannot defend their position so they respond with derision and ad hominem attacks to pro-life advocates.  An accusation that one is a "one issue” advocate when it comes to pro-life issues is meant as a subtle ad hominem attack.  We must be careful not to respond in kind to such attacks.  I like to use the method of asking questions of my opponents, what Greg Kokul calls, the “Columbo method.”  I would ask this person, if they could help me clarify the issue.  When do they believe that life begins?  At birth?  What evidence can they point to prove their point?  Have they ever seen a picture of an aborted baby?  Would they say that that aborted baby was a human life?  

I like to tell my opponents that I’m open to be convinced if I’m shown convincing evidence of my opponent’s position.  I never use scripture to try to convince a pro-choice person of my position, not because it is not important, but because you do not need scripture to prove that life begins at conception, but also because non-believers will dismiss scripture as unreliable.   Science has already proven that life begins at conception.  Most “pro-choice” advocates respect scientific proof.  You will be hard pressed to find a scientist, even  “pro-choice” ones, who deny this fact.  All you have to do is look up the information in any embryology textbook. 

I’d like to address the concept, usually accepted by the “pro-choice” folks, that the pro-life position is not important.  Many liberal Christians believe that serving the poor and the dignity of a living person is more important.  The immigration advocates, for instance, believe this.  Liberation Theology is a form of liberal Christianity that believes that taking care of the poor is what Christ commanded us to do and if we do this we’ve completed the great commandment of Christ.  These same people are the ones who will tell you that the minimum wage is a dignity of life issue and at the same time tell you that the unborn baby is not an important issue at all.  What we have here is a failure to grasp the important moral issues of our time.  If we do not defend life what is there to defend?  If we do not have life we will never be poor, we’ve solved the poverty problem by killing life before it starts.  

At the end of World War II General Dwight Eisenhower ordered that as many pictures as could be taken were taken of the Holocaust atrocities that he found – the reason:  “Because the day will come when some son of a b.... will say that this never happened.”  I want to be clear that I am not comparing a “pro-choice” person with a Holocaust denier, but the similarity is breathtaking, if you look at it.  As Fr. Frank Pavone, Director of Priests for Life, states: "America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion. ” Can anyone look at pictures of aborted babies and say, no, this is a choice?  The sad truth is that our culture refuses to look at pictures of abortion – they call this “offensive.”  Such pictures can never be shown to kids at Catholic or Protestant schools for fear of getting the anger of parents for shocking the kids.  Pro-life advocates who show such pictures are usually called “extremists.”  

We need to reclaim our culture by looking at what abortion does, until then we’re no better than the person who denies the Holocaust and our culture will remain a culture of death.

“Abortion is a complex question,” according to many pro-choice advocates.   If I had a quarter every time I’ve heard this I’d be a millionaire.  What surprises me about this statement is not that pro-choice people repeat this hackneyed phrase ad nauseum, but the fact that no one, even pro-life advocates, ever challenge this meaningless phrase.  What is so complex about abortion?  Either life begins at conception or it does not; either the unborn is a human or it’s a piece of tissue.  If life begins at conception and the unborn is a human being, then that life is a human life that deserves all the rights that you and I have.  The comment that abortion is a complex issue is a non-issue; it’s just plain false and misleading. 

I know, I know, the pro-choice advocates will say that a life the size of a period on this page is not the same as a baby that is one day-old.  Let’s analyze this line of reasoning.  Since when did size determine the worth of your life?  Would you say that Shaquille O’Neill’s life, at 7 feet tall, is worth more than, say a little newborn baby at 20 inches?  Is that little baby less human than, say a two year-old? Size is not the issue, the unborn is the issue. 

Scott Klusendorf has written a brilliant little book called Pro-Life 101:  A Step-by-step Guide to Making your Case Persuasively[1] where he makes the “SLED” argument (Size, Level of Development, Environment, Degree of Development).  Klusendorf makes the argument that none of these differences diminish the human dignity of any human life.  When it comes to level of development, what difference does it make?  A toddler is less developed than an adolescent, an adolescent less development than and adult.  If we decided to give human dignity by our size, then any one of us could have been killed at any moment in our life before adulthood.  Every one of us started as a singe cell zygote.  Klusendorf is a brilliant and eloquent spokesman for the pro-life cause and I highly recommend him as a speaker at a pro-life function.  

Whenever man or governments decide when a person gets rights, be very worried because if man or government give rights, they can take them away just as easily as they gave them.  Human dignity is not a right obtained by man or any form of government, it is a God given right, period.  Human dignity starts at the beginning of life – conception.  How can killing a human life be complex?  It is not complex, but very, very simple.  If you don’t believe that life begins at conception, I suppose you could make an argument, but if it does not begin at conception when does it begin?  It would have to be determined by man or government.  But how would you determine when it would be?  It would have to be a subjective determination.   Princeton University, Bioethics Professor, Peter Singer, says that you should have about 28 days to determine if a newborn should live or die.  Do you think this is a reasonable position? How so? 

Fortunately, we do know when life begins; we know it by science and by what our Church teaches.  It is no longer an opinion.  Science has determined that human life begins at conception.  In my previous posts on this blog I’ve listed countless links where you can check the documentation of this fact.  You will not find any credible person who will argue that science has not established this fact.  Just the other day Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Majority Leader of the United States Senate, made a flat out stupid comment that the Roman Catholic Church has not been able to establish when life begins.  This lie was quickly pointed out by some U.S. Bishops, such as the Bishop of Denver, Charles Chaput and the Bishops of New York and Washington DC. 

When Barack Obama was asked at the Saddleback Church Forum on August 17, 2008, about when a baby should get human rights, he answered that this question “was above his pay grade.”  He further stated that he is pro-choice, not because he likes abortion but because women make these decisions with difficulty.  Difficulty?  How can the killing of a human being be made with difficulty?  Is it difficult to decide to kill your two-year-old? This is just plain nonsense, irrational, self-delusional and just dishonest.

Yesterday’s presidential candidates forum at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California was a great description on how wide the divide between the two presidential candidates is.  As Charles Krauthammer, nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post commented, this was perhaps the best debate on presidential candidates he’d ever seen.  I agree.  The only fault I found with Rick Warren’s interview was that he understated the number of abortions at 40 million.  The actual number to date is 48.5 million according to the National Right to Life League.  The most stark and outstanding difference between the candidates, and there were many others, was how each defined the beginning of life.  McCain answered quickly and without hesitation – at conception.  Obama had a lot of trouble answering this questing and used his rhetorical skills to spin it.  He answered it this way: “whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”  What? Above your pay grade?  What does that mean?  Here is a YouTube video of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton answering the same question in another of the presidential debates on CNN.  Notice how both danced around this question and failed to answer it, and instead made a completely different argument. 

