The Protection of All Life
It can be quite difficult
to be Catholic in today's world. The temptation of sin surrounds us
with opportunity. I am an understanding person and know that as
humans we all have a tendency to sin from time to time. However,
there are some sins I simply cannot understand. The two that I place
above all others are that of abortion and capital punishment. We see
in the political platforms of the two major parties here in the
United States a split on each of these issues. The Democrats/Liberals
as a majority tend to support abortion and oppose capital punishment
and the Republicans/Conservatives as a majority tend to oppose
abortion and support capital punishment. I can't help but see a major
hypocrisy in both parties.
Looking first at the
Democratic platform who support abortion and oppose capital
punishment. They claim that until a fetus is “viable” it can be
aborted, and in some states even after that. The rationale is that it
is part of the woman's body and therefore she may do with it as she
wishes. That may be the greatest tragedy of our time. Looking at this
logically we take a look at the crime of fetal homicide. There are
currently 38 states that have some manner of fetal homicide laws, and
of those 23 of them cover any
"unborn
member of the species Homo
sapiens,
who is or was carried in the womb of another."
to quote the law from my home state of Ohio. (ORC Section 2903.01)
Lets look at the words “murder” and “homicide”. According to
the Merriam-Webster dictionary murder is defined as “the
unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another” and
homicide as “the deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by
another”, as you can see they are synonymous with each other.
Approaching these terms from the legal perspective there is a
condition of the one being murdered must be human. So with logical
reasoning, a person guilty of fetal homicide has murdered a human. So
how is it that some form of abortion is still legal in every state?
Abortion is defined as “a
medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the
fetus”
They is simply no rationale that can explain this. It is a
contradiction of law and logic. How can a person be guilty of fetal
homicide and have a legal abortion in the same state? Supporters of
abortion like to say that it's not a real person till it's heart
beats or till it can be viable without support. That it is just a
lump of cells in a woman body. Well last time a checked that “lump”
has it's own DNA and meets the requirements of the definition life. I
believe that the majority of people who support and have abortions do
so out of convenience and selfishness. Women do have a choice. It is
whether or not have sex in the first place. Now I'm not asking that
the my morals be followed by everyone or that they should be law, but
you must live with consequences of your actions. One of the
consequences of engaging in sexual activity is the possibility of
pregnancy. I would rather see contraceptives used that people
engaged in such a travesty as abortion. Again, I am a Catholic and
personally I do oppose contraceptives, but the only person that
affects is me and my wife. If you want to use them, that is between
you and your partner. Abortion on the other hand affects a child who
never has a say in the matter. Those who support abortion like to use
terms like fetus, embryo, and parasitic lump of cells. I guess it
makes them feel better about killing a child, because that is what it
is, a child. Your child. When were hear about parents who kill their
children in the news and act like we are appalled, yet it happens
hundreds of times a day and nothing is ever done. The few who stand
against it are called “radicals” or “extremists”. Well I
guess I'm a radical too.
Looking
at the other half of the Democratic platform, I don't have much to
say because I actually agree with it. However, can someone explain to
me the logic of fighting to save the life of a convicted criminal,
but not the life of the most innocent of innocents? This line of
thought is so far beyond logic that it becomes insanity.
The
other half of the coin supports exactly the opposite. The Republican
platform opposes abortion and yet supports the death penalty/capital
punishment. Again we see hypocrisy and absolute lack of logic from
politics. The argument that many who oppose abortion like to use is
that all life is sacred. They call themselves pro-life, despite that
the use of that term and the support of the death penalty weakens
their argument. Please understand that I am by no means excusing the
acts of criminals. The must serve the punishment for their crime.
Again we look at the definition of murder, “the unlawful
premeditated killing of one human being by another”. See that word
that got slipped in there? Unlawful. So because we have laws that
make it legal to kill someone who is defenseless and poses no
immediate threat of danger, it's okay? Abortion is law and yet you
claim that is wrong, so how is this any different? We also once had
laws that allowed you to own another person, allowed you to beat your
wife, or prevented someone from voting because of their gender. All
of those have since been changed of course because we realized the
inhumanity that they represented. How long will it take till we
realize that killing one another robs us of our humanity as well?
The
point of this is that until we stop killing people who are
defenseless, we will never become the great country that we should
be. I do wish to make one caveat, that I can justify the use of force
in defense. If you wish to attack or threaten the safety of me or my
family I will use the best tool available to protect them. Again that
is your choice, but it is also my choice to have a gun. I can live
with my choice, can you?
Chris
Pierce
