Racist Roots of Abortion – Theological Reflection

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The first step to destroying a people is to dehumanize them. The slaves were not defined as people in the early 1800’s, so it was okay to use them and abuse them, to own them as cattle. Negroes were not human. In Nazi Germany, Hitler’s first step in the persecution of the Jews was to define them as sub-human; to create a separation between classes that made identification with their humanity difficult. Once that separation was established in the minds of the people, the holocaust was a logical outcome. By the way, the most distorted rhetoric of the pro-choice movement is that Adolph Hitler was against abortion. While it is true that Hitler did forbid abortions among Aryan stock because he wished to produce a Master Race, he instituted a policy of forced abortions against inferior races such as Jews, Poles, and various Slavs in Germany and in his conquered countries. Abortion was simply one of his tools to promote a selective breeding campaign on his chattel.

Today, although fetus, in Latin, means “young child,” we see the same dehumanizing process. When is a child a child? At 9 months? at 8? at 7? Planned Parenthood and Feminist groups advocate unrestricted abortions through the 9th month. That is one of the principles of FOCA (the Freedom of Choice Act), and a key plank of the Clinton/Gore Campaign. As a medical doctor, you know better; by 7 months there is no scientific debate as to its viability. It is a human being not a blob of tissue. Yet for some reason, its humanity is not important. And far from being truly “pro-choice,” these same groups are prime advocates of the anti-choice polices of forced abortions in non-white, third world countries, like China. To me, this is not true choice, but a veiled hatred of life, with continuing racist motivations. But when you deny the humanity of the child, all else is possible.

By the way, the one sin that God would not forgive the nation of Israel, and the primary reason that He destined them for slaughter and exile to Babylon, was because of Judah’s participation in and condoning of child sacrifice: 2 Kings 21:6, 16; 2 Kings 23:24-27 (the story of Manassah and Josiah).

But in the final analysis, right and wrong are not a matter of opinion. And morals are not determined by majority vote. A majority of people in Germany voted in Adolph Hitler and approved of his racist and war like policies. But the majority consensus was an evil that had finally to be restrained through force of arms. A majority did not consider slavery an evil in 1850; but man’s opinion did not change truth or justice. If there is a God in heaven, then the only thing that really matters is what he considers right and wrong. If the unborn are children to him, then abortion is murder in his eyes, and all man’s opinions to the contrary only stink before him and are nothing more than a rationalization for great evil.

But if there is no God in heaven, then all our protestations to virtue and to right and wrong are only so much striving after the wind. For then there is neither Ultimate Truth nor a Judge who is able to weigh the merits and evils of human affairs; it is only survival of the fittest. Who then is to say that my set of values is right and another’s wrong? Who then is to say that Jews and Christians are not a sub- species of humans fit for persecution and slaughter? Who is to say that in this world of relative and subjective truth that the Neo-Nazi’s in Germany are not the future leaders of the human race? That conclusion points up the inherent problems of cultural relativism and using the ethic of individual rights as the touchstone of the moral order. We can see that this appeal to my wants verses yours soon degenerates into a swamp of competing self-interests, legalism, and eventually into ethnic striving as one group pits its interests against another, as in Serbia today.

Thomas Jefferson put it well; “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.” – From the Memorial, and the full text of one quote from Query 18.

If there is a God in heaven, a God who is consistent with the Scriptures as we have received them in our faiths, then perhaps in our pursuit of individual rights, we have pitted ourselves against God’s right and his moral order. Then what makes us think that God will allow a nation to prosper that slaughters its own children? It is interesting to note that Bill Clinton graphs the economic decline of real family incomes beginning in 1973, the year of the legalization of abortion. It is also the year of the first Arab oil embargo. If God is judging our nation, then no amount of wisdom and technical expertise will solve our economic and social situation. Without repentance, there will be no healing of our land.(see 2 Chronicles 7:11-14, God’s response to Solomon after the building of the Temple). And economic judgment on our land has just begun. If there is no God in heaven, then I guess it doesn’t matter; all we can do is hope that Neo-Nazis do not gain power here in the U. S. and abroad. And hope is a pitiful thing if that is all we have.