This response can mean only one of two things:  Either you are dishonest, or you’re in denial of the plain truth.  You look at Mt. Everest and say it is not there.  If you ignore the Roman Catholic Church, if you’re Catholic, which believes that life begins at conception, and go only with science, the answer is as plain as when did the United States begin or when were you born.  Even pro-choice scientists cannot deny that life begins at conception.  This is common knowledge. For a public figure to state otherwise is not only untruthful, but it is simply ridiculous.  This is not a hard fact to discover.  Medical textbooks, top scientists in this filed such as Dr. Jerome Lejeune, "Father of Modern Genetics" and discoverer of the cause of Down's Syndrome, stated, "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence."   You will be hard pressed to find one scientist who does not agree that life beings at conception, yet Obama says that this is beyond him. 

 “The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed,” according to Hitler’s chief strategist Joseph Goebbels.  The famous 1973 Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision stated the “we don’t know when life begins.”  The decision sentenced unborn babies from conception until birth to death, if the parent wished to kill it. This is akin to saying that if we want to demolish a Las Vegas hotel, and we don’t know if there are any people in the building, we can demolish it anyway.  What?  Where is the logic?  Well, we’ve discovered since 1973 that there were 48.5 million humans in that hotel that was just blown-up. 

Since 1973, the pro-abortion side has repeated this lie about when life begins so many times that many pro-abortion advocates repeat it mechanically, like a talking doll that speaks a phrase when you pull the string.   I ask all of you who are pro-abortion, or as you like to call yourselves “pro-choice” how do you know that life does not begin at conception?  What evidence do you have? 

The other stark difference between the candidates was their response to whom they would not have appointed as Supreme Court Justices.  Obama answered that he would not have appointed Justice Clarence Thomas or Roberts or Alito.  All strict constructionist judges and all pro-life.  John McCain said he would appoint judges just like Thomas, Roberts and Alito. 

As John McCain, likes to say, my friends, this could not be a more important reason not to vote for Obama.  A vote for Obama will mean condemning more innocent, unborn babies to death.  As it stands now, 48.5 million unborn babies have been killed as a result of a decision by our Supreme Court.  This means that those responsible for this decision are a party to this number of killings.  Obama would only appoint judges who would continue this policy and not appoint any judge who is pro-life. 

I often tell my wife that when my days are over on this earth and I face the final judgment, I need to have a good reason why I did what I did or why I did not do what I should have done.  When you face the final judgment what will you say you did to prevent the killing of an unborn child?  Will you plead that you had other concerns or will you say that you did everything you could?  This is my test for myself.  Voting for a pro-abortion person is the same as being the get-away driver who helps a person who just murdered a store clerk get away.  You are just as guilty.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. 

Father Frank Pavone says that America will not end abortion until it sees abortion.   Look at these images of abortion and tell me that these were not human babies.

History was one of my favorite subjects in College.  The famous quote from the Spanish Philosopher George Santayana, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is one of my favorite historical quotes because it is valid not only for world history but also our own personal history.  I mention this because it is very appropriate when it comes to the history and popularity of abortion in our culture. There are 1.5 million average abortions per year in the United States. 

Abortion has strong historical ties to the Eugenics movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th Century.   Eugenics, Greek for “good birth,” is the study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction.  Eugenics was a popular movement in the United States and Europe.  Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined “Eugenics” in 1883.  Galton developed Eugenics, based on the works of Charles Darwin, and specifically, “The Ascent of Man,” according to the new book “Darwin Day in America” by Dr. John G. West.  In “The Ascent of Man,” Darwin clearly reveals, in no uncertain terms, that evolution, acting on natural selection and “survival of the fittest,” meant that not all humans were equal.  The fact the Eugenics was developed after these works were published, and their almost universal acceptance, is no coincidence.  Eugenics was so popular in the United States from the 1890s to 1945 that most states had Eugenics laws on the books, meaning that people considered to be less equal could be forcibly sterilized. 

 Adolph Hitler was an ardent Darwinist and adopted a form of Eugenics in his “Final Solution” which resulted in six million Jews murdered in Nazi ovens. The State of Indiana passed the first forced sterilization law in 1907, then 30 states followed. The principal targets of the American program were the mentally retarded and the mentally ill, but also targeted under many state laws were the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed.  Native Americans, as well as Afro-American women, were sterilized against their will in many states, often without their knowledge. 

In 1920 17 year-old Carrie Buck was forcibly sterilized under a Virginia law because she was declared feeble minded after exhibiting alleged hallucinations following being forcibly raped and becoming pregnant.  Carrie chose to have her baby.  After giving birth Carrie’s daughter was also considered feeble minded.  The young girl was enrolled in school and made the honor roll before dying of an infection at the age of eight. The forced sterilization case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 (Buck vs. Bell), which ruled against her and Carrie was forcibly sterilized.  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was quoted as saying that “three generations of imbeciles are enough,” according to John West.  Carrie lived a normal life and was considered to be no different than anyone else.  Carrie's first husband died after 25 years of marriage.  She remarried and remained married to her second husband until her death in 1983.

Eugenics was supported by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the best minds of science in the United States.  In England Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw were ardent supporters of Eugenics. 

It was the Church that complained loudly against Eugenics, specifically the Catholic Church which condemned it.  Pope Pius XI condemned Eugenics in an encyclical in 1930.  The Catholic Church deserves the greatest credit for speaking out on Eugenics and being a force for its defeat.  Protestants Billy Sunday and William Jennings Bryan also spoke out forcibly against Eugenics according to “Darwin Day in America.”  The Unites States science community, however, believed that Eugenics was good science and defended it. 

 Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was clearly dedicated to Eugenics; she considered certain races such as blacks, inferior.  In 1939 Sanger created the “Negro Project.”  The aim of this project was to put a lid on the growth rate of the black population.  She was an advocate of sterilization, as well as abortion to eliminate the “unfit.”  Planned Parenthood clinics have been strategically located in proximity to black neighborhoods and schools. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortion in the United States.  The United States government funds over one third of the yearly budget of Planned Parenthood, approximately $300 million dollars.  That is correct, your taxes.  According to an article in “The Weekly Standard” by Charlotte Allen, in the October 2007 issue, for fiscal year 2005-2006, total government aid to Planned Parenthood amounted to $305.3 million.  This same article reveals how Planned Parenthood willfully refuses to report any statutory rapes by adult men of young girls under 16.  This undercover YouTube video filmed at a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood office confirms it. 

