Cutting Through the Smoke: Condemning Cigarettes but Defending Abortion?

We have lost our moral compass

If the government is willing to force tobacco makers to put graphic images on its packaging because they're concerned about people's health and well-being, then why not require every abortion clinic in the U.S.to put poster-size color photos of aborted fetuses at the front door? 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - Did you hear that now the nanny government is forcing cigarette makers to put color photos on their packages of what happens when you smoke cigarettes - like an image of a diseased lung; a woman on an oxygen mask; a man on an autopsy table, a premature infant in an incubator, etc.?

Full disclosure:  I despise cigarettes and cigarette smoking.  I think it's a nasty, stinky habit along with being destructive to the body.  I admit I don't enjoy being around folks who smell like an ashtray.   I do not appreciate being forced to breathe in other people's cigarette smoke in public, either.  I get livid when I see pregnant women smoking.

All that being said, I have to agree with those who find this new required packaging to be over-the-line.  If there' s anyone out there today who still doesn't know how bad cigarettes are for your health, then pardon me, but it's time to come out from under your rock and join the world again.  If teenagers are smoking in epidemic numbers, it's because they have clueless or permissive parents, not because the cigarette package didn't have the right picture on it.  The answer isn't graphic images, but involved parents.

Why does the government have the right to make tobacco companies put these images on their packages?  Has the concept of personal responsibility gone entirely extinct?  As I said, I despise cigarettes, but I'm not sure it's Uncle Sam's place to say to any manufacturer, "You must put this picture on your product warning people not to buy and use your product." 

If someone really wants to destroy their own lungs, guess what?  They're allowed.  I'm allowed to consume too much sugar if I want, and that's not good for me, either.  (Though sugar just makes me all the more sweet, not smelly like an ashtray, and no one else has to breathe in my sugar.)  Again, what makes me truly go berserk is when a pregnant woman endangers the health of her unborn child by smoking.  Or by drinking, or doing drugs, or taking medicine that has deadly side-effects for babies, etc.

So here's the better question:  if the government is willing to force tobacco makers to put graphic (some say gross) images on its packaging for the intended purpose of discouraging people from buying and smoking those cigarettes, because they're concerned about people's health and well-being, then why not require every abortion clinic in the U.S., including Planned Parenthood, to put poster-size color photos of aborted fetuses at the front door?

Underneath the severed limbs, the crushed head and mangled, bloody body of the baby they can write, "This is what happens in this clinic.  An abortion will result in your fetus likely being dismembered, or her head crushed or heart stabbed.  Abortion will result in the certain death of your fetus."  (Unless, of course, your little one has the nerve to survive, in which case, we will take the necessary steps to make sure the abortion is "successful" since that's what we're paid a lot of money to do.)

If it's informed consumers we're after, then I want such signs outside every abortion clinic tomorrow.  If it's truth in advertising that the government is demanding, then there's no reason at all not to put such "graphic and disturbing" images of the results of abortion front and center for everyone to see.

And why is it that people get more bent out of shape at having to see images of aborted babies than the fact that the babies were aborted in the first place?  Why is it so offensive and cruel to show people what actually happens to a baby through an abortion, but the act of aborting is not?  Why will people be angered by a picture of a tiny, bloody fetus with her little hand cut off, but refuse to say the killing must stop?  If the picture of the act is so troubling, why is the act itself acceptable?

Here's the difference between the tobacco companies and the abortionists, between cigarette smoking and abortion:  one is a product, albeit an addicting and unhealthy one, that adults can legitimately choose to consume; the other is the intentional killing of an unborn child by whatever means necessary (stabbing, crushing, suctioning, dismembering, etc.).

The government actually does have the right - the obligation - to intervene where abortion is concerned.  This is not a question of privacy or personal liberty, but of the life of an innocent human being.  This is the purposeful elimination of a person who has been declared by the law to be less than a person, in order that we might legally kill him.  That's the advantage of one class of people declaring another class of people to be "less than" or "not fully" human - the ruling class can kill the lesser class indiscriminately. 

As vile as slavery was, blacks were considered 3/5th of a person under the law.  Today, our unborn children are considered nothing at all.  They are utterly disposable.  They are legally extinguished at an astonishing rate.

It is a backwards and crazy world we live in.  Our government will flex its muscle and exert its power to make sure we're confronted with the damage done by cigarette smoking, but will they dare to confront its citizens with the truth about the damage done by abortion?  Of course not, because abortion is a sacred "right" while cigarette smoking is truly deadly.

We take away real liberty and instead demand a false liberty for some that means certain death for others.  Cigarette smoking costs a ton of money in health care for people every day, so naturally, it should be denounced, and the government in its kindness is looking out for our best interests.

On the other hand, abortion costs more than 3,000 lives every single day, and is a wildly profitable business.  It's a sin that tobacco companies make millions in profit on their stinky butts, but just hunky-dorey that a lot of folks in America get rich by killing our unborn children.

Yes, clearly, our national priorities are screwed up.  Clearly, our moral center has evaporated in a cloud of smoke.  It's about time the government got back to doing what it was intended to do - protect its citizens, establish and enforce just laws, and make sure all American citizens are allowed to enjoy their God-given rights of LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  If we return to a right understanding of the sanctity of human life, including our children in the womb, then maybe we'll be able to correct our tendency to indulge in personal pollution.

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Jennifer Hartline is a grateful Catholic, a proud Army wife, and homeschooling mother of three children.  She is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

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