By Judie Brown
According to Webster, one of the definitions of issue is “a vital or unsettled matter.” So when a headline reads “Former Wisconsin Governor Says GOP Is in Trouble When It Focuses on Single Issues Like Abortion,” one can get the impression that, like we have suggested before, as far as the culture is concerned, abortion is an issue rather a deadly act.
This is not acceptable for the babies because each of them is an individual, and the sum total of those murdered is not merely a political issue, it is a slaughter grimmer than any other in the history of the world.
Dehumanizing language such as the use of the word issue leads the way to assured defeat in our quest to legally protect every innocent human being without exception. I recently responded to a man who dislikes the term reproductive rights and pointed him to my article on the scam behind using the word “reproduce” and its derivatives. I stated:
When women succumb to the siren song of the anti-woman, anti-life mentality, each of them slowly surrenders her very unique meaning as one capable of becoming a mother. And sadly, into that void each woman becomes a robot/rabbit who reproduces and then kills at will if she chooses to do so.
That is what reproductive means.
We have consistently explained that every word used in abortion propaganda is designed to obfuscate the truth about the existence of a human being whose life is callously taken during an abortion. You can search our website to learn more about the abuse of words such as reproductive rights.
The fundamental truth is that NOBODY has a right to a baby. Each pregnancy is a gift from God lovingly given as a blessing to men and women. The abuse of that gift by the couple is called sin. Thus the proper explanation is that animals reproduce and human beings procreate.
Having studied the use of dehumanizing words like issue, I can tell you that the real reason why pro-life efforts have not resulted in a total outlawing of abortion in all its forms is that many in our movement have never seriously attempted to defend the humanity—the human personhood—of every child from his first cell onward. When some pro-life people, not to mention the public at large, relegate abortion to nothing more than a political “issue,” it becomes impossible to defend the truth about human persons.
Politics has created this damnable strategy, and we fight against it every day. A brief look at recent headlines instructs those with genuine concern as to the reasons why this is so.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a Catholic, says he would sign a federal ban on abortion after three months of pregnancy, which begs the question: Are preborn babies who are not yet three months old chopped liver? Such is the contradictory philosophy of a politician!
The Atlantic magazine explains that “abortion is inflaming the GOP’s biggest electoral problem.” Or to put it in plain English, focusing on the facts about what abortion does to children weakens the political opportunists who were never really serious about defending the humanity of these babies in the first place.
And it is not only killing the preborn that has been relegated to a talking point, but taking the lives of the ill is on the same dehumanizing agenda. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition reported a surge in assisted suicide deaths, especially in California.
The idea that seeking one’s premature death is acceptable completes the deadly circle for those who truly believe that ending the life of another person is an issue. And yet, setting aside such utilitarian attitudes, we must remind ourselves and everyone with whom we communicate that, as St. John Paul II taught, “abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual” because they deny the truth that every person is equal and valuable, deserving of protection under the law and in every situation.
Given these facts, if we circle back to the word issue, we can see that those who use it when discussing the integrity of the human person are simply denying that anyone has value.
Look at your children, your spouse, or someone you care about and ask yourself, Is she an unsettled matter?
No, she is a human being, not an issue.