Planned Parenthood’s targeting of blacks is totally ignored, not only by the general population, but also by blacks themselves.  It is estimated that the black population of the United States is 12%.  According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 2003 there were 839,713 abortions in the United States, EXCLUDING California, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and West Virginia.  The average yearly abortion in the United States is believed to be around 1.5 million per year.  Of this total, 37% of all abortions were black babies – and no one ever complains.  Barack Obama, a black man, and the Democratic Presidential candidate of 2008, and possibly the next President, has clearly stated: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” For more information on Obama’s stance on partial birth abortion see my last article on this blog called “I Will not Punish them With a Baby.” Dated May 8, 2008.  Clearly Eugenics is still winning, although we no longer called it that. 

How the black population of the United States can ignore their children being slaughtered at such a rate is beyond explanation.  When Rodney King was beaten by a couple of Los Angeles Police Officers in 1992, the entire black population of Los Angeles erupted into the most destructive riots in history.  At the time I was vacationing in Italy and saw the utter destruction of Los Angeles on Italian Television.  A subscript on the TV pictures stated:  “Los Angeles burns.”  One man gets beaten and millions of people riot, 14 million black babies have been murdered since 1973 and nobody complains.  The black presidential candidate states that he wants to make this type of killing a constitutional right.  What am I missing here?  Have I arrived at a different planet where there is a different logic and moral compass?  I guess so.  Abortion today is the same as Eugenics was in the first part of the 20^th Century.  Those of us who do care are portrayed as “one-issue” advocates by leftist Christians and “ultra conservative Catholics” as Fr. Richard McBrien, a Catholic Theologian at Notre Dame, called us in an article in the “Tidings” titled “Banned in Boston” In the January 6, 2006 issue.

“If they make a mistake, I don’t want to punish them with a baby.”  Senator Barack Obama uttered these words recently at a Democratic presidential campaign rally.  He was referring to his two young daughters, both under 10 years old.  I could not believe what I heard but was not surprised since Senator Obama has made it very clear that he is very pro-abortion.  Sean Hannity did a fine piece on  the Hannity & Colmes TV show.  Click here to see this YouTube video.  If you do not already know Obama’s position on abortion he is so pro-abortion that, as an Illinois state senator, he voted three times against a bill to protect babies who survive a partial birth abortion.  Let me say it again, because this is breathtaking, if a baby survives a partial birth abortion, that is, it is delivered alive, Senator Obama voted to kill it anyway.  Click here to read this amazing story.

Last Sunday, I held a newborn baby in my arms after visiting a good friend in the hospital who had just had a new baby.  My wife asked me if had ever held a newborn and I had to say that I could not remember that I had. If you’re a mother or a father, you can understand the wonder and awe when you look at that tiny little person.  I don’t know how to describe the feeling but you immediately think of God and the wonder of His creation. I could not help but reflect on what Senator Obama said “that he would not punish his daughter with a baby.”  What insanity! 

When it comes to abortion I often think that I must be from a different planet when I hear nonsense, such as described earlier by Senator Obama.  Good and intelligent people, in their right mind, do not see that an unborn is as human as you and me. Science sees it, the Christian Church sees it, Judaism and Islam see it, but they don’t. How can this be?  The logic is not there. I must be from a different planet.  In the Bible, the Prophet Jeremiah warns his people with these tragic words: “Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear” Jer. 5:21.  Jeremiah also warns Israel of the impending doom if they fail to follow the Lord they would lose their country – and they did. The Babylonians conquered Israel and took the Israelites into exile in 587 BC during Jeremiah’s time. 

This year is an election year in the United States. We’re electing a new President.  The President will appoint judges.  If we elect Senator Obama we will get judges who have his philosophy on abortion – killing them at will, even if they survive a partial birth abortion. No one who is pro-life will even be considered for a judge.  A judge will be on the bench for up to 40 years or more.  Our fellow human babies lives are at stake.  Those of us who understand that the unborn is a precious, helpless human being with all the rights of a person must fight to protect them with all that we can do.  As a soldier in war, we fought to the death for the lives of our fellow soldiers.  We can do no less for the unborn. Our God expects no less.  One of the most important things we can do is to vote for candidates that are pro-life and will act to protect the unborn.  

To vote for a candidate, such as Senator Obama is to cooperate with murder and evil.  This is not such a spectacular claim.  The Catholic Church makes a very similar claim in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes” (2271). The Bible is also filled with prohibitions against killing the unborn: “Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed” (Deut. 19:10).  The influential Christian writings of the First Century AD, known as the Didache, specifically mentions the prohibition against killing of the unborn: “do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.” 

In our legal system if you cooperate with a crime you are as guilty as the party committing the crime.  It is my opinion that God will hold us to the same standard when it comes to abortion.  I may be wrong but can you afford to take the chance that it is not?  Eternity is at stake.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Lake Arrowhead, California for a four-day rest and relaxation with my wife and six other friends.  This weekend has been a yearly event for the last 15 years.  We usually just relax and enjoy a few days away from home, reading, eating, enjoying nature, and chatting.  I read two books on this weekend; one of them was a very compelling book by Star Parker called Uncle Sam’s Plantation.  This is a story of a black woman who rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of despair, poverty, abandonment, welfare, sex addiction, drug addiction and every thing else you could think of that is not good.  When you read stories such as these you expect that the next thing to happen is that the person will come to a violent end of some kind.  This is not the case with Star Parker.  Her story is one of the most compelling that I’ve ever heard of.  She recounts how she had no less than four abortions, countless sexual encounters and a life of crime.  She overcame all of these and is now a successful businesswoman, writer and speaker. 

The most compelling part is how, after she overcame all the odds she would tell her story to others in her own community and would be shouted down. On a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, all the guests, including Ms. Winfrey, criticized her heavily for not toeing the victimhood line.  They would have none of her victory from being a “victim.”  If it was not that I’ve heard this type of reaction before, I would be stunned at the reaction she got.  I first heard Star Parker speak at the Values Voters Convention in Washington DC in October of 2007.  Her talk was so powerful and inspiring that she had over 2,600 people on their feet by the time she finished.  Uncle Sam’s Plantation is full of inspiring stories about the black experience and how one can overcome any odds.

