© 2009 Jan Herca (license Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0)
Of all the ethical or moral dilemmas that plague today’s society, our civilization, and the planet, I believe none is as great as the decriminalization of voluntary abortion.
The world today has had to radically change its religious ideals to launch itself into this new era of madness and unreason. These are the devastating effects of a dogmatic secularism that is coming with force and determination to imitate the ecclesiastical totalitarianism of past ages.
What’s happening in the world? Basically, scientific doubt, that phenomenal engine that drives technical advances and material progress, has gone awry. It has twisted the screw of reason. Modern science is incapable of defining precisely and exactly what human life is, and when it confronts the human embryo, it begins to offer the most bizarre explanations. Is there a zero instant, a second from which human beings enter existence? And if it exists, who can provide conclusive evidence that this is the instant and no other? Some scientists quickly and confidently assert: “the moment at which brain activity can be detected.” In other words, the scientist has just established the dogma that human life is a “mental phenomenon.” If that were the case, a person whose brain activity had fallen below the measurable threshold would be clinically dead, wouldn’t they? How is it possible, then, that brain surgery induces cerebral arrest in patients, yet manages to cure them? If we are nothing more than measurable brain activity, how is it possible that life can continue even after this activity has been paralyzed?
But for the ignorance of the world, and above all for the immorality of the world, these explanations from scientists are sufficient. They need hear no more. They have already heard what they needed to justify their desire for debauchery and free themselves from their heaviest responsibilities. And this desire of the citizen of our time to applaud the science that represents their interests is a power far more overwhelming and devastating than all the repressive forces of the totalitarian church of dark ages past.
Therefore, the clear and concise question at our current crossroads is: What would Jesus say about these increasingly permissive abortion laws being passed in many countries around the world? What would he think of them?
I sincerely believe that it is maddening to even have to ask this question, because if anything emanates from the Gospel texts, those stories left to us by Jesus’s disciples about him, it is a profound love and respect for the family and family life. The most edifying and ennobling teachings were short stories, the parables, where family relationships were essential. Jesus called God by the word “Father,” something extremely unusual in his time (UB 123:3.6). The most beautiful parable is that of the “prodigal son” (UB 169:1.1-16). The most sobering question was: “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him…?” (UB 144:2.4). And what about that resounding and overwhelming statement: “Take heed that no child be lost! He who causes one of these little ones to be lost, it would be better for him if a millstone were fastened around his neck and he were thrown into the sea!” (UB 158:8.1).
The more I read the gospels, books that were written in an age that was not especially considerate of children, the more I see a man and a God who loved all human beings without distinction, and who adored children. “Let the little children come unto me: for to such as belongeth the kingdom of heaven” (UB 167:6.1, UB 195:3.5, UB 195:5.11).
Jesus will undoubtedly be deeply saddened by this black tide of humanity, this scourge of pessimism and death that is taking today’s society back to the barbaric era of ritual infant sacrifice. Whenever society has been unable to face the problems and demands of the present, the voice of the powerful has always prevailed, never that of the weak. Today, women are finally beginning to be heard, a lament long raised since the dawn of time, and their domestic burden and hardships are receiving the attention they are so deserved; but this is unfortunately being done at the cost of the silence of the innocent, at the cost of the forgetting of those who long to be born, of those children who would have liked to enjoy this life and will never see the light of these days. Instead of pregnant women, both single and married, with limited resources, receiving substantial benefits and subsidies to help them cope with motherhood, the all-powerful secular states have instead opted for tragedy and horror. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of children cease to exist each year in many countries that have the arrogance to call themselves “developed.” The spectacle is horrifying: clinics hidden from public view, where interventions are never publicized, each year kill a huge population of poor, helpless babies who don’t have the chance to utter even a final cry. Their cry of pain is drowned out by the treachery of darkness and the inhumanity of a society that simply looks the other way.
Jesus, Creator of more than three million planets like our Earth, Father of a family of billions of trillions of beings, son of a Supreme Being creator of an awesome universe, brother during his life among us to eight other brothers and sisters, is the person who most loves and cherishes children, babies, and all embryos. May his love cover his created universe and protect all these little ones who have been so mistreated by our ignorant race.