The One Pertinent Question We Truly Must Ask
In the wake of the horrifying deaths of 20 young school children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting at Newtown, Connecticut, there is one question that we must ask. We must ask it while the horror is fresh and we must ask it when the process of grief has eased our shock and pain and we must ask it the next time and all the days in between now and the next time.
In what way did those children differ from the unborn who are slaughtered in this country by the thousands every day in abortion clinics SUCH THAT the former deserve the protection of the law and latter do not?
Here is another way to ask the same question: In what way do your own school-age children differ from the unborn who are slaughtered in this country by the thousands every day in abortion clinics SUCH THAT the former deserve the protection of the law and latter do not?
Here is another way to ask the same question: In what way do you differ from the unborn who are slaughtered in this country by the thousands every day in abortion clinics SUCH THAT you deserve the protection of the law and they do not?
Let’s explore some possible answers and the implication of each, i.e. what legal principle they instantiate. Let’s explore whether those differences ARE SUCH that they can account for the inequality of the legal protection of the one life versus the other.
You might be told that the unborn live in a state of dependency upon someone else for life and sustenance. The implication of this response is that any dependent human being, of any age — newborns are just as dependent — may be killed with impunity. It means that if you become dependent, you may be killed, too. We must ask those who give this response if they want to live where dependent persons are disposable instead of protected.
Some responses might focus on that fact that the unborn differ from other humans in their location and size and stage of development. The unborn are in the womb. They are small. They are young. The implication of this response is that the right to legal protection of one’s life is not based upon being a human being — something intrinsic — but is based extrinsic criteria, like location, size, or age. We must ask those who give this response if they want to live where extrinsic arbitrary criteria determine whether one’s life should be protected.
We cannot see the unborn, nor can we communicate with them and relate to them. They may in fact be “inconvenient” and “unwanted”. The implication of this response is that the right to legal protection of your life is not based upon what you are, but on how or if others perceive and relate to you and whether they find value in your existence. Is it okay with you for the law to place your life in the hands of your fellow citizens to dispose of according to their own personal, subjective criteria? According to whether you are convenient or wanted?
Hearts that have the capacity for genuine anguish over these wanton and senseless killings of children they do not know and have never seen, members of families they do not know and have never seen, are hearts that have the capacity to embrace and protect the unborn. We cannot lose sight of that just because the cause of life seemed so set back politically in the last national election. What we see in our fellow Americans — the outpouring of stunned grief, the compassionate outrage — bespeaks a blind disconnection of mind and heart. To define the problem as merely “political” is to miscategorize it and to concede to defeat in the wrong realm. Millions of our fellow citizens are in mental slavery to a demon-inspired lie that can be overturned with truth, persistently and lovingly presented:
For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 RSV).
So ask: In what way did those children differ from the unborn who are slaughtered in this country by the thousands every day in abortion clinics SUCH THAT the former deserve the protection of the law and latter do not?
Ask it in multiple ways. Ask everyone. Boldly and lovingly insist that people mentally travel into the implications — the brutal, bloody, merciless implications — of their answer, because in their hearts, they really do not want to live there.
