April 17, 2001
Myths die hard. They are created by the
repetition of lies, and lies repeated over and over again burn into the
consciousness of people until they become established as unquestionable truths.
That is how the National Right to Life Committee has established itself as the
supposed leader of the pro-life movement. Whatever may have been the intent
of those who founded it, the committee — having turned into a gigantic
money-making machine — considers itself to be the only legitimate player
in pro-life circles in Washington. Over the years very few people have been
willing to explode the myth that the NRLC has established — namely, its
undeserved reputation as a champion of the cause of the sanctity of innocent
human life in the womb.
The committee’s undeserved
reputation has fooled members of Congress and their staffs. It has fooled
countless millions of supporters, including well-intentioned bishops, priests,
and members of the Catholic laity. It has fooled the national media into
believing that one can call oneself pro-life while supporting the destruction of
innocent life in the womb in cases where it is alleged that a mother’s life
is at risk. It has fooled pro-life commentators into believing that there is a
secular and religiously indifferentist way to oppose the slaughter of the
innocent that makes no reference whatsoever to the teaching deposited by the
God-Man in His true Church, which He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the
Pope. It is that last lie that has led the lion’s share of those involved in the
pro-life movement to take no position on the evil of contraception, the very
thing that fostered the mentality resulting in the acceptance of surgical abortion
in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Contraception, which denies the
Sovereignty of God over the sanctity of marital relations, is an abject evil in and
of itself. It is inexorably linked to abortion, as Pope John Paul II noted in
Evangelium Vitae in 1995. The intrinsic evil of contraception has
led to the rise in divorce, the abandonment of children by spouses who have
committed adultery with the impunity provided by contraceptive pills and
devices, the corruption of the young, the promotion of sodomy, and the
proliferation of procured abortion as the “solution” in the event of
“unplanned” pregnancies (as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
noted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992). Over and above
their intrinsic evil, most contraceptives actually kill fertilized human beings.
They are abortifacients, especially the so-called morning-after pill, on which the
National Right to Life Committee takes no clear position.
The NRLC’s dereliction on the
morning-after pill misled many so-called pro-life legislators in Virginia to vote
for the legalization of that baby-killing agent in March. Here’s how it
works. NRLC’s political action committee “scores” the
votes of legislators at the national and state levels on what it considers to be
“pro-life” litmus tests. Its determination of what qualifies as a
litmus test is crucial. For example, the NRLC does not look at votes cast by U.S.
senators to confirm or to reject nominees to serve on the federal judiciary: that
paves the way for supposedly pro-life senators (most of whom actually support
abortion in some instances) to cast votes in favor of open pro-aborts without
being penalized on the NRLC scorecard.
So it was with the legislators in Virginia.
“Pro-life” lawmakers felt free to vote in favor of the morning-after
pill because they knew the NRLC would not penalize them. The absence of
explicit opposition by the National Right to Life Committee on a matter
encourages poorly catechized career politicians to take positions that are
actually anti-life. What do those poor saps know? They take their lead on such
matters from the “leading” pro-life organization. The
NRLC’s silence clearly signals them that the issue is not one on which
supposedly pro-life legislators risk receiving bad marks on the
organization’s scorecard.
Thus, a pill quite plainly designed to kill a
living human being is considered to be acceptable in the eyes of career
politicians, most of whom have quit thinking for themselves and instead rely on
the “expertise” of a secular lobbying organization — one that
refuses to take positions consonant with the standards of objective justice
founded in the splendor of Truth Incarnate.
Each innocent human life is inviolable
from the moment of fertilization to the time of natural death. To assert that
there are exceptions to the sanctity of innocent human life, as the National
Right to Life Committee does as a matter of principle, is to make a mockery of
the sanctity of innocent human life. It is to say that a little bit of killing of the
innocent in the right kind of circumstances is morally justified, thus making
opposition to abortion conditional and relativistic. The irony is inescapable:
support for abortion on demand is itself an exercise in relativism and so-called
situation ethics, reducing the acceptance of innocent human life to a set of
circumstances subject to the relative conditions of those involved in a decision to
“terminate a pregnancy.” How can we say that we support
abortion in some instances while opposing it in others? The taking of an
innocent human life is either always right or always wrong. It cannot be
sometimes right and sometimes wrong. That would fly in the face of the
principle of non-contradiction (two mutually exclusive statements cannot both
be true).
I have documented the way in which the
NRLC has sold out the cause of the sanctity of innocent human life in the
electoral realm time and time again, certifying as “pro-life”
candidates (such as former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio) who actually support the
decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. It is almost as
though the NRLC’s leaders have come to believe that the pro-life cause
is a losing one, that opponents of contraception and sex instruction and all
exceptions to the sanctity of innocent human life are unrealistic extremists who
refuse to make the necessary compromises required by prudential judgments in
the realm of public policy-making. The NRLC’s betrayals have done
terrible violence to the cause of fundamental justice founded in truth and to the
political clout of pro-lifers, subordinating the cause of the unborn to the
exigencies of career politicians who care only for our votes at election time and
do nothing of substance to advance the culture of life once they get elected
(if they get elected, that is). And the betrayals have done a great
deal to advance the culture of death in our society, to say nothing of altogether
removing from the political and public policy radar screens the cause of the
restoration of legal protection to all unborn children without any exception
whatsoever.
Let me reiterate some things I have been
saying for a long time now:
(1) No one who supports a single
abortion is pro-life. Such a person is less pro-abortion than others. However,
he is not pro-life. The term “pro-life” must be used to refer to those
who are unconditionally opposed to the taking of all innocent human life
without any exception whatsoever.
(2) No organization that supports the
taking of even one innocent human life must be referred to as
“pro-life.” “Pro-life” would mean that it was completely and
totally dedicated to the vigorous defense of life against all abortions, both
surgical and chemical. Instead the organization should be referred to as one
that is conditionally and partially in favor of limitations on the right to
abortion.
(3) There is no secularist, religiously
indifferentist way to oppose contraception and abortion. Truth is not an
abstract concept. Truth is a Person. He is Jesus Christ. And He has deposited the
totality of His unchanging truths in the magisterium of the
Church He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. It will not be until we
frankly and unapologetically refer to Him and the teaching He gave His Holy
Church that we will have any real chance of reversing the culture of death in
this country and the world.
Our Lord did not create a powerful
lobbying organization to mute His Holy truths. He created His Church to be the
instrumentality by which all men everywhere would have access to His saving
truths. Indeed, the Apostles left the Upper Room in Jerusalem on Pentecost
Sunday to proclaim the truths of Truth Incarnate without regard for how they
would be received by those they were attempting to evangelize. We can do no
less. There is only one antidote to the culture of death: the graces won for fallen
men by the shedding of the God-Man’s Most Precious Blood on the
wood of the Holy Cross and administered to them by Holy Mother Church.
Empowered by such graces, we can never fear a loss of respectability in the eyes
of anyone. We must be faithful to the Great Commissioning we took to
ourselves in Baptism and reaffirmed when we received the Sacrament of
Confirmation.
We deceive ourselves and others if we
think we can find some substitute for the example of Apostolic zeal given us by
the Apostles themselves. Too much ground has been lost and too many innocent
lives have been sacrificed on altars of political expediency and human respect
for us to continue to refuse to proclaim the truths of the Crucified and Risen
Savior as He has revealed them to His true Church.
The National Right to Life Committee
not only refuses to proclaim those truths, it steadfastly opposes many of them,
believing in its own political cleverness. It is time to recognize that the NRLC is
part of the problem we face in this country, not part of the solution.
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