One of the things most perplexing to me as I read this book was how, for hundreds of years, for example, an entire nation (the United States) could ignore an entire ethnic group such as Black Americans and call them less than human.  I kept scratching my head to try to enter into the psyche of these people.  The Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott decision in 1857 ruled that blacks were not persons but property.  In the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision in 1896 the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not on the same level as whites as persons and approved racial segregation.  In 1973 in Roe vs. Wade the Supreme Court struck again, saying that the unborn were not only not persons but had no legal rights. 

I often drive my wife nuts with how many times I bring to her attention how I cannot understand how our own friends who go to church with us and are decent and good Christian people can deny the same rights to the unborn, but they do without a blink.  They do this even though science has confirmed that life starts at conception, that the church has had this policy for over two thousand years.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes so far as to state that abortion is such a grave evil that anyone who cooperates with it should be excommunicated from the church.  Yet, these good and faithful Catholics ignore this as if they don’t see it.  Is anyone home?  Apparently not.

It is a sad state of the human condition that you can get used to whatever suits you at the time.  Slavery suited the American people for over 200 years.  Good Christians would regularly go to church and think nothing of having slaves or approving of slavery as if was just a common habit and not a dignity of life issue with deep moral consequences.  

In Biblical times when the Israelites were freed from their 400-year captivity in Egypt, God told them to go to the Promised Land and eliminate the Canaanites who practiced child sacrifices and other abominations.  God specifically told the Israelites that He was not giving them the Promised Land because they deserved it but because the Canaanites were so evil.  The Canaanites would throw living infants into the fire as a fertility rite, hoping that this would bring them a good harvest.  Apparently, this practice was justified in the minds of this culture.  The Canaanites were also idol worshipers who worshiped the pagan god Baal instead of the one true God.

I cannot understand, and I guess will never understand, how a human being can be so calloused as to look another human being and say either you are not human or we consider you less than human and we can kill you.  Is anybody home?  Apparently not.

Several years ago I gave a pro-life presentation to a group of friends that meets on a monthly basis to discuss spiritual matters.  I prepared the talk and gave it based on an outline of the important issues that we deal with everyday with abortion and the dignity of the unborn.  Since I knew all of these people, I felt comfortable giving the presentation.  Little did I know, however, of the very negative reaction I would get from most of my listeners.  One person (a close friend) had a look on her face that is still seared in my mind.  The look plainly meant: “I do not want to hear this message. Why are you forcing me to hear it?”  

Of the 12 people in this group, only three of us were clearly pro-life and the rest clearly pro-choice after this discussion.  What was most heartbreaking was not the negative reaction that I got, but the fact that these nine people, who were clearly pro-choice, were committed Catholics who regularly attend church.  Catholic Social Teaching clearly teaches that life begins at conception and the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is an evil that merits excommunication from the Church.  This, apparently, means nothing to these people. 

The dominant reason for being pro-choice for these people was an economic reason.  Most opined that they felt that if a person was not in an economic position to have a baby, then it was acceptable to have an abortion.  I argued the scientific basis for the humanity for the unborn but no one heard it nor did they consider it – the economic reason seemed to be the over-riding reason why an abortion would be considered acceptable. 

Is economics a good reason to kill a human life?  Well, I’ve never heard anyone say that we could kill living human beings if we cannot afford them. 

In my own family, my mother had seven children.  We lived in Sicily in the mid 1940s immediately after World War II.  My hometown was perhaps the poorest town in all of Sicily.  Everyone lived on a day-to-day basis.  No one had a paycheck. All lived as subsistence farmers.  No one had any possessions to speak of such as a radio, a car, a TV, a telephone, a bicycle or anything we now think of everyday possessions.  None of us children ever saw, let alone, have a toy.  When my parents got married in 1938 they could not afford to have any children because they had no resources to support them.  The same could be said of every other inhabitant of this little town of about 3,000 people.  No one could afford a child, not even one, yet the average family had five to seven children.  To make the case even more compelling was the fact that there was no government help of any kind.  No welfare, no food stamps – nothing. Everyone made it on their own.   No one ever went hungry; no one starved or died of starvation.  The town did not even have a doctor, a clinic or a hospital. 

These statements are not made to impress anybody, but to make a point:  Economics has nothing to do with the value of a human life. Yet, our modern American culture has adopted this falsehood as one “reason” to destroy an innocent unborn human life.  This is one of the most pernicious lies that the pro-choice side promotes shamelessly. 

The pro-choice side promotes this type of reasoning like it makes sense.  Even if you can’t afford a baby, is killing it the only solution or choice?  In California today, you can drop off an “un-wanted baby” in any fire station with no questions asked.  You can give the baby up for adoption.  The current hit movie “Juno” is about a young woman who gives up her baby for adoption. Why would you even consider killing an unborn baby because you cannot afford it?  Where is the logic? 

Here are some of the most contradictory positions that pro-choice people stand for: 

1. Abortion is a private matter or a “choice.”
2. It is up to the pregnant woman if the baby lives or dies
3. No one has the right to tell a woman what to do with her baby
4. Church teaching can be ignored at will
   
5. An unborn child can be aborted up to delivery - legally
6. An unborn is not a person
7. The unborn has no legal rights
8. The unborn is not a separate individual but part of the woman’s body
9. The unborn is not a baby until sometime after birth, as Senator Barbara Boxer, stated in a famous exchange with Senator Rick Santorum a few years ago. You have to read this to believe it.  Click on the hyperlink just noted.

 

Albert Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity in the early 20^th Century which led to the discovery that the universe, contrary to what was believed up to that point, was not eternal, but had a beginning.  This was later referred to as “The Big Bang.”  Philosophers of religion such as William Lane Craig proposed, what he called the Kalam Cosmological Argument, to argue for the existence of God using arguments discovered by scientists following the discovery of the Big Bang.  The Kalam Cosmological Argument states as follows:

 “Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping their lives over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no ore worthy of protection that the life of a fetus.” 

It is often said that whoever controls the language in any debate controls the debate.  The pro-choice advocates won a crucial battle in the sixties and seventies when they convinced the modern culture to adopt a language that they carefully and strategically crafted in order conceal their real agenda and win others to their side.  I want to select some of the more common buzzwords or phrases that have been dominant on the pro-abortion side and analyze each of them. To answer the misinformation promoted by the other side, we must know how to clarify the language of the other side:

Choice.  You often hear this word from abortion defenders.  Some of the more common ways they use this word is with such statements as:  “I’m for a woman’s right to choose, or abortion is a personal choice between a woman and her doctor.”  Who could be against choice?  This is the brilliance of this word.  But, what does “choice” mean when speaking about abortion? 

