C-484: A Bill about Justice, Not Abortion

Published today in the editorial section of The Telegram, Newfoundland & Labrador's daily provincial paper.

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C484: A Bill about Justice, Not Abortion

by Eric Alcock

Lane Jr. was 27 weeks old, still in the womb, when his mother Olivia Talbot was fatally shot twice in the head in 2005 by a childhood friend. Baby Lane perished too. Olivia had been shot three times in the abdomen as well. No charges could be laid in Baby Lane’s death.

When Aysun Sesen, 25 and seven months pregnant, was brought to hospital in October 2007 with multiple and fatal stab wounds to her abdomen, her fetus still had a faint heartbeat but died shortly thereafter. Her husband was charged with her slaying. No charges could be laid in the unborn child’s death.

Five pregnant women have been murdered in Canada in the past three years. Unquestionably, the torment of the grieving families of the victims due to their double loss is compounded by the impossibility of securing justice for their newest family member. They say society refuses to recognize their loss. How profound their pain!

Bill C-484 brings justice to these unborn children and their families. C-484 is titled “Unborn Victims of Crime Act,” and will amend the Criminal Code to prosecute attackers who injure or kill an unborn child during the commission of a crime against the mother.

Thus far, the word “abortion” is as distant from the discussion as green cheese. Why? Because C-484 has nothing to do with abortion. The bill explicitly excludes abortion. Clear headed and fair minded Canadians obviously agree. An Angus-Reid poll showed 70% of Canadians support this legislation, with only 19% of women suspecting the government of a sneak attack on abortion rights.

Joyce Hancock of the Newfoundland and Labrador Feminist Coalition recently captured the attention of The Telegram by claiming the federal conservatives were using C-484 as a back door attack to outlaw abortion.

Ask Hancock what she sees in the bill and she’ll tell you abortion. But I’ll let you in on the secret here. What she really sees is a law that recognizes the fetus as a distinct entity, separate from the mother and worth something. And that scares her because radical feminists and abortion advocates have unceasingly drummed into Canadians that, in effect, the fetus does not exist until it’s born. That’s their justification for abortion, which, incidentally, happens to kill the fetus every time. But it’s no excuse for fear mongering and misrepresentation over C-484.

They’ll tell you the bill grants a “form of personhood” or legal status to the fetus. It plainly doesn’t. They’ll try to sidestep the fetus by saying the “real issue” is domestic violence, not losing an unborn child, or that it does nothing to stop violence against women. Perhaps they should check the title of the bill. It’s not a domestic violence bill. We have those already and if they’re ineffective, let them put their energies into improving them.

They’ll tell you the bill blunders through a loophole in favour of perpetrators of domestic violence or that double charges won’t change anything because criminals serve concurrent sentences anyway. False—they’re grasping at straws.

Liberal MP’s in our province voted against this bill. Provincial Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones immediately pledged support for Hancock but admitted she hasn’t even read the bill! How telling. Shame on them all!

Get fully informed about C-484. Visit MP Ken Epp’s website where you can examine the bill from every possible angle. Contact your own MP as soon as possible and urge support for this bill which corrects a serious flaw in our justice system.

Moral Arguments in Defense of the Unborn Too Rare

Today is International Day of the Unborn Child 2008. For more blog postings related to this event please visit Big Blue Wave for reports.

I’ve chosen to post an article by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason. In this short article Greg shares his grave concern for the pro-life movement because of fairly recent trends which focus too much on the woman in the debate over abortion. He claims, and I believe rightly, that we are becoming more and more reluctant—and losing our ability—to advance moral arguments in the defense of the Unborn.

If our actions and our behaviour in general are not expected to be informed by sound reason or principles (did I hear someone mention “absolute truth?”) then on what will we base our lifestyle decisions?

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Abortion: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em?

Gregory Koukl

The last few years have witnessed a stunning development in the pro-life movement, one worth considering.

The problem: More and more pro-lifers refuse to discuss abortion. A new wave of pro-life leaders insist that victory will not be gained if the debate centers principally on the morality of killing the unborn.

Paul Swope calls it “a failure to communicate” when right-to-lifers focus primarily on the unborn instead of on the felt needs of women. “The pro-life movement must show that abortion is actually not in a woman’s own self-interest,” he says. Reframing the debate will enable the movement to “regain the moral high ground in the mind of the American public.” The message is clear: Focus on the life of the mother, not the death of the child.

