The American Spectator

Crusader| 6.1.09 @ 4:46PM

To claim Sullum makes a "simple-minded" argument and then say,

"The deliberate destruction of human life is always and everywhere an evil"

seems to me to be the definition of "irony."

ALWAYS evil? So if I come home one day and find a freak raping my 9-year old and I shoot him, it is an evil act?

Just because something is "legal" based on man's laws doesn't mean it is moral. Abortion may be legal, but it is still murder. If tomorrow we made the killing of everyone 65 and older "legal" would that be OK? Would we just shrug our shoulders and say, "well, it is LEGAL after all. Sorry Granpa."

"Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law."

Calvin Coolidge, to the Massachusetts State Senate, January 7, 1914

Abortion is unjust, immoral, and illegal, regardless of what 9 black-robed activists "divined" in the US Constitution 39 years ago.

Sean| 6.1.09 @ 5:42PM

I also don't understand how 'The deliberate destruction of human life is always and everywhere an evil." If it is always evil then sometimes good men will have to embrace evil. We embraced evil when our country was formed by fighting the English. We embraced evil in WWII fighting Japan, Italy, and Germany.

I also disagree with your statement "A person was as morally obligated to obey laws against murder in Nazi Germany or the antebellum South as anywhere else." A person may have been legally obligated, but not morally obligated to follow certain Nazi laws. Someone that killed an SS soldier coming for them would have committed an illegal act, but not an immoral one.

Angel| 6.1.09 @ 6:05PM

Pro-lifers decry the deliberate destruction of human life: Born and unborn. I believe abortion cheapens all life.

Sean, I don't believe it's evil to defend your own life or that of another. On the other hand, I have become a little wobbly on the Death Penalty.

Mary| 6.1.09 @ 6:11PM

Well done, Mr. Antle.

I don’t know if Tiller was a monster or not. The reason I say this is because of an experience a co-worker shared with me a few years ago.

This young lady became pregnant out of wedlock. The father of the child deserted her.

A few years later she married and had two other children; all girls. She desperately wanted a boy. She conceived. Ultrasound revealed she was carrying a son. She named him immediately. Her pregnancy seemed to be moving along without complication. Then, at 5 months her doctor told her she was carrying a considerably deformed child who would not likely live outside the womb for very long, and if he did, there wasn’t any way, by means of operation, of giving this child anything resembling a life. She had the abortion. She didn’t want to do it. When she became pregnant with her first child, she was not promiscuous; she just didn’t guard her virginity as she should have.

If Tiller was performing this sort of late-term abortion then it’s not hard to imagine how he could remain a Christian and usher in a Lutheran Church.

I'm not sure where Tiller was performing these abortions, in clinic or hospital. If clinic then I'd bet he was aborting perfectly healthy babies whose mothers want out no matter what.

You could look at this as just a couple of gangsters wiping each other out. No loss, really. But I’m not sure that’s a healthy or very Christian outlook.

According to Douglas Farrow, when Augustine was battling the Donatists he enlisted the aid of one Tyconius who had been a Donatist at one time. As the squabble heated up and the Donatists began gaining more and more ground, the threat of schism and disorder became of great concern. When Augustine enlisted the aid of the sword against the Donatists, Tyconius took his leave of Augustine because he thought that what Augustine was doing was plunging a dagger into the Sacred Heart, and he didn’t want to be any part of that.

W. James Antle III| 6.1.09 @ 6:23PM

When I say that the deliberate destruction of a human life is always an evil, I'm not saying it is never permissible. Sometimes it is necessary to avoid greater evils, which makes it a morally justifiable act. But remembering that necessary evils are still evil is important to maintaining a presumption against them.

BJC| 6.1.09 @ 7:04PM

Jim, I have to disagree, slightly, with your statement, "The deliberate destruction of human life is always and everywhere an evil." The way to restate this, with which I'd mostly agree would be: "The deliberate destruction of an innocent human life is always and everywhere an evil." And I'd use the terminology "moral wrong" rather than "evil," to emphasize the murderer's choice to do wrong, in taking an innocent life.

But I happen to believe it's a moral good, not evil, to kill an incipient murderer before that murderer can claim an innocent life. I fully support and admire the actions of military troops in a just war. Ditto for lethal means of self-defense and defense of family, when under reasonable fear of being murdered or seriously harmed by a criminal attacker. That, to me, is a moral good. Do I think the whole situation grieves God's heart? Yes. Do I believe the death of a criminal murderer, whether through government-administered capital punishment or a legitimate act of self-defense/defense, grieves God's heart? Yes.

What so heart-wrenching about the murder of Dr. George Tiller is that Tiller was innocent of crime -- he'd been found not guilty when tried in Kansas courts. He'd performed who knows how many abortions, which are legalized homicide of preborn human beings. Tiller was on the right side of government law but the wrong side of moral law. Tiller's murderer, Roeder, was on the wrong side of government law and the wrong side of moral law. But when government is itself on the wrong side of moral law as is the case today with legal abortion, citizens can easily become confused and descend to "taking the law into their own hands." Sad, sad, sad all around.

BJC| 6.1.09 @ 7:22PM

Oops, I goofed.... My lesson is to never post quickly when fatigued.

I should have written, "Tiller's ALLEGED murderer, Roeder...." The man accused of this act of criminal homicide deserves his day in court, just as Tiller had his. I really should have been more careful, especially when referring to the need for precision in language to capture and communicate ideas well.

Angel| 6.1.09 @ 10:08PM

Tiller performed 60,000 late stage abortions in the last 35 years, many of them close to term. Let's see: 60,000 abortions @ $5,000 an abortion--that's $300,000,000 the good Doctor earned for his efforts. Dr. Tiller was wealthy and lived quite well in this life, too bad he couldn't take any of it with him.

