Imagine for a moment that your home is invaded by thugs who will do harm to your family, or perhaps even kill them. But then one of them takes a look at your three children and offers you a sinister Faustian bargain: pick one to die and the others will be allowed to live.
Would you helplessly choose one of your own children to die so that the other two may live? Would you trust a person whose moral conscience is so far gone to even offer such a deal to live up to his end of it?
For a generation the pro-life industry – I call it an industry because in many quarters it long ago sadly ceased being a movement – has offered this false choice to pro-life voters and activists in America every election cycle. It has told them they have to put up with a certain amount of innocent babies being slaughtered from “pro-life with exceptions” Republicans to win elections, because the Democrats will just kill them all. Nonetheless, the killing continues no matter who wins.
Yet what kind of father would consent to the killing of even one of his children in such circumstances? Would the father who consented to such a heinous exchange be celebrated as a hero for saving two of his children, or considered a heel for not risking his own life to save the lives of his own children first? Wouldn’t a good father recognize that as an American he possesses the God-given right to self defense? Therefore, he does everything he can – including lethal force if necessary – to try and save all of his children.
I believe the killing continues because the Church of Jesus Christ in America is not outraged by it enough to make it stop, and one of the symptoms of our complacency are the scores of spineless “pro-life” politicians we continue to support.
For example, we have accepted the contradiction known as “pro-life with exceptions.” If someone is pro-life, how can there be exceptions? Imagine if you told your spouse before marriage you were “pro-fidelity with exceptions.” The only exception you’re asking for is a three-hour window on Thursday nights to get your adultery on. After all, there are 8,760 hours in a year and you’re only asking for less than 2% of them. Not to mention, your fiancé could choose to marry someone else, and they might be even worse and cheat on them even more if not all the time. Why not choose the lesser of two evils here?
No fiancé in her right mind would accept such a deal, but that’s just what we have accepted from the GOP.
I have interviewed several of these “pro-life with exceptions” Republican pretenders the past few years, and they always offer me the same kind of utilitarian justification for their lack of moral courage. So to test them I ask them when was the last time you introduced or fought for legislation that would save those 98% of the babies you claim to be for protecting?
To this day not a single one of them has provided me with an example. Furthermore, the pro-life industry tells us to vote for “Republican A” who is pro-life 98% of the time over “Democrat B” who is pro-life never. But if that Republican were really pro-life 98% of the time, wouldn’t he or she do everything they could to save the babies they claim they’re for saving? Where’s your “pro-life with exceptions” bill?
Then there’s the politician who says he believes “life begins at conception” but still allows for exceptions to kill. This one I take personally, because there are people in my own family line who are these so-called exceptions, so essentially these politicians are telling me to vote for them anyway despite the fact they’d support the killing of my loved ones. What’s more morally reprehensible than saying you agree that it’s a life but you should be allowed to kill it anyway? Besides, if that politician really thought life began at conception, would they really allow for its killing? What do we call people who extinguish life without cause? We call them murderers. So the only way these special kind of spineless politicians aren’t at least accessories to murder is if they think it’s justified to execute an innocent child for the crimes of his father.
What’s happened here is the pro-life industry has permitted the most pressing moral issue of this age to be co-opted for partisan political talking points. Their motivation for doing so only God knows, but we know that by allowing the cause of life to be co-opted like this for partisan political gain we have tragically become collaborators in the worst moral outrage of our time.
Thus the killing continues.
In short, we have surrendered the moral high ground and lost control of the language. Yes, there are polls that say a majority of the American people claim to be pro-life, but if you look internally at those polls you’ll find many of our fellow Americans can’t really define when life begins, nor do they think those that kill unborn children should be held criminally accountable for doing so.
In other words, we’re nothing but a cliché. Thus the killing continues.
Begrudgingly I must admit the most successful grassroots movement for social change in America today is the homosexual movement. It began in the red light districts of places like San Francisco around the same time the church gave birth to the Moral Majority. Although it’s lost 32 consecutive elections on the redefinition of marriage, it continues to grow in influence and stature, exceeding the influence and stature of the Church of Jesus Christ in contemporary American culture. It runs the Democrat Party, and is making major inroads within the GOP. It controls the public schools as well as most of our university administrations, and has caused many of our pulpits to grow silent or dance around morality out of fear. And it has done so by refusing to compromise its standard.
For example, last May as the homosexual movement was losing yet another referendum on marriage in North Carolina, the pro-homosexual lobby applied so much pressure on President Obama that it demanded he risk his own re-election to take a public stand on its issue. As a result, Obama buckled and threw away North Carolina’s crucial 15 Electoral College votes that he won in 2008. In other words, homosexuals put principle ahead of political expediency.