But it’s hard to imagine how appealing to self-interest could be an effective general strategy. Here’s why: It’s almost always in a woman’s short-term self-interest to abort. This is precisely why the pro-abortion side has been effective. A focus on felt needs favors death, not life.

How can we “regain the moral high ground in the mind of the public” if we retreat from the moral debate? The whole point of an ethical argument is to turn people from selfish interests to what is right. Felt needs are the problem, not the solution.

This approach completely sabotages the pro-life position. Crisis pregnancy centers do not exist to handle pregnancy (hospitals and clinics do that). They handle crisis pregnancies, those that will likely end in abortion. They don’t exist for the woman, strictly speaking, but for the child whose life is in danger. Women should not have abortions precisely because abortion is a moral tragedy. If not, then why oppose it?

By contrast, this new tactic implicitly promotes the vice of selfishness instead of the virtue of sacrificial motherhood. Ideas have consequences, and this one may have, as Frank Beckwith observes, “the unfortunate consequence of increasing the number of people who think that unless their needs are pacified they are perfectly justified in performing homicide on the most vulnerable of our population.”

Shifting the focus away from the unborn is morally disastrous, undermining the legitimacy of the entire pro-life case. Our position just is a moral one, period. Abandoning the ethical foundation for a trendier message means the pro-life movement no longer has any reason to exist. Instead, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Our growing reluctance to advance moral arguments and instead focus on the self-interest of the mother is a tacit admission we either don’t have a moral case to offer or that it simply doesn’t matter because it’s irrelevant. In either instance, pro-lifers have not just abandoned the moral argument, they’ve abandoned the fight altogether. This we cannot do.

[Source]

The Fight Against Homosex—and Other Evils

I’m not surprised that some culture warriors are disappointed with my recent article entitled “It’s Not the Homosex, Stupid.” The article didn’t make much of a splash but one or more outlets at least linked to it. Most of the feedback I have received has been positive, but discussion of “sterile sex” sharply divides the population into two camps and I must confess that only the smaller camp seemed impressed.

But I am surprised that it elicited so few responses and so I conclude from that fact that either 1) there was sufficient merit to my argument to preclude a refutation or 2) it simply didn’t rate high enough in the interest department for readers to take the time to read, comment or respond. Who knows—given today’s levels of confusion and apathy—perhaps it was an odd combination of both.

For those who did read the article—thank you!—but who remain unconvinced and disappointed, I offer the following additional commentary, hoping it will prompt a careful re-read and maybe even trip the switch leading to the new paradigm shift in thinking which I maintained was necessary to make gains on the culture war.

I’ll start by expanding on the metaphor which I proposed in the article because in so doing it will likely have more punch than another 1500 words of similar argumentation on the subject.

Early in the piece I asked

“What would you think of drivers who ignored red lights but who regularly demonized speeding drivers as the real enemies on the road?”

And then towards the end I summarized,

“It’s like trying to engineer more impact resistant cars rather than require drivers to stop at red lights. At this stage, it seems we have even forgotten the red light is there, or perhaps by now we have removed it entirely from the intersection.”

Let’s imagine an intersection where such an odd development actually took place. Imagine people started running the red light—for reasons which they thought were good at the time—and after a number of years more and more people were ignoring it. In the meantime, accidents at the intersection had started to increase but people’s habits and attitudes regarding the light had changed and it was rare to find anybody stopping any longer for the light. Practically nobody wanted to hear about or consider the role of that outdated red light.

In the meantime, a whole new subculture had been developing at this intersection. Ambulances and paramedics were more and more a frequent sight due to the crashes, injuries, and even deaths taking place there. The local newspaper had special reporters assigned to cover the happenings at the site and to tell the stories of the victims. Journalists from outside the city and the region were often writing on the phenomenon. Tow trucks were found parked as close as possible to the intersection in hopes of being the first to haul away the crumpled wrecks. Fire trucks were required to make scheduled passes of the intersection. There always seemed to be a crew of automotive engineers present from one major carmaker or the other, taking notes on how to make their cars more impact resistant in order to increase sales to the people in the area.

Over time, hundreds of people had found full time work—even a calling—to give themselves to saving lives and making a safer intersection. Countless theories and strategies were being offered and implemented to moderate the damage taking place at this notorious location. Sidewalks had been changed to protect pedestrians; signs saying “Be Careful” were posted everywhere; lighting at the intersection had been changed; etc., etc. Some blamed the media for their biased coverage of developments at the intersection; others said it was all caused by those who were speeding through the intersection; others blamed the increasing numbers of new—and foreign—residents to the area; many others attributed it to a societal breakdown in driving ethics and were busy trying to reform people’s thinking.

