By Judie Brown
The headlines around the country frequently tell us that legislative efforts to address personhood are either in trouble or are dead during a particular legislative season. This is exactly what happened in Alabama last week, where a proposal was essentially killed because of a filibuster led by pro-abortion lawmakers in the state.
So the question really is, How can it be that personhood needs approval by lawmakers and adjudication in the courts? Well, perhaps politics is simply the wrong road to take.
Think about this theological argument of Associate Professor of Theology John Martens. Martens recently wrote:
Certainly, the ascension directs us to the uniqueness of Jesus, as God and man, and specifically to Jesus’ enthronement as Lord, but it also points to the uniqueness and value of each human life. Because Jesus’ human being does not cease with his resurrection or his ascension, Jesus’ incarnation, the particularity of his human personhood, is eternal. But that means our personhood, our individuality, will not just melt away into nothingness with death either. We are intended for eternity as unique instances of human beings.
So your human BEING and mine are obvious to us because we can see who we are and understand that there is nobody else in the world exactly like anyone else. You and I were formed by the One who fashions each human individual.
Well, you might say, this truth is not in the realm of political scenarios. But it does beg the question: Is politics the way we are going to win the war being waged on innocent persons—born and preborn? Or is there an actual crisis of faith and common sense that has brought about the brutality in our midst? Has politics actually dehumanized the individual and deceived the ignorant?
Yes!
And here are just a few of the reasons why this is so.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, talking with students after her recent speech at Georgetown University, told them that in her “ideal world the next president would work to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funds from being used for abortions.”
Why? Because in her world aborting a baby is a political issue and a woman’s rights issue, not an act that kills somebody. This is of course the same position legitimized by the United States Supreme Court in 1973.
Another woman, Aspen Baker, had an abortion at one time in her life and now has an eight-month-old baby. She is the founder of Exhale, a group using what is called “the pro-voice approach” emphasizing “active listening, validation, and nonjudgmental support.” As she recently said, “Pro-voice is about the real stories of real people. It can change the way abortion and so many other politicized issues are understood and discussed.”
And there it is—that word “issue” again. People like Baker, Richards, and others believe that abortion is not an act of wrongdoing. They believe it is about women and the tough decisions they have to make. The baby gets lost in the rhetoric, the politics of abortion, and the quest to ignore the fact that pregnancy exists because human beings exist.
And this brings me, sadly, to Juan Mendez, a UN expert on torture who goes out of his way to characterize protective abortion laws as a form of torture. And all the while we thought that aborting babies by sucking their bodies apart or tearing them limb from limb was actual torture!
The only way to properly regain respect for the human person and his BEING in the sight of God is to articulate it no matter how much the public dislikes hearing the truth. For as Martens writes:
Since each human life, body and soul, is valuable, each person deserves to hear the saving story of Jesus’ life. Jesus took on human life, became incarnate, exactly for this purpose: to save our unique human lives. And Jesus retains his human uniqueness as the ascended Lord as a model for our future life and in order that each of us in our individuality and personhood can share in eternal life. He will come again as the same Jesus, a person like us, to welcome us to enjoy the kingdom of God: life eternal with all of our singularity and personhood intact.
You and I are obliged to tell that story because it is the only life-saving story that matters.
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Combat the evil with truth! Join American Life League in defiance of the culture of our day—this culture of death. Through your actions and words, become a part of our movement to build a culture of life. Pray, be informed, and educate others.
For pro-life information, go to all.org.
For pro-life educational tools designed for classrooms and home schooling, RCIA, and more, visit cultureoflifestudies.com.
To see documented proof of Planned Parenthood’s debauchery and to learn ways to stop its spread, go to stopp.org.
To join with youth outreach for a pro-life generation, go to lifedefender.org.
For information on America’s only pro-life high school, Saint Michael the Archangel, visit saintmichaelhs.org.