Choice is fine if you are dealing with a personal preference such as what color do you like or do you prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream.  This is a subjective choice.  Abortion, however, is not a subjective choice, it is a moral issue.  Morals are not open to choice.  This is the key. The crucial question to ask is what is the unborn?  If the unborn is not a human life then choice is fine.  We know that life begins at conception, as science has confirmed, so abortion takes the life of a human being.  We do not have the choice to take a human life.  Abortion defenders completely ignore the fact that abortion kills a human life. They treat it as if the unborn was equivalent to removing your tonsils.

Abortion is a private matter.  As we pointed out earlier, abortion kills a human life.  Can we kill a human being as long as it is done privately?  Of course not.  Can your mother or father have killed you, say, at the age of two months, as long as it was done privately?  Suppose you’re a parent and your three year-old comes to you while you’re washing dishes and asks Mommy/Daddy can I kill this?  What do you need to know before you answer?  Again, the question is not privacy but what is the unborn? 

Don’t impose your view on me!  This is an often-heard challenge.  First of all this challenge is self-refuting and commits logical suicide.  What do I mean by that?  If a person says, “don’t force your view on me” or words to that effect, what have they just done?  They have just imposed their view on you.  So, by their own logic, they’ve just invalidated their own challenge to you.  Secondly, our society imposes morality on all of us all the time.  Try stealing your neighbor’s car.  When they protest say to them “don’t impose your view on me.”  Our government imposes their will on us when they have a law that if you kill someone, you will lose your freedom or life.

That is just you’re opinion.  Moral issues such as abortion are not simply personal opinions, they are moral issues.  When you come to the red stop light do you say, oh well, that is just their opinion, I’ll just do what I want to do and cross it.  There are issues that are personal opinions, such as what candidate do you like, or do you like Mexican food or Italian food.  These are legitimate personal opinions.  Moral issues are not and cannot be based on personal opinions or we would have total anarchy and our society would not survive.  A person that makes a statement such as “that is your personal opinion” is making the mistake of mixing subjective choices with objective issues.  This is very common with those who fail to analyze what they’re saying.  A moral issue cannot be a subjective choice.

I’m opposed to abortion but it should still be legal.  Another bizarre logical statement that you often hear is this one.  Whenever you hear such a contradictory statement, ask the person if you can repeat what you heard him/her say.  Ask the person who made this statement why they are opposed to abortion.  Usually they’ll say that abortion kills a baby.  Your response should be something such as this:  “Let me see if I heard you correctly, you’re opposed to abortion because it kills a baby, but it should still be legal to kill a baby?”  This will help this person analyze what they’ve said.  Most people make statements such as these without realizing what they’re saying.

Personhood.  Once you’ve debunked all the other myths and misstatements, the pro-abortion person will tell you that an unborn is not a person.  Well, when does a human being become a person?  And who decides when to confer personhood?  Personhood is not a status that is achieved by any measure other than being a human being.  Science has established that a human life begins at conception so personhood begins when human life begins.  To assign a random time when a human being becomes a person can only be arbitrary and not based on any standard other than what that person says it is.  A good question to ask is are there any human beings that are not a person, and if so, who and when?

In a television interview about abortion with actress Kathy Ireland, Alan Colmes of the popular daily program on the Fox News Channel, “Hannity and Colmes,” first stated his pro -choice position, which I think is a very typical pro-choice argument.  Colmes said: "Now I think I'm conservative on abortion because I think the government should not be involved and that this is not a governmental issue. It's a personal issue. So wouldn't I then have the conservative position here?"

 One problem with the debate over abortion is people tend to see abortion as a preference, like drinking or smoking, rather than a moral issue such as slavery, notes Francis J. Beckwith, associate professor of philosophy, culture, and law at Trinity International University, and author of Politically Correct Death and Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life (College Press). To master the pro-life position, we must understand this is a key part of the pro-abortion position.

 First of all, whenever you defend the pro-life position never use the Bible as a reference.  The only exception would be if the person you’re talking to is a committed believer, but even then you need not mention Scripture at all.  Why? First of all the pro-life position can be defended by reason, logic, science and philosophy very well. Secondly, many people will be put-off by reference to Scripture on this subject, especially non-believers. Here are some suggestions on how to defend your pro-life position:

1. First Clarify the Issue:  The first and most important thing that you need to do is clarify the issue at hand.  Is abortion a private matter that anyone can simply decide on based on how they feel?  One of the most articulate defenders of the pro-life position is Scott Klusendorf.  On his web site, Life Training Institute, Klusendorf has a piece called “The 5-Minute Pro-Lifer,” where he explains how to clarify the issue: “Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being.  This simplifies the abortion controversy by focusing public attention on just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family?  If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong.  It treats the distinct human being, with his or her own inherent moral worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument.  Conversely, if the unborn are not human, killing them for any reason requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled.” 

2.  Point Out that science confirms the humanity of the unborn:  As pro-life advocates, we believe that an unborn is a human being from the point of conception.  This is not just a religious view but very much a scientific one. Embryology textbooks used in medical schools spell this out very clearly. The widely used medical textbook The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders,1998, states at page 2 that "The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous .... This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being ...."At page 18 this theme is repeated: "Human development begins at fertilization[emphasis in original] "There is no longer any doubt that individual human life begins at conception." Dr. Landrum Shettles, the first scientist to achieve conception in a test tube, writes that conception not only confers life, it "defines" life.[i] 

3. Point out the logic of the Issue:  Based on what we’ve stated here, we can make a logical syllogism: 

                  a)  Human life should be protected by law

                  b)  The unborn is a human life from conception

                  c)  The unborn life should be protected by law 

4. Is the Unborn a Person?  One of the most common responses you will get from pro-choice advocates, even after hearing the evidence, is that the unborn is not a person and should not have any legal rights. The Roe v. Wade 1973 Supreme Court decision made this same argument - that the unborn has no legal rights.  Well, who determines when a human being starts to be a person and on what criteria?  Even better, ask the person making this statement what is the difference between a human being and a person?  Are there human beings that are not persons?  If so who? They will not be able to answer this.  Personhood is not a status that is conferred by man or by any stage of development, it is conferred by the essence of being a human being at the beginning of life - conception.  You cannot be a human being and not a person. 