At some unknown stage, kids had noticed the strange looking red light peering down at them from the center of the intersection and had put out its eye with a well aimed stone. News reports had called for a crackdown on youth crime.

“Preposterous scenario!” the reader might exclaim.

Yes, I agree that it’s rather unbelievable, in the context of an intersection and a red light. What’s most unbelievable though is why people in the above city who had been actively engaged in helping the injured, consoling relatives of the dead, writing stories about the tragedies, re-engineering cars, moving sidewalks, posting signs, etc. were not screaming at the same time: “Something has to be done about this light! Everybody is ignoring it!”

When I point in my article to the disused and maligned red light, it is these very people—the ones most busily engaged in helping at the intersection, so to speak—who protest that criticism of their efforts is counter-productive to the common good. Usually, they cite the absolute necessity of continuing their work of vigilance, education and cleanup at the intersection and they miss entirely the point of getting the red light fixed. To them, I suspect, this suggestion is—in computer language—entirely un-processable. It’s impractical and sub-consciously dismissed because to them the red light is simply a relic of the past, an odd and ancient restriction of their right to drive on the road as they please—and as everyone else drives.

Some of the critics dismiss my point by claiming that the principal evil of running the red light is only one more evil in a long list of evils occurring at the intersection. They cite the evil and perversity of those who speed through the intersection because that’s what causes the most serious accidents. Others suggest they are fighting the evil misrepresentation by the media of the truth of what happens at the intersection. Others claim that in order to keep this kind of chaos from spreading to other parts of the city they’ve had to engage in the political process so as to promote laws to protect the innocent. These critics seem to be saying that since we’re all fighting various evils—but the same battle—I shouldn’t be zeroing in on the red light issue.

The argument about fighting various evils holds as much weight with me as claiming that the woman who is raped bears equal responsibility as the rapist because she happened to be dressed attractively. Perhaps it was provocative dress but the rapist is the one who committed a grave infraction of the law and who needs to be punished. Focusing on the woman’s behaviour without acknowledging and addressing the principal evil is totally irresponsible.

Perhaps there are better examples in this context but, similarly, the ones who run the red light [with impunity] are the ones committing the grave offense—according to the longstanding tradition and wisdom of Western civilization. It makes little sense to go after the woman in attractive dress or the speeders who are substantially ignorant of the purpose of the red light. Couldn’t we admit they have been conditioned by the longstanding behaviour of the good folks who have taken the liberty of altogether disobeying the injunction to stop for the light—and then setting up their own standard of carefully breezing through?

And besides, don’t we have a responsibility, insofar as possible, to trace evil to its roots and lay the axe to the root of the problem, not to its branches?

At the very least, shouldn’t the good folks who are tending to the challenges and tragedies daily unfolding at the intersection be consistently screaming “The light! The light! They’re running the red light! Someone needs to get a ticket!”

Bear in mind that the entire chaos taking place at this intersection, along with its attendant subculture, would disappear overnight if the red light were re-instituted.

That was my point and I made a case for it in the best way I could in short readable fashion. That’s all. If someone would like to refute my argument, fine. But to do so, we’ll have to get down to the particulars of the matter without gross misrepresentation of my thesis.

And I’m ready to respond to particulars.

It's Not The Homosex, Stupid

by Eric Alcock, President, Vote Life, Canada!

Note to the reader:
Commentary on a disturbing trend

With all due respect to savvy Mark Steyn who quipped “It’s the Demography, Stupid,” I wish Steyn would have pushed back for us the curtain of Western society’s bedroom a little further in order to give us a glimpse of the smirking elephant in the closet. Heaven knows we desperately need a paradigm shift in our thinking about sexual “freedom” in the bedroom.

Is it my imagination or do you notice that a great many “conservative” culture warriors—individuals and organizations, Christians and otherwise—have taken to lobbing grenades at those promoting and engaging in homosex, making that the defining strategy, if not obsession, of their war? According to them, among the top threats to our civilization is the “homosexual” agenda.

