By Michael Heidt
A Roman Catholic Bishop from Texas, Joseph Strickland,
called it a “scene from Hell.” He was referring to a video on social media
showing New York state legislators giving a standing ovation at the passing of
a new law, the Reproductive Health Act, which legalizes late term abortion.
Pause for a moment and let that sink in. Lawmakers and their
friends rising to their feet in rapturous applause because at last it’s legal,
no holds barred, to kill your baby right up to the moment of birth.
Unthinkable? Not in the Empire State, and you can watch the celebration live on
Twitter.
A stunned Professor Robert George commented, “What kind of
people are we? How can so many be utterly blind to such gross and manifest
evil? These people were cheering. They were cheering.
Where did this fanatical commitment to ensuring that the lives of children in
the womb count for nothing – indeed less than nothing – come from? How did this
contempt for human life insinuate itself into people's hearts?”
A scene from Hell indeed and reinforced by Governor Cuomo, a
Roman Catholic, lighting up One World Trade Center to mark the victory. There
it rose in the night, like a pinklit Moloch, looking down on Manhattan.
Leaving aside the irony of a building being used in this
way, a building that occupies ground which saw the massacre of thousands of
innocents on 9/11, reflect on the professor’s question, “Where did this
fanatical commitment to ensuring that the lives of children in the womb count
for nothing – indeed less than nothing – come from?”
Where did it come from? Most immediately, from a burning,
revolutionary desire for freedom, and we know this because the abortionists
tell us. “My Body, My Choice!” or “Keep Your Laws Off Our Bodies!” scream the
slogans along with those who carry them. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned
Parenthood, summed up the spirit and logic of the movement with sinister
prescience in 1919, “No woman can call herself free who does not own and
control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose
consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
A woman cannot call
herself free who does not own and control her body. The key word here is free, a woman must be free from
constraint, biological or otherwise. And there you have it, New York’s fanatical
commitment to “reproductive rights” flows from an equally fanatical commitment
to freedom perceived as total, radical autonomy. Or to put it simply, the
ability to do what you like, when you like, without hindrance of any kind. This,
it’s claimed, is a summum bonum, an
absolute good to be pursued absolutely, and nothing should stand in its way.
It follows, per
Sanger, that a woman must be able to decide what she does with her own body,
even to the point of killing a life within it. Anything less is an affront to her
liberty, her self-determination, and it’s precisely this kind of freedom which
was applauded in New York. The demons were doubtless cheering too.
Ye shall be as Gods,
says Satan to Eve, and the diabolic promise clearly resonates today. “Emancipate
yourself,” shout our self-proclaimed liberators, “And be gods!” gods who depend
on nothing and no one, whose freedom is unrestricted by anyone or anything. Pope
Benedict XVI, writing as Cardinal Ratzinger, describes this as a satanic lie, a
false god of “pure egoism,” and the antithesis of the true God who reveals
himself to us as a trinity of persons in relationship. Ratzinger explains this
in terms of being-for, being-from and being-with:
“The real God is by his very nature entirely being-for
(Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit).” (Truth and Freedom, Communio, 1996)
We find the same divine pattern reflected in child bearing
and human existence writ large. The infant in the womb exists from and with his
mother, while she exists for her child. Likewise adults, who can only exist
successfully from, with, and for one another. In sum, we are in the image of
God, and it’s exactly this which we’re being urged to erase. Be free, be gods, so
kill your children if you choose and in that choice the essence of our
existence, of selfhood and genuine freedom lived in relationship in the image
of God.
There is deep evil in this, a satanic revolt, at heart,
against God and Man and abortion is its sacrament, the anti-sacrament of an idolatrous
anti-god, the Devil. It is the outward expression of an inward and spiritual rebellion
against all that’s good and true, a mother’s love for her child, our meaning
and fulfillment as a community of persons, against God himself.
With abortion, we find ourselves face to face with Lucifer’s
primal rebellion against his Creator and creation itself, an insurrection taken
up with revolutionary fanaticism by those who would be as gods here on earth,
though they turn it to Hell in the doing. “Here at last [in Hell] / We shall be
free,” proclaims Satan in Paradise Lost.
To return to our question, where did it come from? By now the
answer should be clear, from Hell, working on the promethean pride of its
followers. And with this, the baby-devouring demon god of Carthage, Moloch, has
returned. Chesterton writes:
“But the worshipers of Moloch were not gross or primitive.
They were members of a mature and polished civilization, abounding in
refinements and luxuries; they were probably far more civilized than the
Romans. And Moloch was not a myth. These highly civilized people really met
together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds
of their infants into a large furnace.” (The
Everlasting Man)
As we go to press, New Mexico and Massachusetts have
followed New York’s lead, with similar legislation proposed in some 10 other
states. In Virginia, for example, a proposed bill introduced by Democrat
delegate Kathy Tran would have legalized abortion up to and after birth. In the meanwhile, an
estimated 3000 abortions take place in the US every day, subsidized to the tune
of $500 million a year by the government, and all in the name of freedom.
We would do well to remember that Carthage was destroyed
utterly, not a stone remained standing. It is surely true that we too, as a
nation, stand under the same judgement. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Be
not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.” (Gal. 6:7) God will not be mocked and a people that sow in death
will reap the same.
Knowing this, Christians regardless of denomination or
political affiliation, must stand boldly for life. The life of the unborn
child, the life of humanity itself, and the life that’s to be found in the
truth and freedom of the Gospel, the life of God offered to us in Christ.
Fr. Michael Heidt is Editor of Forward in Christ magazine and a priest in the Diocese of Fort Worth.