To Make Murder Acceptable, Give It a Different Name

 

Webster defines murder as killing a human being unlawfully and with premeditated malice.  That’s it!  That’s ABORTION.

It was understood early on that the great majority of people would find so totally abhorrent the thought of going into an (operating) room and intentionally killing a baby.  So, the answer for the Left was to muddy the linguistic waters by calling it “health care”, not murder, hoping it sounded merely like an innocent medical procedure.  (That is not the case today, however, as nearly everyone realizes that it’s the life of an innocent child that hangs in the balance.)

Yet this ploy helped to destroy the consciences of people so that not only did they begin to think of abortion as no longer relevant to moral law, but as a solution to a “problem”, or an issue to be debated, or a convenient possibility, or finally, something to be promoted.

Now, this matter of the conscience of people is of particular importance because everyone must practice and live up to his Catholic Faith based on his informed and tender conscience in preparation for his particular Judgement.  Jesus Christ is the Judge at the Particular Judgment, and we have to give an account of our whole life – every thought, word, act, and omission.  Only then will we know the exactitude with which God sees and measures these acts, words, and even intentions in our deepest thoughts.

To help us prepare for the Particular Judgment, God created us with a conscience, sometimes called the “voice of God” because it bids us to do right and avoid wrong. 

Relatively few have sufficiently studied the Catholic Faith to inform their conscience or have worked hard to keep it tender (which is the delicate opposite of a hardened conscience).  As you might expect, a hardened conscience will accept what is wrong without concern.

Thus, a person with a hardened conscience will have no problem thinking of the growing fetus (i.e., a baby) as merely a “lump of tissue.”  However, The Catholic Encyclopedia confutes this heretical nonsense:

Now it is at the very time of conception that the embryo begins to live a distinct, individual life.  For life does not result from an organism when it has been built up, but the vital principle builds up the organism of its own body.  In virtue of the one eternal act of the Will of the Creator, Who is, of course, ever-present in every portion of His creation, the soul of every new human being begins to exist when the cell which generation has provided is ready to receive it as its principle of life.  In the normal course of nature, the living embryo carries on its work of self-evolution within the maternal womb, deriving its nourishment from the placenta through the vital cord, till, on reaching maturity, it is by the uterus issued to lead its separate life.  Abortion is a fatal termination of this process.[1]

Intentional abortions are distinguished by medical writers into two classes.  When they are brought about for social reasons, physicians [in past decades] style[d] them criminal; and they rightly condemn[ed] them under any circumstances whatsoever.  They express[ed] utter contempt for the doctors and midwives concerned in them.  They usually strive[d] to prevent such crimes by all means in their power.  “Often, very often,” says Dr. Hodge, of the University of Pennsylvania, “must all the eloquence and all the authority of the practitioner be employed; often he must, as it were, grasp the conscience of his weak and erring patient, and let her know, in language not to be misunderstood, that she is responsible to the Creator for the life of the being within her.”[2] 

Ethics, then, and the Church agree in teaching that no action is lawful which directly destroys fetal life.  It is also clear that extracting the living fetus, before it is viable [i.e., able to survive on its own] is destroying its life as directly as it would be killing a grown man directly by plunging him into a medium in which he cannot live [e.g., underwater] and holding him there till he expires.[3]  

The Catholic Church has not relaxed her strict prohibition of all abortion; but she has made it more definite.  [Note: Catholic clergy and the hierarchy were outspokenly against abortion until the latter part of the 20th century.  Since then, the conciliar church has been quiet and lukewarm at best in opposing abortion.]  As to penalties she inflicts upon the guilty parties, her present legislation was fixed by the Bull of Pius IX, “Apostolicae Sedis,” (1869).  It decrees excommunication – that is, deprivation of the Sacraments and of the prayers of the Church in the case of any of her members.[4]  

Thus, it is clear to see that abortion is a mortal sin.  (A person doesn’t get excommunicated for forgetting to genuflect in church.)  It is murder and it is against the Ten Commandments and against the Natural Law.  The Natural Law is the rule of conduct which is prescribed to us by our Creator and which we know by reason without special Divine Revelation.  St. Thomas explains that Natural Law is nothing other than the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law, which is the Truth of Divine Wisdom Itself.

God has imprinted the substance of the Ten Commandments on the human heart and mind, and they have therefore binding force.  Even if they had never been given to us through Divine Revelation, we would still be obliged to keep them, for they are dictated by reason, and taught by Natural Law.  The revealed law on this merely repeats and amplifies the Natural Law.[5]  

The fifth commandment is Thou Shalt Not Kill.  Since we have seen that murder is the voluntary and unjust killing of a human being, it is easy to see why abortion is one of the four sins that “cry to heaven” for God’s punishment.

Though killing babies in the womb seems to have been unknown prior to the decadent morality of ancient Greece, at a later period this abominable practice proliferated but was met with severe punishments.  And it is notable that the great prevalence of abortion ceased wherever Christianity became established.[6]  

Thus, it is fair to say that in centuries past, Christians – and more specifically, the Catholic Church – were the primary defenders of innocent life against abortion and its practitioners.

Where is the Catholic Church today?  It is MIA – i.e., Missing in Action.  Who is to lead the fight against abortion, if not the Church?  I believe an uncompromised Church could have subdued abortion if the billion Catholic faithful would have strongly objected at the ballot box when electing civil representatives, and this worthy goal could have been accomplished if the human leaders of the Church – the pope,  bishops and clergy – had informed, reminded, and directed their flocks to actively oppose the evil of abortion.

“In former times, men were animated by the spirit of faith, and regarded a large family as a gift of God and a blessing from heaven, and considered God more than themselves as the Father of their children.  But now that faith has weakened and people live isolated from God ….”[7]                                                     

They no longer universally consider babies as children sent by God, made in His image and likeness.  They ignore the fact that abortion is a mortal sin, and that the killer of a baby deserves to spend eternity in the fires of hell.

Let us abhor this murder, which denies a baby any chance to see the Face of God and be happy with Him forever in heaven!  Let us pray and fight to end abortion!

 



[1]               The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Gilmary Society, New York, 1907, Vol. 1, p.47.

[2]               The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Gilmary Society, New York, 1907, Vol. 1, p.47.

[3]               The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Gilmary Society, New York, 1907, Vol. 1, p.48.

[4]               The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Gilmary Society, New York, 1907, Vol. 1, p.49.

[5]              My Catholic Faith, Bishop Morrow,  My Mission House, Kenosha, WI, ©1949, Ch. 91, p. 185.

[6]               The Catholic Encyclopedia, The Gilmary Society, New York, 1907, Vol. 1, p.48.

[7]              Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, Fr. Jean Baptiste, S.J., and St. Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., TAN Books, 1983, Ch. 3, p.52.