Abortion is not a medical problem. It is a social Problem. Doctors have been asked to become social executioners in order to bring about a better society a far cry from the high calling to the healing art of medicine. But have we produced a better society?
We were told in the days before the Supreme Court abortion decisions that abortion-on-demand would reduce child abuse. Instead, child abuse has climbed by at least 500% since 1973, even though we have prevented the birth of more than 16 million unwanted children.
We were told that abortion made legal would do away with illegal, dangerous abortions. Yet the experience in every country,-including America, where abortion-on-demand became a legal right, is that illegal abortions increase rather than decrease.
We were told that we would have better sexual morality, but instead we have tremendous numbers of teenage pregnancies resulting from sex education programs which deny a moral code and encourage a hedonistic life style. Abortion is presented as a back-up to contraceptive failure in this "do your own thing" life style.
The cheapening of human life brought about by abortion-on-demand has, like falling dominoes, had two other impacts upon our society. The first is infanticide, the killing of a newborn by active or passive means because he is considered to have a life not worth living. What started off to be a woman's right to abortion-on-demand has become a woman's legal right to a- dead baby. lnasmuch as a woman has the right to a dead baby, does she not have the right to a dead baby outside the womb as well as inside the womb? Apparently she does! Medical journals published in the U.S. carry clear indication that doctors are practicing infanticide, and yet the law has apparently turned its back' lnfanticide in reality is homicide.
The second effect is the practice of euthanasia,.or so called "mercy-killing", the termination of the life of a dependent individual allegedly for his own benefit. Today, we receive reports about elderly people in approved nursing homes who are not having their infections and fever symptoms treated. The reasons have very little to do with limitations in medicine. Frequently, such decisions are made by staff personnel based on social problems of the patient in question, such as the frequency of visitation by the family, the number of nursing hours required per week, and the general "acceptability" of the patient with the nursing home staff.
Who knows what the next domino might be, as we systematically cheapen human life and undermine the family structure so essential to the future of our society?
When doctors are willing to become social executioners for millions of babies, we must examine what motives are used in justifying their actions. Usually, reasons given include preserving the life of the mother,the expectation of a defective child, rape, and incest. Even if these were valid reasons, they would account for only 3% of all abortions. A full 97% of abortions occur for matters of convenience and economy.
When physicians are willing to counsel the parents of a newborn child with a congenital defect to allow the child to starve to death, we should examine this motive as well. The typical answer is that these youngsters have "life not worthy to be lived." Leo Alexander, the American psychiatric representative to the Nuremberg trials, in trying to bring the origins of the Holocaust to the lowest common denominator, said that it all began with the concept that there was such a thing as human life not worthy to be lived.
Certainly, we have come to an age where the Hipppocratic tradition of preserving human life means little. one could say without hesitation that we are at the crossroads of the corruption of medicine with the corruption of law. Corruption of law came first in this country with the U.S. Supreme Court abortion decisions of 1973. The corruption of medicine followed. ln Germany in the 1930's the corruption of medicine came first with the selection of 276,0O0 people for destruction; they were the aged, infirm, retarded, senile, and similar "useless eaters', who were considered to be only "partial Germans". But the Holocaust could not have come about with the corruption of medicine alone. It took the corruption of the law to make euthanasia legal. There is no doubt that if the doctors in Germany had stood for the right to life of every individual, the Holocaust at the very least would have been slowed down and minimized.
So far we’ve touched on social problems presented by unwanted pregnancies, by children with congenital defects, and by old folks who have become a cramping nuisance to society or their families. But what will happen when we project into the future and consider the economic impact of our actions? The'rezults will be disastrous with fewer and fewer children allowed to live, every child now alive or born in the next decade will, in the first years of the next century, have a proportionately greater financial burden in supporting a tremendously top heavy population. The social Security system could be stretched to the breaking point. For the old and the non-productive, euthanasia will take on a new dimension in the name of economic stability.
Our country, which has prided itself on its lack of discrimination on any grounds has succumbed to discrimination against the unborn because they cannot speak for themselves, against the newly born because they have lives not worthy to be lived, and against the elderly because they are social and economic burdens.
It is possible that in the next few years, with the concept of "wrongful life"
developed by the New York State Supreme Court, that it will be illegal for an obstetrician to deliver a baby with a defect that could have been diagnosed prenatally. Once the concept of wrongful life has been accepted, what chance does the imperfect child have when he is newly born? And what will happen to the tremendous number of elderly people who through no fault of their own have become the great majority in our changing demographic picture.
Today we hear a Nobel laureate in the United States suggesting that children not be declared alive until they are three days old in order that all families be given the right to reject their children if they wish. We hear the suggestion that all children be required to pass a genetic test or forfeit their lives. lt should not surprise us that another Nobel laureate is contributing his sperm to sperm banks in the hope that a suitable ovum might be found in days to come that would be worthy of being fertilized by this superior genetic contribution.
The family structure in America is rapidly deteriorating. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, artificial insemination, the test tube baby, single parenthood, the Gay Rights Movement, and the radical Women's Liberation movement are all anti-family. Unless we wake up, America, we are doomed to go the way of other civilizations who lost their respect for the sanctity of life where it is clearly understood that man is not a machine, is not randomly chosen, but is indeed created in the image of God.
raying: It's sad. But this is why we fight such evil in the spirit . Keep preaching the Gospel!