So let me ask you. What would you think of drivers who ignored red lights but who regularly demonized speeding drivers as the real enemies on the road? Comical? Yes, but consider this. Heterosexuals who rail against homosex, which indeed is a particularly odious variation of sterile sex, are—with strikingly few exceptions—themselves egregiously addicted to their own pleasurable variety of sterile sex. Equally comical, of course, but only if you consider sterile sex per se to be in a league with dangerous behaviours such as running red lights.

But please don’t jump ship at this point. Hear me out. I know that our post modern society, parroting the relativism of its enlightened pulpiteers, considers this subject settled and entirely off limits. Any suggestion to re-open it is probably constituted an offense in itself—a possible relapse to a prudish repressive sexual ethic of Victorian times.

"But we believe in real marriage, the traditional kind, one man and one woman for life, and sex only in that context. That’s the correct standard because it’s God’s standard. A married man and woman can make their own decisions in good conscience about the kind of sex they engage in. It’s nobody else’s business."

Indeed, that’s the claim, but tragically these days it rarely goes beyond a claim. For too many conservatives, yes, and Christians also, who normally relish opportunities to expose politically correct speech, the lack of reasoned debate and evasions of the truth, a remarkable about-turn takes place when the truth concerning sexual disorders gets a little too close to home.

"Whoa there! Truth? Disorders? According to who?"

Can it be a shock to the reader that throughout two millennia of Western civilization—as well as nearly two millennia of Jewish thought which preceded it—the moral consensus on sterile sex could be summed up like this: All sexual activity, both heterosexual and otherwise, practiced with a view to circumvent procreation constitutes a perversion of God’s order and an abomination.

Here we could take our pick of sources, from the Early Fathers through to Martin Luther, John Calvin, or any other reputable preacher, bible scholar or theologian, right up to the early and mid 1900’s. All—without exception—considered these acts as “a most unnatural wickedness, and a grievous wrong.”

Thus we had the American and Canadian laws which prohibited the sale and distribution of devices that aided in such perversity and which were not rescinded until the 1960’s. Thus we record the witness of some of Western society’s most public figures, such as U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who matter-of-factly labeled the practice of birth control as “the capital sin” against civilization.

But are such ideas peculiarly Western, or even Christian? A surprising number of non-Western cultures throughout history fully squared with Christian teaching on this point. Mahatma Ghandi, a world famous reformer and Hindu, condemned sterile heterosex as a corrupter of morals, a destroyer of marriage and a further degradation of women.

But regardless, truth—the old-fashioned objective kind—is no respecter of cultures and the fallout in our society from a denial of this particular truth has been debilitating. Take note of the Anglicans, the first Christian denomination to break rank with the faith of their fathers on this major doctrine. They formalized the opening of a Pandora’s Box in 1930 by allowing certain exceptions for sterile heterosex and are now being rent asunder by the practice of sterile homosex in the bedrooms of their Bishops. Coincidence?

The extreme break with Christian tradition represented by this acculturated disorder raises serious questions about just how much hostility towards God we have harbored this past generation or two. Some say our rejection of God—played out in this sexual arena—has so cursed our Western society as to account for not only our sex-crazed degeneracy but also family and marriage deformities and breakups, the abortion holocaust, dangerously higher quotas of immigration due to falling birthrates, the growing threat of Islam, the secularization phenomenon with its evil twin Christianophobia and a mounting civilizational self-loathing.

This is a hard pill for many to swallow. But can we admit this much at least: Steyn got it perfectly right when he prophesied the death of Western society due to reproductive sterility. Not for a moment did he suggest that even ten thousand new conferences and/or books on Islam, the tyranny of homosex, the battle for marriage and the family, secular humanism or Christophobia would save us. No, very clearly he stated that it was the question of birthrate which we have refused to address. That alone will cause our society to implode. Steyn put his finger on the precise nature of the problem. Likewise the solution, if it was any closer, might jump up and bite us.

The yearning of many contemporary Christians for a cultural fix through revivalist and “biblical” calls to repentance must also take the birthrate—and sterile heterosex—into account. Though some will contest the point, it must be admitted that any conversion wrought through the preaching of a Whitefield, Finney, et al will not only demand our hearts get right with God but will necessarily reinstitute cultural prohibitions and taboos supporting the age old and exegetically superior biblical interpretation of the sin of Onanism.

The very thought makes many shudder and some to say,

"Surely, God, we can instead pay women to have babies, still hold on to our hard earned sexual “freedoms” and save our future. Otherwise, God, this is really going to hurt!"

