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The Matter of Abortion: Society's Greatest Provocateur

"Never Again?" or "Ever and Again?"

Elections, and politics are only surrounding the real matter of abortion. There are those who say that people will use abortions to spin into an electoral campaign. Actually, there is nothing that anyone can spin about death. However you try to spin it, death is final.
This is why the holocaust is as profound an evil phenomenon as it is. It rises to the very height of being something for which we use the term "never again." I believe "an" abortion, a single one, not to mention the 3000 per day each year, rises to that standard of never wanting this to happen, and yet this "great provocateur" has managed to ingratiate itself into our culture so that people are saying, "ever and again," instead.
I know most of you acknowledge that abortion is a bad thing. However, I have sensed in many on social media, good people, a tendency to follow a line of thought that diminishes the preeminence of the abortion matter, while affording it an unfair placement within the context of a "range" or basket of social justice issues. I can understand that a lot of people do that. But at the risk of sounding more preachy and less philosophical, here are my thoughts which reflect the basis of my zeal against this "great provocateur".
If you think about abortion in the "flesh", the matter loses the rabid and vapid invisibility of political language, and becomes visible in the eyes of the heart. You have to think of "the" abortion not simply abortion, in order to focus on the fleshyness of the phenomenon; and it is an asymmetrical phenomenon at that, in the sense that killing one's offspring makes no sense -- there is no symmetry to it; it is the very essence of the "death phenomenon:" In that sense, it is unbalanced in the frame of the "life phenomenon".

The Unborn Immigrant and An Arrogant Attempt to Kill God

Think of the womb, the protective safe haven wherein the baby is an unborn immigrant; he or she has God's very provenance, a visa if you will, the pilgrimage begins with great expectations to cross the mother's fleshy border between what were only vignettes in dreams of sounds, loving voices and sensations, into a world of overwhelming stimulus, vibrancy, the thrill of free and untrammeled movement; and finally, to breathe that first breath.
This is not unlike how I personally think of Jesus' own "enfleshment" in the Eucharist after consecration at Mass. Essentially, when a priest places the consecrated host in my hands at communion, he is placing the baby Jesus into cradle which serve as a temporary womb, and eventually as Jesus is consumed, he begins to breathe within us. That baby Jesus in the host, is freshly born from my hands or mouth into my soul. He is not unlike all the babies that have ever been or will ever be conceived. God is being born into me.
Abortion is the very opposite of this picture. It is a brutal interruption of the natural and divine intention to create life. The conception of the child brings into being what was not previously in being. Note that while the child is developing, he or she is not "becoming;" the child already is. These are co-creative processes in which the human species works with the divine to create a new possibility that didn't exist before the conception. And abortion kills the child and in an odd way a part of the mother dies, a part of the father dies, and as difficult as it is to conceive this, a part of God dies. Abortion is an arrogant attempt at deicide. But abortion as an evil is not easily "graspable." That is why it is as much illusive as it is divisive. So let's try to break it down into components or levels.

The Four Hellish Levels

There are four levels of evil that surround one single abortion. Let's keep it simple for now and not move into genocidic territory. The first level is the evil of the abortion act itself. And while the mercy of Christ is abundantly available for a repentant mother, there is nothing that can bring back that "once and future life". There is no political spin; there is no utilitarian spin that can reinvigorate life; the being that was, is no longer.
The second evil of abortion is the forgetting by the greater society that tolerates the promotion of abortion as a right; a forgetting of their own right to life. It is the forgetting that flesh and blood, every bit a part of the "mystical body of Christ" is conceived into being; and that God knew his or her name before that conception; and that man would be arrogant enough to obliterate God's plan and superimpose his own for his own convenience; even at the risk of unknowingly attempting to obliterate God Himself.
Thirdly, then there is the evil of political and even economic promotion of abortion as some kind of noble cause in behalf of a woman's freedom, or more criminally as some eugenics enterprise; or promotion of a woman's right to kill falsely packaged as "choice or freedom". The abject denial of natural law not to mention divine law.
Fourthly and finally, there is the evil of quietism -- of that tendency for some to neutralize this great sin by being somewhat self satisfied that because they abide by and perform great acts of kindness towards others, the poor, the immigrants, the marginalized, they are justified not to recognize the urgency of a life under threat of violent death. This is a quietism resulting from the political anesthesia that numbs us to the force of adrenaline that would normally move us to try to save a life in danger of death. Why? Because the baby in the womb can't yell loud enough for you to hear.