Crusader| 6.2.09 @ 7:08AM

Mary, I appreciate the story you told of your friend who discovered her baby was deformed at 5 months and decided to abort. I have a similar story.

My children's Godparents were pregnant with their 6th child when around the same time, 4-5 months of pregnancy, they discovered the baby was deformed (wasn't forming a skull properly I believe) and would not survive to term. Instead of an abortion, they continued on and eventually she had a miscarriage. They had a funeral Mass for the baby and a proper burial. This, I believe, is the proper Christian response rather than abortion.

On a personal note, when my wife was pregnant with my daughter, the initial screening came back and indicated a potential for Down's syndrome. After reading up on it we had an amneo and all was well--my daughter is now 9 and perfectly beautiful! However, it was surprising to hear some of the "advice" from previously thought of "devout" family and friends. Even though the screening was not 100% definite, we were advised by more than one to get an abortion. Right off the bat. Forgo the amneo, just abort the baby.

Mary| 6.2.09 @ 7:31AM

Crusader,

I was in no way trying to defend Tiller's work.

My co-worker really did not want to have to abort her child. Last we spoke of it she still blamed her husband a bit because she though it was a judgment from God because her husband didn't want another child.

I think even the pro-life side suffers from ambivalence. In many churches women who have abortions are treated as the "other victim." But, in the end, that really can't be. The abortionist isn't coming anywhere near a baby unless his mom solicits his services. He's a hit man and little more.

Any man who approached a priest or a pastor and confessed a murder (even for just or understandable cause) would be advised to turn himself in. In other words, he wouldn't be treated as the other victim.

My point is that I'm not sure abortion is considered murder in the same way OJ's murdering of his wife is. And since it's not it's hard to make headway outside of making procedures like partial-birth abortion illegal.

Even if Roe is overturned; abortion will still be legal in some States as it was before Roe was inacted.

I do appreciate your posts on the subject and you present yourself as good family man and that's a wonderful thing too.

Crusader| 6.2.09 @ 9:10AM

Mary, in no way did I take your post as defending Tiller's work.

I understand about the ambivalence you speak of. I attend a Catholic church in VA. In Feb the priest was trying to get the congregation to go up to DC for the "March for Life" after Obama was pushing FOCA. I sat in silent anger knowing that around 60% of my fellow Catholics voted for this man knowing he was the most radical pro-death candidate for POTUS there ever had been. Now they want to try and stop him after the fact? The time to stop him was Nov 4th, not now (I thought).

I truly do not understand how a Catholic could vote for a guy who is pro-death, let alone as radically pro-death as the usurper in chief. It is to the point where I am really considering boycotting Church and holding my own services in my house for my family instead. I do not even want to be associated with those people.

Mary| 6.2.09 @ 12:16PM

Crusader,

I had a crisis of faith a few years back and it’s still not resolved; I try not to clamp down on my doubt and by not doing so the faith I do have hasn’t been completely snuffed out.

We’re in serious trouble, I think. And it’s our own doing. Maybe not you, particularly, Crusader. I’m talking macro here.

God is dead in the US, no matter what the insipid polls tell you. The pagans of old were closer to God than we are in the here and now. We can only aspire to that increase .

The dollar is dead too. I’m not predicting catastrophe I’m predicting a continuing decline. In Italian, the saying goes: senza amore, senza timore, senza sapore.

Anyway, to boost your spirit a little, remember that the word Eucharist means thanksgiving, and I think that living liturgically and eucharistically keeps the vessel full.

Christ didn’t remove himself from sinners: He came as physician to the sick.

Stay where you are, and do your best to tough it out. Priests come and go, but it’s the faithful (you and yours) who propagate the faith. There’s strength in that. M. Scott Peck wrote a book called People Of The Lie, and in the book he notes that often times, a strong adherence to principle and truth produces not friendship but solitude. I think that’s true, but Christians should be in the vanguard of all pursuits. Quiet imagination and doggedness often have a powerful impact on the casual observer. And if God is Love, if He became man, then he sanctified human skin to a degree we cannot begin to understand, and judgment is His and His alone.

An attorney I know told me the following joke: An atheist approached a Christian and asked him to prove Christianity was true, and the Christian replied, it was verifiably true, and that even a fool could see that because it survived 2,000 years of its clergy.

Take care.

Mary| 6.2.09 @ 12:21PM

Sorry about the dead links.

First link is Chesterton: http://tinyurl.com/kpkzfa

Second is Theodore Dalrymple: http://tinyurl.com/ym5jd8

Daisy| 6.2.09 @ 3:44PM

I don't think God is dead in the U.S.; I think our culture is dead. Abortion is responsible for a lot of the deadening because it degrades all human life. 51,000,000 lives have been snuffed out since roe v wade and I believe a reckoning is coming. I think the reckoning has already started.

Mary| 6.2.09 @ 5:45PM

Daisy, you're right. Very poor choice of words for my part; not that it's the first time, mind you.

Crusader, I'm sorry for the depressing post. Pay the God part of it no mind. That, no doubt, was a bit of cheap projection, but the rest of it isn't so cheap after all.

Daisy| 6.3.09 @ 1:04AM

Mary, don't apologize for your post. You have to know you're not alone; besides I like your stories (I admit I skirted the abortion story because I knew it would hurt).

I especially liked your story about the young black guy who helped you down from that shelf thing you were on. Cute!!

I don't know why, but I just believe that we'll be okay. It's that faith thing again, Jesus Christ is sacred to me. I fight to hold and keep Him within my heart always and forever.

Take care.