DEACON FOR LIFE

Were there to be no support in the whole history of ethical and moral thought, were there no acknowledged confirmation from medical science, were the history of legal opinion to the contrary, we would still have to conclude on the basis of God's Holy Word that the unborn child is a person in the sight of God. He is protected by the sanctity of life graciously given to each individual by the Creator, Who alone places His image upon man and grants them any right to life which they have.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Comparing Apples and Oranges

by Judie Brown

The phrase “comparing apples and oranges” means comparing two dissimilar entities. This applies well when comparing the innate dignity of each innocent human being from creation to death with the prevailing idea among some that bowing to polling data rather than adhering to legitimate truth is acceptable.

Actual facts lead us to defend the innocent without exception; consensus and its progeny deny this reality in order to pander to other social forces.

Think about what that means in the age of telemedicine abortions and rationing patient treatment based on condition or age.

Planned Parenthood is offering chemical abortions via telemedicine. During this telemedicine session, the patient “connect[s] with a provider by video, then receive[s] abortion medications by mail.”

She takes this death-inducing drug in her home and is left to deal with the consequences on her own.

On a different abortion front, we see that Bill Gates has given $68 million to DKT International, an organization that openly sells the abortion pill (mifepristone) as well as manual vacuum aspiration kits.

Abortion medications and vacuum aspiration kits work to end the lives of preborn children during their first weeks of life. Abortion pills work to kill a preborn baby at any point during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, while vacuum aspiration works to kill the preborn during the first trimester, or approximately weeks 5 through 12 of pregnancy.

According to CS Mott Children’s Hospital’s website, “Machine vacuum aspiration involves the use of a thin tube (cannula) that is attached by tubing to a bottle and a pump, which provides a gentle vacuum. The cannula is passed into the uterus, the pump is turned on, and the tissue is gently removed from the uterus.”

Note that “the tissue” mentioned in this definition of vacuum aspiration refers to the preborn child.

So we have two very popular abortion methods that can kill people during their first 12 weeks of life. And both are practices that should be adamantly opposed by pro-life leaders, especially Catholic leaders.

But last year we heard from Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson that “it’s time to say that abortion isn’t a matter of party politics—it’s a matter of national consensus. The American people agree: Abortion should be a post-partisan issue. Only Democrats can make it one, starting in Iowa.”

Anderson writes about a poll commissioned by the K of C that found that “80 percent of Americans support limiting abortion to at most the first three months of a pregnancy. This included nearly two-thirds of those identifying as pro-choice and a similar number of Democrats (64 percent).”

He claims it would be good for America and for the babies if Democrats follow the guidance of the poll findings and support what he calls “substantial restrictions on abortion.”

So, according to Anderson’s logic, we can safely say that those telemedicine abortions and first trimester abortions employing the use of vacuum aspiration could be okay if we want to agree with a “national consensus.”

And by extension we might discover that such a national consensus would also see value in rationing healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. After all, apparently some lives are expendable, as long as the polling data confirms what we suspect. Indeed, when it comes to rationing healthcare these days, Ezekiel Emanuel and colleaguesreport that “rationing is already here.”

So the bottom line for us has to be this: Do we as mortal human beings have the right to choose who lives and who dies?

We do not. We are commissioned, not by polling data or people’s whims, but by Christ—the Author of Life—to listen to His words and to heed them when He says: “Go out into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

We are obliged to choose between consensus and truth and to teach the sanctity of life wherever we go. The wrong choice kills people. People are neither apples nor oranges.

Judie Brown
President
American Life League

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LIFE IS SACRED

An example of the traditional magisterial teaching which indicates that it is never morally licit to intentionally kill a child through abortion in order to “save the life of its mother” comes from the teaching of Pope Pius XII:

“Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life-which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit.”