Stopping the Violence

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - April 27, 2007

On Monday of last week, our whole nation seemed to stop, utterly speechless and sickened by murderous rampage at Virginia Tech. The hearts of at least 26,000 sets of parents raced in agony, and at least 33 had their worst fears become living nightmares. Even the most mature college kids were introduced to a reality that no amount of violent videogames or horror movies could have ever prepared them.

The shocking violence and total disregard for human life revolted us all. None of us could adequately understand how a young person could have become so sadistic as to massacre dozens of innocent human beings so chillingly one-by-one. The reality of his savagery brought us all undeniably before the mystery of evil and left us with the type of questions that even the best forensic psychiatrists or FBI profilers are incompetent satisfactorily to answer.

The dark and foreboding cloud that emanated from Blacksburg and hovered like a pall over the nation was finally pierced after two days by a flicker of light coming from Washington, DC. For those who long have appreciated the precious value of every human life, who have fought for decades to eliminate the barbaric slaughter of fellow human beings and the dehumanization that makes it possible, who have stood before the mystery of evil and courageously opposed one of evil's most conspicuous and hideous trophies, it was a partial answer to at least thirty-four years of constant prayer.

The timing of the U.S. Supreme Court's April 18 decision upholding the constitutionality of a ban on partial birth abortion was, in one sense, providential. There are, after all, no coincidences in God. At the very time when our nation was united in mourning the senseless massacre of innocent young people and in the undeniably obvious recognition that no one ever has the freedom to choose to kill others, the grisly reality of abortion bequeathed to us by Blackmun was juxtaposed to the gruesome scenes of Blacksburg.

At the 1993 National Prayer Breakfast, Mother Teresa boldly and prophetically reminded President and Mrs. Clinton and the cadre of political leaders of both parties assembled around them of the cornerstone of the culture of death that makes scenes like Norris Hall thinkable. "If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" No matter how much a nation tries to conceal the reality of abortion behind euphemisms of "rights" and "choice" and "freedom," the lessons, she said, are unmistakable and disastrous. "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."

Last Wednesday's Gonzales vs. Carhart decision was one small but significant step in a long staircase leading us out of the dungeon of the culture of death. It's significant because for the first time a particular abortion technique was outlawed by the legislative branch and upheld by the judiciary; it's small because only the technique was banned, not the abortion itself.

It is now illegal to half-deliver an unborn child, intentionally pierce the child's skull with scissors and suction out the child's brain, but it is still quite legal, as the opinion states, to kill the same child by ripping him or her into 14 or 15 pieces inside the womb and taking out the pieces one by one. The decision is akin to saying that you can't kill somebody with a gun, but you can with a knife; it hasn't prohibited the killing.

A woman can still have an abortion during all nine months of pregnancy for any reason tied to her health, and since pregnancy has physiological and psychological effects on a woman's health, the mere fact that she doesn't want to be pregnant remains sufficient legal justification to end her child's life.

But there are at least ten reasons why the Supreme Court's decision has given pro-lifers reasons for hope.

First, it explicitly declares that the "state, from the inception of the pregnancy, maintains its own regulatory interest in protecting the life of the fetus that may become a child."

Second, it affirms that "ethical and moral concerns" at issue in the practice of abortion may "justify a special prohibition."

Third, it evokes "the reality of the love between a mother and a child" that ought to be involved in all decisions about a child. This leads, it says, to a "respect for human life."

Fourth, it stops using language that anaesthetizes our consciences. Not only does it repeatedly use terms like "unborn child," "baby," and "human life" to refer to the one who is aborted, but it also describes in graphic detail what a woman chooses when she chooses to have an abortion.

Fifth, it advocates general support for laws that require women to be informed of what occurs in an abortion before they consent to it.

Sixth, it introduces into evidence the post-abortion trauma that many women who make the tragic choice to abort their child experience. "Some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained," it states forthrightly, footnoting the personal testimony of Sandra Cano, who is the famous "Doe" of the infamous 1973 Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decision.

Seventh, it pokes a hole in "health of the mother" exception for abortion, saying that that cannot become unlimited or "tantamount to allowing a doctor to choose the abortion method he or she prefers."

Eighth, it praises a public "dialogue" about abortion, such as occurred in Congress prior to the 2003 passing of the Partial Birth Abortion Act. This is in marked and humble contrast to the hubris of the 1992 Casey decision on abortion, which sought to end all such dialogue.

Ninth, it doesn't reaffirm the Court's abortion precedents, but merely "assumes" them for the point of the opinion.

Tenth, it lays the ground work for overturning other types of abortions, as Justice Ginsburg objected in her screeching dissent. As she says, other abortion techniques are "in some respects as brutal, if not more" than partial birth abortion.

As we look back in future years to what was undeniably one of the most horrible weeks in the history of our nation, we hope and pray that we will also see in it the beginning of a long ascent toward a culture not only in which barbaric acts against innocent human beings are uncustomary and unthinkable, but in which all human life is respected and cherished.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.