5. Responding to “that is just your opinion or your view.”  You will often hear this response from pro-choice advocates.  This response ignores all we’ve talked about so far; it ignores that the unborn is a human being, it ignores that we see abortion as a moral issue not a subjective preference such as what color car do I like or I prefer chocolate ice cream.  This response confuses subjective choices and an objective moral claim.  Pro-life advocates claim that abortion is a moral claim that is not subject to a choice.  We do not have a choice to kill one of our children.  In the same way, we do not have the choice to an abortion because abortion kills a living human being; it is not a subjective view or an opinion. 

6. I dislike abortion but there should not be a law against it.  This is basically what pro-choice politicians such as Rudy Giuliani say.  A woman should decide for herself whether to have an abortion.  Again, this view ignores the fact that the unborn is a human life.  Our society has laws that no human being can take the life of another – we call it murder.  If you accept that an unborn is a human being there can be no other choice but to protect it in law.  To say that a woman can decide for herself whether to kill an unborn is the same as saying that she could also decide to kill her two week-old infant.  What’s the difference?  Both are human lives.  There is only a matter of location.  One is outside the womb; the other is in the womb.  Since when does location matter in deciding whether to kill a human life? 

There are many more arguments that can be used but I wanted to keep this list short.  Using these tactics will serve you well.

 

Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Most Christians are familiar with this phrase; the last words of Jesus after his crucifixion.  For as long as I’ve been a Christian and studied the Bible, I’ve often wondered how it was that a man like Pontius Pilate, a powerful man in Roman occupied Palestine, could find Jesus innocent and yet condemn him to a brutal death. Pilate certainly had the power to do whatever he wanted, even if he found someone guilty.  He could have easily ordered Jesus to be released, taken him in for protection, or sent him out of the area.  But, he did not do it.  Why? 

You may be wondering where am I going with this since this is a blog on pro-life apologetics.  Well, I’ve come to realize that our current culture resembles, to a large extent, Pontius Pilate when it comes to defending or opposing abortion.  Like Pilate, we’ve found that the unborn is innocent and a human from conception (science confirms this - it is no longer just a religious claim), we know that the unborn is a baby, but we simply choose to ignore that he/she has any rights. We refer to abortion as “a woman’s health issue,” or “a woman’s choice to do with her body as she wants.” The Supreme Court in the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973 claimed that the unborn had no legal rights.  Our politicians refer to abortion as a “Constitutional right” even though you will not find it anywhere in the Constitution. 

In a speech delivered in Atlanta over the weekend, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared that banning abortion “would have a devastating impact on poor women.” Bader’s suggestion, that abortion is a solution to the problems of poor women, is on a par with Jonathan Swift’s long-ago solution to the Irish poverty problem in his essay, A Modest Proposal. But at least Swift was writing satire. 

Back to Pontius Pilate.  I asked the question earlier as to why Pilate refused to release Jesus even though he found him innocent of all charges.  The answer is that Pilate was a politically correct man and politics itself played a part in this bizarre decision.  Pilate wanted to please the masses; he wanted not to rock the boat.  If Pilate failed to condemn Jesus he would have had to face the wrath of the local people as well as to his superiors, if the local people rebeled.  So Pilate took the easy road and went with the flow – he condemned an innocent man for political expediency.  Pilate lacked the courage to act on what he believed.  The Jews of the day took advantage of this cowardice on Pilate's part by playing on his fear of his Roman superiors.  They taunted him by saying:  “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar.”  Boy, that hurts. They played with Pilate as if he was a fine violin.  He was under their control. 

Pilate looks just like our current day culture.  He even looks like our own Christian brothers and sisters who are pro-choice or who just don’t want to “offend anyone” if they speak out on the fate of 1.5 million dead babies each year in the United States alone.  This is a hard statement and some of you may be offended by it.  It is not my intention to offend anyone.  My sole object in this blog is to speak to truth and reality. Some truth and some reality are hard.  If anything I say here are not true I would appreciate hearing from you and will correct any misstatements happily. 

Did Pilate’s strategy work with his superiors?  A few years after Jesus was crucified Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome in disgrace.  Political correctness did not work for him.  

Reasonable people like our friends and neighbors are looking the other way.  They do not want to alienate others who think that an unborn has any rights or is not a human or not a person.  They look at the crowd and say, I better not “offend” any of these people or they will not vote for me next time or they may be mad at me for it.  I will keep the peace by saying nothing or going with the flow.  This is the biggest, most puzzling issue.  I understand why Pilate did what he did but I do not agree with it and think it is the cowardly thing to do.  But then, what do I know?  I’m sure that some of my pro-choice brothers and sisters are smarter than me.

Since the day I became pro-life in the early 1990s, I’ve continually asked a rhetorical question:  If the Church is really pro-life why is it that it does little or nothing to promote and defend the pro-life position?  By “Church” I mean the entire Christian Church, whether Catholic or Protestant.  What I write here is mainly influenced by my experience in both the Catholic and Protestant Church and our modern day culture.  I will discuss how the Catholic and the Protestant Church have failed in this respect and then I will provide, what I consider, the reason why.

 Some of you, after reading this introduction, will quickly object and question this statement.  After all, the Catholic Church is very strongly pro-life and has been since the beginning and so are many Protestant Churches. That is absolutely true.  The Catholic Church has written brilliantly and forcefully on the pro-life side.  There are many Protestant Churches and organizations, such as Focus on the Family, that are strongly pro-life.  No argument there.  So why do I say that Church does little or nothing to promote pro-life?  Let me begin with the Catholic Church.

If you look at the writings of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, for instance, you will find a plethora of brilliantly written and forcefully convincing writings defending and promoting the pro-life position - a wonderful apologetic on the dignity of life.  But here is the crux of the situation:  Although the Catholic Church teaches the pro-life message very strongly in its writings and by its bishops, you will rarely, if ever, hear this message proclaimed from the parish pulpit or promoted in the media, or for that matter, by Catholic Priests themselves. Most of these writings are unknown to regular Catholics; they are a well-kept secret, if you will.

My experience has been that most Catholic clergy treat the pro-life issue as if it was a modern-day leprosy – they will not touch it. There are a few who will speak out in church but these are rare indeed.     Many priests, as far as I know, are pro-life but few will dare speak out in church on this subject, or anywhere else.   One exception to this is, Fr. Frank Pavone, who is the Director of Priests for Life, a national organization out of Amarillo, Texas.  Fr. Pavone started a religious community called the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life whose sole mission is to preach the pro-life message.

