On Killing

A crisis is calling.  Fresh from his attack on ‘Fake News’, wrapping it around the ever present cause of sin: economic greed, we have this development. 

Belgium is part of that grotesque abomination known as the radical Left.  Included in this movement is a growing desire to broaden the ways in which we can eliminate the unwanted.  Oh, the death penalty, war and torture are all bad.  Yet abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide are the hip developments of the day.

The difference in these stances speaks volumes.  Traditionalists typically allow for just war, the death penalty (though historically torture was a no-no, something worth returning to).  Yet they are typically against euthanasia, assisted suicide and abortion.

Is this because they are hypocrites?  No.  Anymore than the Church was hypocritical for its teachings on those subjects.  It’s because they value life, but value the community, society, the defenseless and also tend to see the hereafter as at least on the same level of importance as the here and now. 

On the other hand, look at what this new emergent Left opposes and supports.  It does oppose war and the death penalty and torture.  And yet supports abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide.  They even support the State stepping in and telling parents when they can and can’t save their children.

Is this hypocrisy?  By no means!  It’s very consistent, too.  Because if you look, what they oppose is anything that imposes itself on the all important ‘Me’.  Death penalty? That’s the State doing it to me.  War?  That’s the State or Nation calling upon me to die for something other than Me.  Torture?  See the death penalty.

But abortion or euthanasia?  Why, that’s me getting to get rid of pesky people who inconvenience me; who stand in the way of my promised narcissism and hedonism.  Because what matters is Me.  It’s sure as hell not some hereafter rubbish.  It’s the here and now centered on the all important ‘Me.’  The ‘Me Generation’ never really went away.  It’s just now beginning to bear the bitter fruit.

The New Prolife Movement, that ostensibly is about a ‘complete life ethic’ seems to miss this.  The reasons for the disagreements are based on a clash in world views.  One says that there are things more important than the individual.  There is the possibility of eternal consequences or blessings.  There is a reality other than the here and now to contend with.  There is also the demand that we sacrifice for others, or prepare to sacrifice for greater causes than ourselves.  Life is sacred, but it comes with penalties for behavior since there are consequences to our actions.  And sometimes there is the call to sacrifice the greatest gift we’ve been given for the sake of others.

The New Prolife Movement calls this evil and hypocritical.  Instead, it increasingly aligns with the side that says there is nothing more important than Me.  War?  Why should I die for anything or anyone?  Death Penalty?  That’s like saying I should be accountable for anything.  But don’t think for a moment that the last century’s notion of human as animals has gone away, for the importance of Me reserves the right to eliminate all those pesky humans who aren’t human unless I say, since it’s all about Me. 

Think on that.   I can’t imagine a more wrong headed movement than that which calls itself the New Prolife Movement.  This isn’t even getting into the attempt to make political narratives and philosophies about such things as healthcare and immigration into the fifth Gospel.  This is just dealing with the actual issues of human life.  If the movement is so blind about these clear differences in dealing with human life, how can I believe they’re not just as wrong headed about other issues like the economy?