The suggestion that our future hinges on the abandonment of sterile heterosex is utterly disconcerting. It’s too much to grasp—let alone admit—that old fashioned traditional Western wisdom on sexuality was spot on.

But no, it was much more than that. It truly was a civilizational bulwark.

Preachers and pundits would do well then to cease from their various crusades against homosex, Islam, etc. in order to refocus their energies and resources to formulate a new strategy which targets the real enemy. By attacking the ideology and behaviour which is directly fuelling our demographic demise, our odds of making gains in this war are markedly improved.

Another point must be raised. The defense of current phony and lethal sexual “liberties” may be worthy of the label progressive but hardly worthy of the label conservative, and certainly unworthy of the name Christian, at least historically. Such perversions of true liberty were legitimized by the victories of yesteryear’s liberals yet they currently enslave us because they are defended by today’s “conservatives.” Conservatives must seriously examine their own complicity in the sterile sex agenda—which has aided in the destruction of society and has rightly identified them as co-conspirators—and be encouraged to instead stand in defense of established Western wisdom.

Conservatives must decide what it is that they are fighting to conserve. Indeed, what else deserves conservation, other than the collective wisdom and institutions central to Western thought and civilization? Isn’t this precisely why conservatives fight unhesitatingly against abortion, attacks on marriage, disintegration of family, pornography, lowering of morals, etc? Yet why have we not been fighting the one mortal enemy which Western wisdom has explicitly warned—in loudest fashion this past 100 years—would spawn precisely such an epidemic of evils? Sterile heterosex is a beguiling demon of tremendous significance and must be opposed with all our energies and by all possible means.

Instead, we have been trying to beef up our society in order to withstand the intense battering spawned by our own endorsement of sexual license: Educate about the radical homosexual agenda. Expose the dangers and tyranny of secular humanism. Equip Canadians to confront the threat of Islam. Bolster the family and marriage and fight those who attack it.

It’s like trying to engineer more impact resistant cars rather than require drivers to stop at red lights. At this stage, it seems we have even forgotten the red light is there, or perhaps by now we have removed it entirely from the intersection. Is it any wonder the “culture war” is being lost?

So yes, it is the behaviour and specifically it’s sterile sex—of all brands. With great courage, it needs to be identified as such, properly condemned and duly proscribed.

Which again brings us back to Steyn’s famous line and his sober closing:

"It's the demography, stupid. And, if they can't muster the will to change course, then "What do you leave behind?" is the only question that matters."

Yes Virginia It's Alive and It's Human and It Needs Protection

Suzanne posted video of her recent ultrasound. Wow!

Judie Brown, Personhood Amendment and Catholic Bishops

Judie Brown of American Life League asks some of the same questions I’ve been asking lately.

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We remain steadfast, but…

By Judie Brown

Over the last few weeks, something rather bizarre has occurred in the pro-life movement and it is difficult for me to get my arms around it. So, I have decided to share the puzzlement I am experiencing in the hopes that others, upon reading this, will join me in a fervent Lenten prayer for healing.

This past January 17, as a personhood proposal was being presented as a way to amend Georgia’s state constitution, the two bishops in that state made a public statement in opposition to it. They wrote, “As the Catholic bishops of Georgia we, along with our brother bishops throughout the world, have unceasingly advocated for the sanctity of human life and continually supported legislative efforts to increase protection of human life.”

They claim to agree with the “objectives” of the proposed state constitutional amendment but oppose the approach because it “does not provide a realistic opportunity for ending or reducing abortion in Georgia.”

A few weeks later, on February 26, the two Catholic bishops in Montana issued a statement expressing their views on a proposed personhood amendment to the Montana state constitution. They wrote, “We, the Catholic Bishops of Montana, remain steadfast in our commitment to defend human life in all of its stages, from conception to natural death.”

They went on to commend the “objective” of the efforts to amend the state’s constitution, but pointed out that they support efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution rather than the state’s. They wrote that they “do not believe that CI-100 is the most beneficial venue to pursue necessary change.” They listed several strategies which they deem appropriate at the state level, including funding pregnancy centers, providing support for expectant mothers and passing a law requiring parental notice with judicial bypass prior to a minor acquiring an abortion.

Two days later, the Colorado Catholic Conference issued a statement regarding the proposal by Colorado for Equal Rights to amend the Colorado state constitution with personhood language. In that statement, the Colorado Catholic Conference said, “We commend the goal of this effort to end abortion… but we do not believe that this year’s Colorado Personhood Amendment is the best means to pursue this issue at this time.”

