#71
CHOICE AS A RIGHT
Why can`t pro-abortionists call us what we pro-lifers really are - stubborn
and inflexible anti-abortionists? Apparently the worst epithet our opponents
can think of to hurl at us is "anti-choice." How disheartening it must then
be for them to realize that anti-choicers have struck again - this time in
the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
The wonderful news, received in November 2002, is that one of the four
hospitals - executing itself about half of all abortions - decided to
virtually eliminate them. You`d normally think the reasons for this
principled decision would find universal agreement: (a) women were arriving
at the hospital without accurate information and without sufficient
pre-abortion counselling to assure informed consent: (b) a lack of
post-operative support for many of the women from remote, rural areas. As
expected however in situations where some, even hospital abortionists, judge
that certain limits need to be imposed, pro-aborts went into their typical
outrage mode. The outpouring of indignant protest from feminist
organizations was remarkable. It dealt at some length with alleged lack of
accessibility to abortion, but concentrated mainly on the curtailment of
what they consider a fundamental right for women: the sacred choice to abort
- i.e. to kill their children.
Confusion reigned supreme in the public debate that followed the move to
eliminate all "non-emergency" abortions at the Moncton Hospital. References
were made ad nauseam to "pro-choice" and "a woman`s choice" in the context
of undeniable rights. Although intellectually flawed and perverted,
arguments were packaged with an intensity that convinced many of the
uncommitted on the sidelines of the debate.
I will give my characterization of the official pro-choice position, and I
challenge the abortion rights movement (Canadians Abortion Rights Action
League, National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, National
Organization of Women, etc) and any of its supporters to tell me where I`m
wrong. My view of the official pro-choice stand is that abortions must be
legal for all nine months of pregnancy, up to and including delivery; for
any reason whatsoever; for no reason whatsoever; for a minor girl of any age
without parental knowledge or consent; with the abortionist allowed to
withhold information about risks and/or fetal development; to say, as does
Canada`s infamous abortionist Henry Morgentaler, that what`s in a pregnant
mommy`s tummy is not a baby; with the father of the child having no say
whatsoever in the destruction of his child; paid for in hospitals and most
abortion clinics (in Canada at least) with tax dollars. Is that about it?
Abortion advocates always say that the issue is not abortion, but choice. Is
this dedication to choice universal? I mean, do they think people should be
allowed to choose to do absolutely anything they want to do? Should people
be allowed to choose to rob banks? To drive drunk? To prance nude in public
(notwithstanding those gay pride parades in our major cities)? If not, what
is their yardstick for deciding which activities individuals should be
allowed to choose, and which ones they shouldn`t? Obviously the whole
pro-choice thing is just a facade. The real issue is that all these pro-choicers
approve of just one common thing: abortion.
An inalienable right to choose? The truth is there is no such right, because
every right we have is subject to conditions. Why is it beyond pro-choicers`
intellectual capacity to grasp that one person`s rights must end where the
next person`s begin - or else chaos results? As already pointed out, society
has no difficulty in dismissing claims regarding other choices. Not anymore
than, for example, driving while impaired, lighting up a cigarette anywhere
one chooses, peddling cocaine to those who choose to buy it, should the
right to kill one`s unborn baby be considered inviolate.
Everything that is done to legally restrict even the grossest assault on
unborn children is interpreted by abortion proponents as "intended to
undermine a woman’’s right to choose." What the dickens is this suppose to
mean, this"‘‘woman’’s right to choose"? Would it qualify to say that a "man`s
right to choose" has been "undermined" by having a law stating he cannot
dump his family without proper compensation? What`s sauce for the goose is
also sauce for the gander. The right to choose, if it is to be a right at
all, should apply to all - men as well as women.
Those who have had serious discussions with abortion`s staunchest defenders
know just how brainwashed and blinded they have become, how wrapped up in
pro-abortion sloganeering feminists are, and how little they have thought
this whole abortion issue through. There is never mention of the baby - only
when dehumanizing the fetus - just the usual tunnel vision locked on the
so-called "women`s right to choose."
As Supreme Knight Carl Anderson has urged us, we must combat with all our
energies the culture of death which, since 1969 in both Canada and the
United States, has taken more lives through abortion than the combined
population of Canada and Austria. The best approach to this ‘‘war’’ is to
teach the public how to separate genuine rights from pseudo rights. One very
effective way is to ask abortion sympathizers, mesmerized by the seductive
rhetoric emanating from the popular media, how they can justify their
support for abortion and at the same time find it stupid to even ask them
simple questions like the following:
* How is a woman`s "right to choose" to kill her preborn baby any different
from a parent`s "right to choose" to kill a born son or a daughter? Is there
a difference? The age of the child? The place of residence?
* What`t the difference between a woman`s "right to choose"’’ to kill her
preborn baby and a woman politician`s "right to choose" to "liquidate" her
political rivals? Like the women who claim total control over their bodies
and the bodies of the babies living inside them, why can`t tyrants claim
total control over the lives of the people, particularly their enemies?
* Is there any difference between a woman`s "right to choose" to kill her
baby and an invading army`s "right to choose" to kill any man, woman or
child who annoys it, or gets in its way? Like this woman, the army has
monopoly on power and can use it arbitrarily if there`s nothing to protect
the civilians under its control.
* What`s the difference between a woman`s "right to choose" to kill her baby
and Hitler`s "right to choose" to attack Jews, and even to commit genocide
upon them, because the Nazis` hateful ideology demanded it and Germany`s
Supreme Court legalized it? The mother who pays the abortionist to kill her
baby, and may even be subsidized to do so by the state, knows that thanks to
our Supreme Courts and lawmakers, her choice is "legal."
* What`s the difference between a woman`s "right to choose" to kill her baby
and slave owners` "right to choose" to deny personhood and even life to
Blacks and look upon them merely as disposable property, because it
benefited the slavemasters economically?
Stupid questions indeed to anyone with any sense of humanity.
At the heart of the abortion-rights battle lies a deadly denial of reality.
Obviously no person has a "right to choose" when the choice is to impose
death on someone else. Much less when the choice is to impose the barbaric
means of partial-birth abortion legitimized by both our Supreme Courts.
John Paul II was among the first religious leaders to warn the world that
supporting a "woman right to reproductive choice" was nothing but a
euphemism for turning the womb into a killing field. He again expressed
himself eloquently in September 2001: "When some lives, including those of
the unborn, are subjected to the personal choices of others, no other value
or right will long be guaranteed, and society will inevitably be governed by
special interests and convenience.
Freedom cannot be sustained in a cultural climate that measures human
dignity in strictly utilitarian terms." He talks about freedom of choice as
an illusion that plagues the ‘‘civilized’’ world, and which is bringing us
to the very edge of social collapse.
He is undoubtedly alluding here to the "freedom" to kill an unborn baby and
not have to call it murder but instead call it freedom of choice; the
"freedom" to commit adultery or be sexually promiscuous and not have to call
it sin, but call it freedom of choice; the "freedom" to refuse to honour God
and ridicule those who try to honour Him and call it freedom of choice; the
"freedom" to engage in perverted homosexual acts in the certainty that such
actions represent the vanguard of sexual "liberation" and will be defended
and applauded by the majority of citizens who call it freedom of choice;
and, also, the "freedom" to support governments that have virtually outlawed
God from the official functions of the state and its institutions of public
education, in the name of freedom of choice - one that runs the gamut from a
mother choosing to love her children to a mother permitting someone to
surgically execute and dismember her unborn child up to and including
delivery.
Thaddée Renault
New Brunswick, Canada
January 13, 2003