This commentary is a reprint from March 2018—part of our Best of 2018 series.
By Judie Brown
Studying the language and actions of those who support the direct killing of human beings, from their first spark of life at inception until their last breath, can leave a person speechless. The devious acts of those who support such tactics is a constant source of sorrow for many of us.
Imagine reading about a frail elderly woman, suffering from dementia, who never asked anyone to end her life, but who wound up dying because her doctor “concluded her suffering was unbearable and incurable—though there was no terminal physical illness—and prepared a lethal injection.”
Consider the Catholic experts who claim that palliative care is a pro-life response to euthanasia advocates even though the evidence is painfully clear that palliative care—known as pain relief medication—can become the easy way to put grandma out of her misery permanently!
Suppose that a group claiming to be Catholic, but calling itself Catholics for Choice, propagandized the truth by muddying the waters in such a way that people were led astray by methods of deception we commonly call lies.
Not possible, you say?
Well, in a recent article we discover that these counterfeit Catholics are saying that “the Catholic hierarchy and its anti-choice allies argue that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. But not a single opinion on this subject has been pronounced as the one true Catholic belief, because there isn’t one.”
How wrong can such deceivers be? Clearly they do not realize that, in 1961, to name but one Catholic source, Pope John XXIII wrote in Mater et Magistra:
“Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact. From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God. Those who violate His laws not only offend the divine majesty and degrade themselves and humanity, they also sap the vitality of the political community of which they are members.”
In other words, abortion at any point after a human being’s life begins at his biological beginning is offensive to God. Period.
Whether we are talking about the beginning of a person’s life or the end, only God knows the hour and the time, not to mention the very identity of His child. Man, on the other hand, may wish to deny God’s all powerful creative love, but man usually makes mistakes that in some cases—like those noted above—can result in the untimely death of innocent persons.
The common thread noted here, whether we are talking about the beginning of life or the aged or the infirm, is that words uttered by those who have lost their sense of truth or their sense of right and wrong can mislead others into accepting views that are contrary to the truth—views that result in consenting to death instead of welcoming life and affirming it to its very end.
As a final example, and to drive this point home, let’s think about the British judge who
“justified his decision to remove a baby from a ventilator, against the wishes of his Catholic parents, by citing a recent controversial address given by Pope Francis”
in which the Holy Father, perhaps unwittingly, said
“it is morally licit to decide not to adopt therapeutic measures, or to discontinue them, when their use does not meet that ethical and humanistic standard that would later be called ‘due proportion in the use of remedies.’”
Surely Pope Francis did not intend his words to be used to justify the ending of a baby’s life. Yet we continue to see that the sinister manipulation of life always depends on lies, misrepresentations, and half-truths.
We must be vigilant, and we dare not be speechless! Rather, we must arm ourselves with the truth, with the arguments in defense of life, and with the tools to teach our children that life is always and in every case precious because it is a gift from God.
God has instructed us in His Word, so we must learn and teach that man may never manipulate human life. Man is called to love every human being because each and every person is a gift from God made in His image and likeness.