On Partial Birth AbortionA Word from Executive Director, Thomas Patrick Monaghan
Permit me to speak of an issue which we have all heard and read about; an issue whose grotesqueness is beyond words; a blood ridden issue which cries to heaven for vengeance. I am, of course, speaking here of what the press has called "partial-birth abortion," but what is, in all reality and truthfulness, infanticide.
When Herod learned of the birth of the Messiah, he ordered the murder of every male child under the age of two. The liturgical year recalls this event every December 28th, as the "slaughter of the innocents"; a massacre which has been part of the subconscious of Christendom ever since. When the U. S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the infamous Roe v. Wade and sanctioned the slaughter of the most innocent among us, our nation made Herod's deed no longer an event of the remote past. In this way, psychologist Paul Vitz is correct when he writes, "the killing of the unborn child is a symbolic killing of the Christchild."
What makes the infanticide of "partial-birth abortions" more horrific than abortion as such -- if anything can be more horrific than abortion? The fact that we bring a child to the threshold of the world outside the womb -- to breathe the air we breathe, to see the things we see -- and then choose to kill it through means too awful to be described. Coupled with our nation's drive to kill off those who are elderly or suffering, partial birth abortions radically closes the gap in which a person's inherent right to life is respected in this society. Indeed, we have taken the two greatest and most profound mysteries of human existence -- birth and death-- and have sought to control them through our own designs and manipulations. If this is not hubris, Promethean pride before the divine, then I am not sure what is. Very soon, if we follow the deathly logic of our Supreme Court to its conclusion, we may well become worse than Herod, only affording the right to life to those who reach the age of four, five, or six. This may sound too extreme or sensational to be believed, but how would we describe partial birth abortion? Barring the likes of a Hitler, a Tse-tung, or a Stalin, who, even in very recent times, would have thought such an action could be condoned by any society at large? Christianity condemned and reversed the pagan practice of leaving "unworthy" infants in the wilderness to meet their demise. Today, we are quickly falling back to, if not beyond, pagan ways.
Our society has no right to be self-righteous with respect to the heartless cruelty of Herod. In many ways, we are worse than he. Herod's order to kill the male children came about through his tyrannical power alone. Our congress, our president, and our courts, receive their powers through us, the electorate. We are the one's who invest them with governmental authority; we are the ones who, in the end, are accountable for their policies and decisions. When we consider the fact that our government is not "them" but "us," and that our government refused to outlaw the heinous practice of infanticide, our greatest recourse now is to fall prostrate and plead to God for mercy.
Sadly, we are worse off than Herod in yet another way: Herod's slaughter was a one-time order which stole these male children from their unwilling mothers and fathers. America's slaughter, however, takes place every day, every month, every year, with the consent -- even if reserved or pressured by the influence of others -- of the ones who brought the child into being. Our hearts have become hardened beyond Herod's.