The Colorado conference denied that any of the bishops had lent their support to the personhood initiative being promoted by Colorado for Equal Rights even though Bishop Tafoya, one of the three bishops in Colorado, had his picture taken with the campaign leader, Keith Mason, and had given every indication that he supported the effort.

The thread that ties these three separate actions together is the realization that even though these seven Catholic bishops in three states all share the goal of doing all they can to end the slaughter of the innocents, they also agree that personhood amendments to state constitutions are not realistic, timely or the best way to do things. Statements like those I have just excerpted are the source of my confusion.

For the record and, if I may say so, for the babies, allow me to point a few things out.

It was not anyone in the pro-life movement, but rather United States Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun who wrote in the Roe v. Wade decision, “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s [abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

In other words, if those who understand that a preborn child is a person from the point of his creation want to restore absolute legal protection to children, then personhood must be established in the law. Justice Blackmun did not tell us how personhood could be established, but he did give us a clue and this is why so many pro-life activists have chosen to do what they can to propose personhood amendments to the various state constitutions. The hope is that one of these proposals will be passed by the people and if it eventually arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, the actual merits of personhood will be argued.

Further, on March 7, 1974, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros spoke at a United States Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for the entire National Conference of Catholic Bishops and told the senators that any proposed constitutional amendment “…should clearly establish that, from conception onward, the unborn child is a human person in the terms of the Constitution.”

In that same statement, Cardinal Medeiros also made it perfectly clear that every proposal should be “universal and without exceptions.”

So, a totally pro-abortion Supreme Court justice and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church both came to the same conclusion: Personhood is the key to ending the tyranny of the abortion empire in America. And yet when we have three actively dedicated pro-life organizations pursuing the very goal that Cardinal Medeiros encouraged, we also have Catholic bishops publicly distancing themselves from such efforts and opposing them in a variety of ways.

This is discouraging, but not surprising. In fact, it is a harbinger of things to come if those committed to pro-life principle do not press on rather than succumb to a spirit of despair.

Now is not the time to accept defeat simply because of the negative statements coming forth from Catholic conferences whether in the east, the west or anywhere in between. We cannot change the statements of those Church leaders who have chosen to oppose personhood efforts, but on the other hand, we cannot abandon the very principle that is foundational to all pro-life efforts not only in Montana, Georgia and Colorado – but everywhere else.

Among the many legal minds who have contributed to the fundamental strategy that underlies the necessary pro-life legal efforts in these three states is that of the wise Notre Dame law professor Charles Rice. In 35 years, he has never changed his perspective on personhood. What he said in 1973 he continues to say today. He teaches that it was the denial of personhood that was the foundation for everything that the Nazis did to the Jews, the Christians and others under their regime. The idea of relegating entire classes of people to subhuman status was the crux of the Nazi euthanasia program and all the gruesome acts that followed it.

Professor Rice ties that very attitude of annihilation by dehumanization directly to the abortion industry of today. And as he has written, the affirmation of the non-personhood of the preborn child means that the particular human beings who fall into this category are subject to all manner of cruelty and abuse, including death because they have no rights – they are not human beings according to the law.

This alone should give rise to a total advocacy of personhood on the part of every single pro-life American in our day and age. Whether a Catholic prelate or a man on the street, there is no denying that the culture of death now has a tragic grip on the thought process of those in authority in our nation and that must change.

As Professor Rice so eloquently wrote, “Roe applies precisely the principle that underlay the Nazi extermination of the Jews, that an innocent human being can be declared to be a non-person and subjected to death at the discretion of those who regard him as unfit or unwanted. The justices, who triggered the abortion avalanche by their own free decision, are no more defensible than the Nazi judges who acquiesced in the crimes of that regime and the functionaries who administered its decrees at Auschwitz and similar places.”

As if that were not enough, he concluded on this sober note, “The Court will allow states to enact marginal restrictions on surgical abortions, but those abortions are becoming obsolete because of early abortifacient drugs and devices.”

So, I am left bewildered and anguished by these questions: Why not personhood? How can one be steadfast and at the same time oppose such sensible strategies?

As Alan Keyes warned, “The evil that we fight is but a shadow of the evil that we do.”

Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. For three decades, she has advocated personhood declarations in law.

The Case Against Abortion: Medical Testimony

Abort73.com releases its latest video.