If you look at a list of the most prominent pro-choice politicians, you will find many are Catholic: Democratic Senators Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy, John Kerry - the list is endless.  These men are openly, and brazenly defiant toward the Church’s pro-life position.  I know of not one occasion when any of these men have ever been publicly rebuked by the Church for promoting liberal abortion policies such as partial birth abortion.  I keep asking myself why not?  Why is the Church afraid of publicly proclaiming and defending its teachings regarding the dignity of life?  On more than a few occasions, my pro-life friends and I have been told by pro-choice people that  “pro-lifers” are one-issue advocates and that there are more important things to consider such as poverty and the minimum wage.  This is the mantra of the religious left.  If you want confirmation of this you must read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal published on October 16, 2007 by Steven Malanga, called "The Rise of the Religious Left."

In the war in Iraq we’ve lost about 1,000 men per year and the country is clamoring very publicly and loudly to end the war now and withdraw all troops; at this same time 1.5 million babies are killed each year in the United States alone and only a few are concerned about this death rate and most of the country could care less.  Poverty and the minimum wage are more important than this?  How many people died of poverty in the United States in one year?  Where is the logic?

The failure of the Church to rebuke these pro-choice Catholic politicians can only be considered a tacit approval of their position and an encouragement, or affirmation to pro-choice Catholics.  In the 1970s and 1980s a Catholic Jesuit Priest, Father Robert F. Drinan, served as a Congressman from Massachusetts and was openly pro-abortion, in open defiance of Church teaching. The Church never rebuked him for this.  Pope John Paul II ordered him to leave Congress, saying it was incompatible with being a priest – not for this pro-abortion position.   Fr. Drinan went so far as to defend President Clinton’s veto of a Partial Birth Abortion Ban law passed by Congress twice in his term.  The silence from the Church was, and is still today, deafening. 

Earlier this year Pope Benedict XVI, on a trip to Brazil, condemned the Mexico City politicians who voted to approve abortion through the third trimester, saying that such politicians have excommunicated themselves from the Church.  When the Vatican was pressed for a clarification on this later, they backed down and said that individual bishops may exclude such politicians from communion – no excommunication.  Again, why is the Church afraid to stand its ground on such clearly moral issues especially when its own Catechism calls for excommunication for such evil? If you have rules that are never enforced why have them? Again, where is the logic?  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2272) plainly states that abortion is an evil that deserves excommunication from the Church.  But the Church, to my knowledge, has never excommunicated any pro-choice advocates, even when it is done openly, publicly and defiantly as the Senators mentioned earlier have done.  Many Catholic politicians sneer at the Church with reckless abandon and wear their pro-choice position as a badge of honor.  A prominent California Catholic politician, Fabian Nuñez, went so far as to say recently that he wanted to “challenge the Church” on euthanasia and co-sponsored a euthanasia bill in the California Legislature (AB 374), in defiance of the Church opposition to this measure.  Cardinal Roger Mahony, to his credit, came out in the media to denounce him on this.   The bill eventually died in committee.  One of the Democratic politicians who co-sponsored the bill commented later that the bill failed, in part, due to the opposition of the Catholic Church.  But this is a very rare example of the Church leaders actually challenging politicians on pro-choice matters.  Cardinal Mahony, as far as I know, has never made any statements to the media denouncing pro-abortion politicians, for instance.  Many of these same politicians are his closest friends, such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  On the contrary, he has made many public statements to the media defending illegal immigrants and illegal immigration in general. 

The Protestant Church has not been a strong supporter of pro-life issues either.  It was, mainly, through the efforts of Dr. James Dobson, the founder and leader of Focus on the Family, that more Protestants have had the courage to tackle the pro-life issue.  In eight years that I attended a Protestant Church, not once did I hear a pro-life message in any service.  A prominent Protestant Minister and best-selling author, Rick Warren, who has one of the largest churches in America, has even criticized Christians whom he says concentrate too much on pro-life issues instead of the poor.  I heard him on a TV interview making this statement and sent him an e-mail asking if he was pro-life.  A staff member responded that he was.  

If you watch the popular TBN television network or other Protestant preachers on television, you never hear any pro-life messages.  They also avoid this subject like the plague.  I’ve listened to Christian radio, KKLA FM in Los Angeles, for years.  I’ve never heard any pro-life messages, other than from Dr. Dobson.  An exception would be a program dedicated specifically to pro-life such as Fr. Frank Pavone’s radio show on Sundays at 3:00 PM on this station.  So, in summary, both Protestant and Catholic Churches have failed to proclaim and teach the pro-life message publicly. 

Why is the Church so afraid of the pro-life message?  The simple answer is that the Church has caved in and adopted the ways of our popular culture which embraces moral relativism, for the most part.  Priests and Ministers are afraid to “offend” the pro-choice crowd in their churches. They avoid anything that can be considered “controversial.”  Moral issues, apparently, can now be considered controversial too.  We have also embraced modern tolerance.   In an article called “The Intolerance of Tolerance” Greg Kokul hits the nail on the head on the modern definition of tolerance:  “The tolerant person allegedly occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No "forcing" personal views. That all views are equally valid is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism. And it's a myth.” 

The decisive question today is not is it right or wrong, but “will it offend someone”?  This is the same as in our society today.  So a public school, for example, will not allow the word “Jesus” to be said at any time and in any context.  Why?  Because someone “may be offended by it".  

So, our modern day paradigm is no longer what is right or wrong, it is will it offend someone.  If this question can be answered yes, then the pro-life message will be muzzled.  Right and wrong no longer has any importance; political correctness rules the day. 

Another puzzling question is how did the other side come to hold virtual veto power over moral issues?  If a pro-life person, or a Christian, for example, were offended by something, they do not count, but if a pro-choice person or a non-Christian is offended then they have the power to shut down any discussion.  How did this come about?  You guessed it – popular culture rules. 

I started this article by asking myself a rhetorical question; if the Church is pro-life why does it do so little to defend it?  I end by asking another rhetorical question of the Church:  When it comes to defending life, whom do you want to please, man or God?

 In the course of a casual conversation at a dinner party the other day about an event thanking all the U.S. military veterans, a friend remarked that he thought abortion could be considered politics.  I was caught off-guard by the remark and quickly responded by vehemently denying that it was.  I challenged my friend as to why he would think that it was.  The better response would have been, “what do you mean by that”?  The word “politics” is one of those over-used words in conversations that can have multiple meanings.   The dictionary defines politics as:  “The science or art of political government (2) the practice or profession of conducting political affairs.” 

