Today’s March for Life focuses on the tragic issue of abortion, but of course abortion emerges from other moral choices and attitudes that are sinful.
One common “moral” standard that many apply today, especially regarding sexual matters, goes something like this: “Two consenting adults should be able do what they please as long as nobody gets hurt.” Of course the sinners who talk like this think that they get to determine whether anyone gets hurt. Generally, their notions are egocentric, mostly considering only themselves, and in addition their conception of what constitutes getting hurt are often misguided.
Today, I marched with many who tried to give a voice to the at least 50 million who didn’t just get hurt by the behavior of certain “consenting adults” — they got killed.
Consider the fact that 85 percent of abortions are performed on single women. That means that fornication (premarital sex) is the single largest contributing cause to abortion. Many of these couples went into their dalliances insisting that nobody would get hurt, but the babies they aborted would beg to differ. They were hurt and then they were killed.
The claim that no one is getting hurt is a lie.
Here are some others who are hurt by sexual immorality:
- Those who grow up in single parent homes – Thank God they survived at all — most don’t. Their “parents” had sex but didn’t have the commitment or maturity to say, “Now that there’s another life involved we’d better grow up, be less focused on our own happiness, and think of someone else.” Some others made a poor choice for one night or for a brief time and to get married would have made little sense, but the result is that a child is raised without one of his parents (typically the father). Thankfully those babies were not killed, but they are still hurt because they deserved a complete home with a mother and father there to love them.
- Our culture, our nation, and the Church – None of these three sectors is as strong if the traditional family is not strong. Fornicators, adulterers, and those engaging in homosexual activity all weaken the family, and the family is the basic foundation of everything. It is hard to find a culture or nation that can survive the loss of family structure and loyalty or the loss of sexual self-control. The “as long as nobody gets hurt” people think that they can go on taking the prerogatives of marriage (e.g., sexual intimacy and parenthood) and not harm the culture. They are wrong; history, common sense, and current statistics show that we are all harmed — exceedingly — by the “as long as nobody gets hurt” crowd. The number of abortions has skyrocketed as has the number of teenage pregnancies and single mothers, while the number of marriages has plummeted. This is not healthy for any culture or for any child raised in such a “culture.”
- The “nobody gets hurt” people themselves – After enough of their behavior, they often have sexually transmitted diseases, “unwanted” pregnancies, broken hearts, and quite end up feeling used and discarded. They start out claiming that no one is getting hurt; they end up hurt, bitter, diseased, pregnant, post-abortive, alone, and unfulfilled. Did I mention alone? Alone — very alone in terms of support — but bearing many burdens.
Those who claim that “nobody gets hurt” cannot truthfully say that, nor can they give any assurance that no one is getting hurt or will be hurt. How can they possibly know that no one will get hurt? Experience and common sense (which isn’t so common today) indicate otherwise.
Today, I marched for the more than 50 million who were hurt and then killed as well as for the many mothers whose lives are now shattered, who felt “driven” to abort because they were either pressured or alone. Any counselor or Catholic priest will tell you that post-abortion trauma is real. Sadly, the damage is deep and does not go away easily. Abortion is an act of violence perpetrated not only on the baby but also on the mother. Few who come away from this act can honestly describe it as anything other than violent and traumatic.
Many people are getting hurt! Enough of this “Consenting adults should be able to do what they please as long as nobody gets hurt” lie.
And lest we who believe forget, let us remember that Jesus got hurt for what we have done. Every sin ever committed added to His pain and suffering on Calvary.
There is a lot of hurt. Anyone who says otherwise is deceived and the truth is not in him.
Two subjects that come to mind while reading the post and watching some of the video introductions of Monsignor Pope’s lectures and interviews, who I hold in the highest regard, are when people say that Jesus Christ died for us without giving an explaination of how that could be and what it means. People could say that all those aborted babies died for society and the people who conceived them so their lives would be less burdened in this self-centered world. The other thing is that Monsignor Pope is noted for having devoted most of his pastoral duties in African American Catholic parishes. That sounds almost vain and racist. Monsignor Pope has devoted all his pastoral vocation with humility in Catholic parishes. When he marches for the right to life he is not noted for marching for the lives of the African American babies that were aborted. God forbid you should even make that distinction because that would sound racist. You can break down the statistics to what portion are what ethnicity or gender yet that may even be considered culturally insensitive in a racially sensitive and gender neutral culture. That brings us back to clarifying why and how it is that Jesus Christ died for us which would require explaining why He lived for us. Jesus wasn’t noted for specifically pastoring to the Jews but also to gentiles and the multitudes. He pastored to His Church and He revealed why His life and His death had a lesson and purpose for all. The Divinity is in the details.
The unborn were not part of the decision to kill them.
[See Sections 599-610, 619-23] of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the subject.
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[BLOG ADMINISTRATOR NOTE: Comment edited to remove overly-long excerpt and add citation instead.]
Is it correct to define fornication as premarital sex? Does defining it that way limit it to people who are going to get married? An alternative might be extra-marital sex but that would also apply to adultery. Wikipedia describes fornication in this way: Fornication is generally consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. When one of the partners to consensual sexual intercourse is a married person, it may be described as adultery. That would make fornication extra-marital sex between two non-married people.
The ‘nobody else gets hurt’ idea is rather reminiscent of Mrs Thatcher’s comment that there is no such thing as society. Properly understood, Mrs Thatcher’s statement makes sense, but the ‘as long as nobody else gets hurt’ brigade are basically denying the existence of society. As John Donne wrote, “No man is an island”; what we do has effects on everybody else. The more people choose to live together without being married the more acceptable it becomes and the less acceptable marriage becomes. “Marriage is just a piece of paper.” Then the politicians take notice and instead of referring to ‘spouse’ on an official form it now refers to ‘partner’. Marriage takes another hit. Then social welfare is given out to unmarried couples on the same basis as married couples. Marriage takes another hit. Slowly but surely, marriage becomes just another option but an option that nobody really needs to make use of. Then there was that ridiculous claim that redefining marriage would have no effect on anybody else apart from the same-sex couples who wanted to get married.
“Takes too much skill.
Takes too much will.
It’s too real.”–Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate in Literature from the Unites States of America
This so reminds me of a recent facebook post, which I saw on my my logic lover page.
In the first box a man looks up (presumably toward heaven) and calls out asking God why didn’t he send us someone to find a cure for cancer and someone to bring about world peace … the list goes on and on.
When the man stops listing a Voice from above calls back, “I did, and more. But you aborted them.”