Deacon Keith Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC
Catholic Online

Introduction

Two events of great importance have taken center stage in the past week. We live in what Pope Benedict XVI called in his first encyclical letter an “anti-culture” of death. This is a slight - but important- nuanced variance in terminology from the past reference to a “culture of death” used by his predecessor of blessed memory, that great champion of life, John Paul II. Pope Benedict will not even call it a “culture” of death. He is correct. The acceptance of the notion that human persons, living in the safety of the first home of the whole human race (the womb) can be treated as property and killed by chemicals, surgical strikes or through the suctioning of brains from a child in the birth canal, is not human. It is evil. Its continued protection in the positive law impedes the building of culture.

It does not matter how the “word smiths” and “verbal engineers” of the extreme abortion movement have spun this horror. It has finally been exposed. Nor, does it matter that cultural revolutionaries have hailed such a horror as some newly found “right” and succeeded in forcing the State to protect it with all the instrumentalities at its disposal. The truth is the truth is the truth. Every procured abortion is the taking of innocent human life. The child, from the moment of conception, is our neighbor. Any “culture” that kills a neighbor in need, is not an authentically human culture. Respect for the fundamental and inalienable right to life is the foundation of ordered liberty. Protecting and respecting the integrity and dignity of every human life from conception to natural death is the foundation of any truly human culture.

Feticide Goes to the Supreme Court

The eyes of life - loving people turn to Washington, D.C. where the United States Supreme Court has granted review to one of several cases that were used to prevent the Federal ban on “partial birth abortion” from being implemented. Thwarting the expressed will of the American people, three Courts of Appeals, invited into action by pro-abortion zealots, took it upon themselves to prevent the implementation of Federal legislation that banned this horrid act of feticide. It is time to be as brutally honest in our language as the procedure itself is brutally repugnant. It is feticide; plain and simple. The baby is pulled by her head to the end of the birth canal so that her brains can be drained and her skull collapsed causing her death. That is what the forces of abortion on demand are now fighting to protect. That is what they have the audacity to refer to as a “reproductive right!” There is certainly nothing “reproductive” about feticide- and that which is intrinsically evil can never be right.

The Federal ban on this surgical feticide would have ended this barbarism. The Legislation was signed by President Bush in November of 2003. However, in an act of judicial arrogance, the new oligarchy in black robes decided they would intervene. The legal appeals made their way through the system and the U.S. Supreme Court has now chosen to hear the appeal in their term beginning in October. Lengthy Congressional hearings preceding this Federal legislation included the position of the American Medical Association which had convened to study whether this procedure could ever be required to protect the “health” of the mother. Their own “expert” panel “…could not find ‘any’ identified circumstance” where partial-birth abortion was ‘the only appropriate alternative’ to preserve the health of the mother." Testimony also indicated that the procedure posed health risks for women. Such risks include cervical incompetence, trauma to the uterus, and lacerations or hemorrhaging.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case and, I believe, reinstate the Federal law. Thus, the continuing incremental restrictions on abortion will continue. This is a welcome turn of events in our human rights struggle to build a new culture of life and civilization of love. The most extreme form of feticide will be outlawed. However, our goal must be clear and uncompromised, the end of legal abortion.

South Dakota to Become the First Free State

The acceptance of the so called “partial birth” abortion appeal pales in comparison to the events that occurred in South Dakota this past week. There, a bi-partisan legislature passed “House Bill 1215”. Here are a few excerpts from this excellent piece of legislation:

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Section 1.

The Legislature accepts and concurs with the conclusion of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, based upon written materials, scientific studies, and testimony of witnesses presented to the task force, that life begins at the time of conception, a conclusion confirmed by scientific advances since the 1973 decision ...