As I thought about it later, it occurred to me that this is an important question in the abortion debate.  I believe that there is more to this question than one can see on the surface.  Our culture has mastered the art of turning certain moral and ethical issues upside down, and in certain cases, such as abortion, turning a moral issue into a subjective reflection and personal choice.  

 When a person refers to an issue as “political” it means that there can be differences of opinion on that issue that would not necessarily mean that the issue is right or wrong or that the person making the assertion is right or wrong.  So, for example, if I say that the war in Iraq is justified and you say that it is not, neither one of us would, necessarily, be right or wrong.  We would just have a difference of opinion not based on any moral absolutes.  Our culture has turned abortion to this type of issue rather than the moral issue that it clearly is. 

Now, can one logically make the argument that if I’m against abortion and you’re for it, that we both have just “a difference of opinion” or that abortion can be considered “political” and we both could be right?  No, we cannot.  Abortion is a moral issue because it involves the killing of a human being and moral issues are not up to individuals to decide.  A moral issue is not relative.  A moral issue is based on an absolute truth. In general, absolute truth is whatever is always valid, regardless of parameters or context.  

The pro-choice advocate will argue that abortion is not a moral issue but a “personal choice.”  This argument falls apart upon examination, however.  A personal choice is subjective, such as my personal choice of color for a car is red, your personal choice may be blue; both are neither right nor wrong, they’re subjective personal choices.   Abortion is not a subjective choice because it deals with the taking of a human life and, accordingly, is a moral issue.  No one would argue that killing a human being is just a subjective choice or something wrong for you and right for me.  We would agree, that we cannot leave such issues to personal choices or we would not have any social order in our society.

One of the ways that our culture has been so effective in de-sensitizing the issue of abortion is to call it a “choice or a woman’s health issue.”  In other words, our culture has succeeded in transferring a moral issue into a subjective personal choice issue.  In this way people can be free of any guilt in approving of what is the killing of human life and calling it something other than what it is.  The pro-choice advocates have had a brilliant campaign for the past 50 or so years in changing the vocabulary related to abortion.  So, the brutal dismembering of a fully formed baby in the womb, ready to be delivered, can be killed legally by what is called partial birth abortion.  By changing the vocabulary of how we discuss this procedure we have removed it from the realm of morality and put it into the realm of subjective choice.  

In Biblical times, the Canaanites, the ancient people of Palestine, worshipped the god Baal and practiced child sacrifice.  The Baal worshipers would routinely offer up their children to him in hopes of getting a good harvest and fertility.  The children would be thrown into a fiery furnace and burned alive.  They saw no problem with this because they changed the meaning of what was a moral issue by calling it something else.  Can you imagine, for example, a smiling one-year old little girl being thrown into a fiery furnace to be burned alive?  The Canaanites did this routinely to appease their god.  Today, we would be horrified at anyone throwing a young child into a fiery furnace, but yet we have no problem with a doctor dismembering a child and crushing his/her skull inside the womb by partial birth abortion and calling it “women’s health.”  This horrifies no one in our culture.  Our pro-choice politicians call it “a right guaranteed by the Constitution.”   If you recall, the Clinton Administration vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban bill twice in the 1990s. 

So, I am not surprised that a perfectly intelligent person, and for that matter, a trained medical doctor, can dismember a fully formed infant inside the womb and call it “a woman’s health issue” as if it was the same as removing tonsils.  Likewise, a person can say that abortion is just politics and just a difference of opinion, so if we are for abortion or against it, it does not matter, it is just a personal matter that people can differ on with no consequences.

I was surprised to hear a debate on abortion the other day on the Michael Medved radio show.   This is a subject that the media, for the most part, rarely if ever touches; sort of the proverbial “hot potato,” but I was pleasantly surprised that the debate was held on national radio.  The audience questions were predictable, with most of them favoring “a woman’s right to choose.”  One of the puzzling questions about this debate is that it never touches on who the unborn is – just an opinion on whether it should be permissible.  I say puzzling because, I will argue here that this is the only question that really matters in this debate:  What is the unborn?

If you answer the question of what is the unborn, you will have the correct answer on whether abortion is right or wrong.  If your answer is that the unborn is a human being then, there can be no answer other than that abortion can never be permitted because killing an innocent human being is not right and can never be permitted.  If your answer is that the unborn is not a human then you can justify abortion because you’re not killing a human being you are just removing tissue such as a liver or a piece of growth and so on.

None of the people calling in to the Michael Medved show ever hinted that what is involved in an abortion is a human being.  All the discussions centered on whether the law should be involved in regulating what most consider "a personal choice."  One woman called and challenged a person on the show who was anti-abortion.  The question to the pro-life person was “since you’re anti-abortion, have you ever adopted any children"?  I could not help but to throw my hands in the air and wonder how this question has any relevance to abortion.  Even pro-life defenders rarely mention the question of what is the unborn.

Scott Klusendorf, in his fine booklet Pro-Life 101: A Step-by Step Guide to Making your Case Persuasively, 1  gives an excellent example to illustrate this:  “Imagine you are at the sink washing dishes.  As you are scrubbing away, your child walks up behind you and asks, “Daddy (or Mommy), can I kill this?  What is the first thing you are going to ask him?  You can never answer the question Can I kill this?, unless you’ve answered a prior question:  What is it?"

Indeed this is the crucial question.   Most pro-choice advocates pretend that the unborn is not a human being.  They will go all out to deny the humanity of the unborn.  Peter Singer is a very well known professor at Princeton University who argues that an unborn is not a human and that human beings do not become humans until after birth.  We can argue here that the unborn is human, but this is akin to arguing that the black slave of the early 1800s was not a human, but property.  There is overwhelming evidence that the unborn is a human being.  Science confirms that life starts at conception, as I have pointed out in previous posts on this blog so I will not belabor the point any further here.

I want to pose a question to those of my friends who are pro-choice.  What do you say is the unborn?  If you say that the unborn is not human what is your evidence? “I don’t know” is not acceptable because there is plenty of evidence to what the unborn is if you just look and critically think about it.  What I’ve found is that the pro-choice person will not address this question. 

In my group of friends, I’ve often proposed that we have a debate on this issue.  Those of us who are pro-life would present our case, in say, 30 to 60 minutes and then those who are pro-choice could have the same amount of time to present their case.  No one on the pro-choice side wants to take this challenge; they respond by saying that this question is too controversial and don’t want to discuss it.

  1 Scott Klusendorf, Pro-Life 101: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively (Signal Hill, CA: Stand to Reason Press, 2002) p.7, to order a copy go to:  www.str.org