Some time ago my friend Steve told me about a conversation with his fifteen-year-old son. At the time there was considerable protest about the slaughter of whales.
Hopeless Contradictions and Terrible Cruelty
The boy asked, “Why are they so upset about the slaughter of whales, but they don’t care about the slaughter of unborn babies?” The same question applies to the government’s enthusiasm for banning the hunting of foxes. Why are people so upset over the barbarity of fox hunting, and totally easygoing about the poisoning, dismemberment and discarding of millions of unborn human children?
They hold their views in sincerity, but there are four underlying problems to their way of thinking. First it is sentimental. One gets the impression that the barbaric killing of foxes is wrong simply because the fox is a furry fellow with a fluffy tail and it is a terrible thing to kill a cute animal in a cruel way. I am not supporting fox hunting, but making a point that the objections to it are often sentimental, and sentimentality is often inconsistent and false. So the objectors complain about barbarism and turn a blind eye to the barbarism of abortion. They are soft hearted about foxes, but hard hearted towards unborn human babies.
The second problem is that a soft heart leads to a soft head. Sentimental views are based on ignorance and misinformation. People who are in favour of abortion insist on thinking of the fetus as a “blob of jelly.” The threat to women’s health is consistently underplayed and the termination of a human life is portrayed in nice terms like, “termination of pregnancy.”
The third problem with this sort of thinking is that it is often based on class distinctions. It is upper class to hunt and working class to be opposed. Poor girls are sent for abortions by middle class doctors. Class is no basis for moral arguments.
Finally, the decisions are often taken according to what is practical or seems convenient. We should always remember that the Nazi concentration camps seemed “the right solution to a problem”. Easiest is rarely best. Solutions to problems must be moral as well as sensible.
Turn Outside Ourselves for Sound Teaching
When sentimentality, ignorance, class and “doing what works” combine you end up with hopeless contradictions and terrible cruelty. Those who hold such contradictory views may hold them sincerely, but they exist in isolation in a kind of moral darkness. This is why it is vital that we turn outside ourselves for sound teaching on moral matters. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts the Christian moral teaching quite plainly in all matters. So it says about animals:
‘Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness… It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.’ (CCC: 2416,2418)
In other words, we must be kind to animals. Hunting and cruelty for sport must be wrong. However, the Catechism puts our concern for animals in perspective. They are not more important than people.
When it comes to abortion, the Catechism is clear. Abortion is the murder of an unborn child.
‘Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law… Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.’ (CCC:2270,2271)
I have used the contrast between fox hunting and abortion to illustrate how the human mind, cut off from the illumination of God’s teaching, soon falls into ridiculous contradictions and dangerous lies. If we judge only according to sentimentality, class, ignorance or what is practical then we will eventually commit enormous crimes, and we will do so all the time believing that we are doing good.
Stand Up Against This Horror
I will never forget a conversation I once had with a nice middle class lady doctor. This country doctor told me that she regularly sent single mothers from the local slum area to have an abortion. I asked if that was because there was a threat to the mother’s life. The well spoken lady doctor smiled condescendingly and said, “Not really, but the child would have had such a terrible life.” In other words, that child was condemned to die before he even had a chance to live because the middle class doctor judged his existence being brought up by a single mum in a deprived area just too terrible to contemplate. This sickening death sentence was a sentimental judgement combined with ignorance, class prejudice and a false idea of what it was practical to do.
These kinds of arguments are highly dangerous. Already they are used to condone abortion on a massive scale. A combination of sentimentality, class prejudice, ignorance and “doing what works” is also preparing the way for widespread euthanasia. The sentimental person will say, “Poor George is suffering so terribly. Let’s put him out of his misery.” Ignorant people will say, “Life is more about a person’s 'quality of life' than whether their heart is beating.” Rich people who are counting the cost of intensive health care will point out that the economical thing is to end the sick person’s life. Before long these same arguments will be used to eliminate the increasing numbers of elderly people, the mentally ill, the disabled and the poor.
If you stand up against this horror don’t imagine that you will be thanked. St Simeon the New Theologian wrote, “Those, then, who from their birth are under the dominion of darkness and are unwilling to contemplate the spiritual light… look on those who have come to that light and speak of the things of the light as adversaries and enemies, since their words wound them…; the divinely inspired word of a spiritual and holy man is like a two-edged sword in the heart of a carnal man. It causes him pain and provokes him to contradict and to hate because of his ignorance and unbelief.”
We must remember that we are engaged in a spiritual and moral battle. The only answer is for individuals, families, communities and society at large to turn to a strong, clear voice of moral authority. The Catholic Church is the only unified, international, historic, compassionate and intelligent voice for that moral authority. First we must live by that moral teaching in our own lives, but we must also take action in our society when we see the moral law being violated by sentimentality, class, ignorance and the “practical” approach. We must speak out. If euthanasia is around the corner then our very lives may depend upon it.
Dwight Longenecker is a Catholic freelance writer published regularly in the Catholic Press in England. He has also been featured in Our Sunday Visitor, and National Catholic Register and is the author of eight books on conversion, apologetics and Benedictine spirituality.
Dwight's first book, a collection of English conversion stories, is available from Coming Home Network. His latest book is Adventures in Orthodoxy.
This article previously appeared in The Universe and is used by permission of the author.