Triage to Discernment

My discernment about these things is not unlike a triage that after taking into account the question of whom to serve and who is most in need, it is one single abortion that becomes the front line in a war. That is the place, that uncomfortable place we should all rush to help. We would do this on the front lines of any battle; and as in the case of many Army chaplains who carried no weapons, they rushed to the front lines to save lives and save souls.
In cases when there is political action available, like an election, that would move our corporate "intentive" behavior or the intentive behavior of those in governance (whether in legislative bodies, executive bodies or judicial bodies), to recognize this sin, we must triage in our discernment efforts. The fight against each abortion and the evil phenomenon of abortion is done not out of piety, or even moral high ground, but rather the human high ground. It is done out of a sense that abortion is no less an evil than assassination, murder, rape, violation of a person's inalienable right to live.
The problem for the child in the womb is he or she cannot speak in their own defense. That child is convicted, judged, sentenced and executed in one evil dark moment. The child's advocates can only speak from across the streets holding their rag tag signs, saying their rag tag prayers albeit as powerful as they are, and shedding their rag tag tears.

Changing the Intentive Behavior of Government: An Urgency

If only we could change the intentive behavior of governments to act symmetrical with natural law. In essence, when a baby is put to death by execution, and without having the opportunity to speak or scream, or look his executioner in the eye, or even ask why, or make a final statement, or see a copy of the execution order for that matter, that baby is no less than Jesus Crucified. While to a lesser extent, the same can be said about all the poor and the marginalized, there is a special urgency for saving a life in danger of death; and doing all we can to set up a new context of a"life right" and "birth right." Until we do that, the value of good work done for others is diminished and even negated because we have not triaged in a way that recognizes the Life Right, and Birth Right. This is a covering of the ears to drown out that wonderful voice of Jesus saying "suffer the little children unto me. Do not stand in their way; and it is such as these that comprise the kingdom of heaven."
That special urgency is the front line of battle. It supersedes everything else. That is why I don't call it a political issue lodged within the great basket of political issues people fight over. It is outside that fouled context of people seeking power for power's sake, or seeking to feather their nests.
It is because of the triage, that I participate in the political conversation, argument, and even battle and speak for candidates who although are flawed persons, they have sponsored actions that move toward the intentions of saving the lives of the innocents, respecting the symmetry of the "life phenomenon." You may say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. While that may be true, short of rushing into abortion clinics to persuade a mother intent on abortion, this is all we have. We must first change intentions in order to influence a change in direction.

The Dark Provocateur: We Are Afraid of It; We Run from It

Abortion is a powerful and dark provocateur because it makes us flee the argument. It makes us hide our heads. It is the topic to be avoided. It powerfully repels our attention to its own evil. This provocateur hides in the word itself that causes eyes to become dazed, and consciences to ascribe it to some far off phenomenon unrelated to my life, my hopes, my dreams, my future. Abortion has been "invisibilized" so we see the word and then move on.
I hate this provocateur. I hate it with a vengeance. Until it is erased, all other matters to me are secondary. This first provocateur disguises himself in politics, often, ironically, taking the moral high ground of choice and freedom and relief from oppression, and I have seen this in the Church and among priests and bishops and lay leaders, that look for the option of looking at the omnibus basket of "social justice issues" and opt for the "more bang for the buck" rationale, supporting those candidates who pander to the heart strings of serving the living poor, the living immigrant, all at the expense of the dead baby.
Abortion is the immense non sequitur; it is illogical; it is an immense asymmetry; it is the essence of dead flesh. We will not see it as that until we resolve to clean our nose and smell it; wash our eyes and see it. This is why I take the strong stand that I take against it and will fight unto death against the very abomination that seeks to kill God.

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