"Twenty-five years ago, Norma McCorvey gave birth to something she
wishes she hadn't: Roe vs. Wade."
Baltimore Sun, January 26
"It was at the peak of the sexual revolution in 1973 that seven justices
rerouted a historical train of human suffrage in the United States by stripping
one class of citizens, the unborn, of their rights. Since then, the abortion
`logic' has traveled to other areas of life and law, hauling a cargo of
rationales for euthanasia, or `mercy killing,' and now - - in disturbing
quarters - - infanticide."
"Life After Roe Vs. Wade," by William Bole, Our Sunday Visitor, January 18
Even discounting for their usual embellishment and hyperbole, the
gnashing of teeth and howls of bitter protest emanating from our opposition
strongly suggest that the pull exerted by the undertow of uneasiness may
soon suck the case for legalized baby killing into a whirlpool of swirling
discomfort with unrestricted abortion.
From its earliest beginnings the public defense of abortion has been intellectually disjointed, ethically muddled, and morally incoherent. In the 1970s, abortion partisans prevailed for many reasons but this in particular: the public was never told the bloody magnitude of what Roe unsheathed and (for a myriad of reasons) chose not to investigate. [Kind of a "don't show, don't want to know" attitude.] In that sense, potentially at least, the defenses that shored up abortion came with an expiration date.
But what could expose this built-in obsolescence? How about in utero surgery and routine ultrasounds, on the one hand, and rampant child abuse and partial-birth abortions on the other? Ignorance of abortion's hideous cruelty is becoming a virtual impossibility. [See "The Dead Baby Boom."]
Think of abortion as if its grisly reality were clearly visible only from the top of a ladder. For most of the past 25 years, most people had one foot on the ground, the other on the first rung. But courtesy of the partial-birth abortion debate, in particular, it's as though the public has been compelled, willy nilly, to shimmy two-thirds of the way up to the top.
Eventually, then, our eyes will squarely confront an unbidden truth - - that at the same time an abortion rips apart our children it dismembers our consciences. That the army of abortion can no longer depend on societal indifference to camouflage abortion's monstrous barbarity is unnerving a movement long accustomed to having people be oblivious to the inhumanity of abortion.
What is striking is that there are some pro-abortionists who, in a tactical retreat, will now concede what they have vehemently denied from Day One: that the unborn is a living human being. In an amazing triumph of hope over experience, they have persuaded themselves they have a compelling rejoinder: "So what?" Women must have this "right," they insist, if they are to participate "fully" in society. So there.
However, this is like retiring your best hitter and expecting the scrubs to hit the newly energized pitcher's 100 mile per hour fastball. The truth is, the case for abortion doesn't have a deep bench, to begin with. Matched up against the powerful admission that abortion snuffs out the existence of a real entity, pro-aborts will take their three feeble swings and retire to the dugout.
Pro-lifers know that abortion has subtly corroded the very underpinnings - - justice, equality, mercy - - that make our nation the greatest on earth. While weakened, those foundations can be restored. Indeed, it is exactly this kind of repair work that we've been about for 25 years. Have we grown weary? Hardly! It is a restoration of love, one we will keep at resolutely until the little ones are once again welcomed in our homes and in our hearts.
dha