abortion and compromise

We often hear from liberal Christians that their religious beliefs should not interfere with their political ideology such as the question of abortion, religious freedom, contraception and the like. Famous politicians such as Vice President Joe Biden will tell you that “he believes” what his church, the Roman Catholic Church, teaches but he is not going to let this interfere with his political positions on this issue. Listen to Joe Biden and Paul Ryan describe their views on abortion during the 2012 Vice Presidential debate. So, if we are to believe Joe Biden, his religious beliefs and his political beliefs are two separate and different beliefs. This is totally illogical and pure nonsense. Our religious beliefs guide our actions in what we do in private and in public. If you believe Joe Biden then you would, for instance, say that although you’re against rape, you would not vote for a law against rape for political reasons. If you follow the logic of your stance then this would have to also follow.

From the late 1800s to around World War II, the United States was very pro-Eu genics, a philosophy which promotes selective breeding of humans to improve desired characteristics. No less than 31 U.S. states had Eugenics laws in the first half of the 20th century. These laws allowed the government to sterilize a woman, many times without her knowledge. In 1927 there was a famous Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a woman could be sterilized by force in accordance with the Eugenics laws. Many American scientists and prominent citizens, such as President Woodrow Wilson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, supported these laws. In 2009 I wrote a short history in this blog about Eugenics in America. Click here to view it. This is a history you did not learn in school, from elementary to the university. As discussed in this article, only the Catholic Church and a few Protestant ministers, such as Billy Sunday, railed against Eugenics. Eugenics is now practically extinct. The credit for this must go to the Catholic Church and to Protestant preachers as earlier mentioned. The same is the case today for abortion. In my Catholic church, you will never hear one word preached about the evil of abortion. The same holds true for most other Catholic churches, and, for that matter, even Protestant churches.

Joe Biden’s position, which is widely shared among liberal Christians, is an abdication of moral responsibility. As for Catholics, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section 2272 says this:

2272 Formal co-operation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae’ (76) ‘by the very commission of the offence’, (77) and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law . (78) The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

As you can see, the language is very clear and strong. Cooperation with an abortion is a grave offense. What Joe Biden is saying, then, is cooperation with abortion. If you vote for an abortion law, how can you escape the responsibility of an abortion? So what am I saying here? I’m saying that Christians, and especially Catholics can, if they want to, end abortion. The Democratic Party would fold if all Catholics would say no more. Either you end abortion on demand or we will not vote for you. Watch how fast the Democratic Party would fall in line. Unfortunately, our churches have been conqured by our culture. Watch how nervous a priest or pastor gets whenever they’re challenged on why they never discuss the subject.

A friend who knows my pro-life position gave me a CD of a talk given by talk show host Dennis Prager and asked me to listen to it. Since I’m a regular listener to his show, I listened to this tape with interest. The title of the talk was “Abortion – The Case for Compromise.” Prager is a very insightful person and his arguments are always well reasoned. His premise was that a compromise could be reached between the far left, who thinks that the fetus is equivalent to a decayed tooth and the right who believes that abortion is murder. Prager said that since he is neither to the left nor to the right of this issue, he was the perfect person to argue for a compromise.

Prager made a compelling case for his position which he supported with evidence he found in his research for the talk and even the Bible. He argues that both the left and the right are wrong. The left is wrong because they equate the unborn baby with a decayed tooth and the right is wrong for calling abortion murder. Prager uses an example of calls he gets on the radio when discussing the abortion issue. In one particular instance, to prove his point that abortion cannot be compared to murder, he asks the person making this claim whether he/she believes that doctors who perform abortions should be prosecuted and jailed for murder. I found his arguments less than convincing.

I have one simple question: if the unborn is a human being, and we know that it is, when can a human being be killed and not be murder? Now if you’re talking about the death penalty exercised by the legal authority of the state, then I agree, the death of an inmate killed by the authority of the state that tried him and found him/her guilty of a crime punishable by death is not murder. The dictionary defines murder as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” I will argue that the capricious decision of someone to kill an unborn human being qualifies as murder. The willful taking of a human life by abortion which can be done at the will of a person for no reason, or any reason, such as she’s not ready for motherhood, or the pregnancy interferes with her career or a planned vacation is plain murder according to the earlier definition.

In my college logic class we learned about the syllogism. A syllogism consists of two premises and a conclusion. In order for the conclusion to be true, both premises must be true, so, for example, all dogs are animals, all animals have four legs, therefore all dogs have four legs is a true statement. Likewise, the killing of an innocent human being is murder, the unborn fetus is an innocent human being, and therefore the killing of an unborn is murder. Facts are stubborn things. How can you wiggle out of this? The pro-abortion followers do it all the time, but they lack any logic or reason to their argument. All they can offer is baseless platitudes, such as “a woman has a right to do with her body as she wants.” Unfortunately our culture has bought into it without ever knowing what they have bought into. Even more tragic, our fellow Christians have bought it. The Nazis had a saying that a lie repeated 100 times would become the truth to those who repeat it. Our culture has repeated the lie of abortion as “a woman’s right to choose” and now believe it as if was true.

As Scott Klusendorf, one of the most eloquent defenders of the unborn says, there is really only one question to ask regarding the evil of abortion: What is the unborn? If the unborn is the same as a decaying tooth then any woman has the right to do whatever she wants. But, if the unborn is a human being there is no way you can compromise. Truth or morality cannot and should not be compromised.

Compromise is a wonderful idea in the right context. We must compromise all the time, with our mates, our friends, even our enemies, but when it comes to moral values such the evil of abortion there can be no compromise. To compromise on moral truths is the same as watering down the truth to fit certain situations or to please some people who have a different view of abortion. In his farewell address President George W. Bush said: “But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise.” I have no doubt that abortion is one of the greatest evil of our day. There can be no compromise between good and evil – never.