Give the devil his due. That is a movement.
Until coming to the aid of Congressman Todd Akin while Karl Rove and the rest of the Republican Party establishment tried to “Bork” him, I can’t think of a single time the pro-life movement has ever done the same. For the most part we have never been willing to risk anything for the sake of an election.
Thus the killing continues.
We are not a movement but mascots for the Republican Party establishment, or perhaps even their useful idiots they tempt perpetually with a seat at the table. As long as our highest priority is a seat at the table with the system, the system will never buckle to our demands. Until we really mean it when we say no issue is more important than the sanctity of life it won’t be.
Thus the killing continues.
If you know a tree by its fruit, and actions speak louder than words, then we have to come to the conclusion those peddling immorality have more courage of conviction than those standing for the sanctity of life. If we’re going to win the battle for the soul of America and end the slaughter of innocents, we’re going to need much more courage of conviction.
Perhaps the most famous and effective of America’s 19th century abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison won the argument against his fellow liberators that only immediate and complete emancipation of the slaves would win the day. Many thought slavery would only be ended incrementally, but Garrison thought otherwise. “As long as one man is enslaved none are free,” he once famously said.
Just as soldiers follow in the footsteps of the Savior who leaves 99 behind to find the one lost sheep, by risking their own lives to save one of their wounded so that no man gets left behind, we must do the same on behalf of the sanctity of life.
We have attempted to gradually end child killing in America for 40 years with no success, and it’s because we have surrendered the moral high ground. Heartbeat and fetal pain bills are well intended, but all they argue is the quality of life, and not the sanctity of life. If there are conditions on when life will be protected, then we are making the same argument as the abortionists, but are just arguing with them over the casualty count. This is why I am a strong advocate for the emerging personhood movement.
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times that by allowing compromised politicians to hijack the sanctity of life we’re like the fireman who comes across a burning building and saves as many as he can.
Except that’s a lie.
In these United States, we are a government by the consent of the governed. The state has no power the people are not willing to submit to or permit. Therefore, what you’re really doing is choosing which of two arsonists to hand the matches to. One arsonist may burn down a building with fewer people, but you are consenting to allow him to burn down the building nonetheless.
Imagine choosing between two Nazis. One will kill 1,000 Jews, and the other will 10. Are you a hero for choosing the one killed 10 Jews? Not according to the Nuremberg trials after World War II. As depicted in the award-winning holocaust film Judgment at Nuremberg, judges who tried to make the case they were heroes by sending fewer Jews to the gas chambers and concentration camps were hung to death right alongside the worst of executioners.
I agree we should do as much as we can to save as many as we can whenever we can, like in another award-winning holocaust film Schindler’s List. But before settling for the best we can do, we should try to do all we can do first. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re surrendering to the child killing industry and the ruling class up front, and then patting ourselves on the back for our own sellout.
Thus the killing continues.
What about jobs and the economy? Aren’t those the most important issues? Suppose you have two neighbors. One just lost their job. The other’s child was just hit by a car on your street and could die. Which would you rush to be there for first? Of course you would prioritize the one with life at stake first. What kind of person would callously walk by a bloody boy lying in the street to go talk to his other neighbor about the job market?
If you believe this nation wouldn’t exist without the providential blessing of God, and we can’t sustain freedom and liberty in this nation without that same blessing, then we must realize God will not bless us financially as long as the killing continues. “Thou shall not murder” is the first explicitly moral law given in the 10 Commandments.
But what about the courts, you say, don’t we have to keep stacking them with Republican-appointed judges to overturn Roe v. Wade?
Contrary to what you’ve been told, we don’t have to wait for the courts to act to stop child killing America—nor should we.
It was a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed judges who gave us Roe v. Wade. It was a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed judges who left it in place with decisions like Planned Parenthood v. Casey. And it was a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed judges who upheld the most anti-life legislation in America since the Three-Fifths Compromise (Obamacare).
The Constitution of these United States allows the Congress to pass laws that limit the review jurisdiction of the judicial branch. In addition, the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says no person “shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property” without due process of law. If that’s true, then there is nothing stopping your pro-life Republican presidents, senators, congressmen, governors, and legislators from enacting legislation that recognizes a human being as a “person” under the U.S. Constitution from the moment of conception (or biological beginning), granting that person the full legal protections of all other lawful citizens, and telling the courts they have no jurisdiction to overturn such laws.
We won’t stop the killing until we muster the courage of conviction to demand our elected officials do the same. Right now we lack the conscience and the courage to act.
Thus the killing continues.
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