On the road to damascus: the anniversary of roe versus wade

Catholic New Times, April 10, 2005 by Gil Baillie

Occasionally, just after the plane lands, a member of the cabin crew, in making the standard deplaning announcements, will add: "If this is your final destination, please drive safely as you leave the airport. Remember: the safest portion of your trip is now behind you." And of course it is statistically true: one is far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident on the highway than in an airline crash, even in these terror-haunted times.

A newborn child could be told: "The greatest risk of being killed by human violence is now behind you." For statistically, that child will never be in as great a danger of human violence than during the first nine months of life.

January of this year was the 31st anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that began the era of abortion-on-demand in the United States. Since that decision, 43 million babies have been killed, and the staggering number of deaths is only part of the tragedy, for it is a moral and spiritual catastrophe of far greater significance than most of us realize.

Try to imagine the cultural impact of forty-three million mothers agreeing to the violent death of their defenseless child. What quiet spiritual and psychological toll does that decision take on the women who make it, some of whom have already been betrayed by men on whom they should have been able to rely? What long-term price does the culture pay for installing an on-and-off switch on maternal emotions and putting it within easy reach of millions of teenagers and young adults? What costs does the society pay for this coarsening of the feminine sensibility, upon which so much of our common humanity and our hope for a gentler world depends?

The key to the sedation of moral concern is the fostering of a widespread belief in the inevitability and irreversibility of whatever threatens to awaken that concern. Massive efforts have gone into inculcating the belief that abortion-on-demand is an unalterable political fair accompli to which all must sooner or later resign themselves. The attempt to foster this sense of irreversibility has failed, however, and with

each passing day more evidence of this failure appears. Even those who promote abortion are finding that the spell once cast by the rhetoric of "choice" is wearing off. Abortion is not about choice; it is about refusing to take responsibility for choices already made. It is about making choices without accepting the consequences. The rhetoric of "choice" will soon follow other political shibboleths like "separate but equal," "the workers' paradise," and "the people's democracy" into well-earned moral ignominy.

Much has been written about the church's failure to respond adequately to the Nazi atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s--some of it justified and some of it not. Many of those who accuse the church of timidity in the face of Nazi terror now vehemently criticize the church's position on abortion as "meddling in politics," or a violation of the separation of church and state. But you can't have it both ways.

Christ said, "Nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light." (Luke 8:17) The moral truth about the victims of abortion is a hidden secret that is coming to light. The truth is breaking through the euphemisms, evasions, political slogans, and clever rhetorical flourishes that have long struggled to shroud it.

The revelation of the innocent victim is doing what it has been doing for 2,000 years, our persistent efforts to outflank it notwithstanding. That is the Good News. The truth is once again setting us free by making us see what we have tried to overlook.

Gil Baillie is the author of Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (1995).