Debunking false narratives on Pro-life Issues…
Newsroom (April 18, 2022, 9:20 PM, Gaudium Press) One of the fallacies to be debunked when talking about abortion is the presentation of this as a strictly religious and Catholic moral issue.
In this way, it is fundamental to recognize that every human life is a gift and carries with it elements of uniqueness, particularity, deserving for itself, respect and support – regardless of the existence of religious faith.
According to Leite & Kreibich (2019), each individual who comes into the world has their own unique way and carries with them a personal mark, constituting their central characteristic. This being the uniqueness of each person, it becomes useless to resort to texts or religious arguments to understand that every human person at birth brings with them something special, a purpose, which can be discovered, developed, and bear fruit for society.
Those lives that have already discovered their purpose – in this case, we, as individual agents and organized society – should make use of all possible resources to welcome new human lives, especially during the beginning of their existence. Providing care, affection, and ensuring a happy waiting period is a task that calls for gratitude.
As a Catholic Church, the CNBB, since November 1999, has consecrated October 8th as the National Day of the Unborn, reminding us of the mission, as a society, not to fail in our duty to promote and care for life, especially at its beginning, a phase in which more care is essential.
A theme as complex as abortion cannot be approached in a superficial or partial way but requires deeper philosophical and ethical clarifications
The need to ask important questions
According to Martins (2018), one of the greatest Brazilian jurists and constitutionalists, one should take a good look at a very well-known premise: that the woman owns her body and, therefore, can freely arbitrate over it!
This expression, which has become a cliché nowadays, is an argument contrary to biology because, at the moment of conception, the woman’s entire body becomes directed by the zygote, which imposes its natural rules until birth, that is, since conception, this new being has the same right to life, which its mother already enjoys.
The same Martins (2018) concludes that when a society dangerously advances in its level of selfishness, hedonism as a way of life becomes the rule and project of life. Everything becomes relativized!
Also, when social media propagate and stimulate the search for growth, constant and unlimited enjoyment, the sense of family is easily lost, and respect for human life becomes obsolete, relegated to a second or third plane.
We find ourselves facing the silent, organized and growing increase of the “naturalization and normalization” of abortion practices in Europe, in recent years in Argentina, and other Latin American countries, among them Colombia, which a few days ago, through the constitutional court (equivalent to our STF) decriminalized abortion up to the sixth month of pregnancy. How sad! Faced with this criminal act against a defenceless innocent, we could ask at least four important questions:
1) Why are there so many groups (ONGS) defending the environment, and the preservation of nature, while the human being, present in the womb of a woman, totally defenceless, is the target of so much neglect and hatred?
2) Why do these same activists, ecologists, environmentalists, leftists, progressives, who defend with so much passion the rights of a tree, an entire forest, sea turtles, the golden lion tamarin, and other animals, manage, at the same time, to be the greatest heralds of the legalization of intrauterine murder? Why the double standard? Why protect some and annihilate human life?
3) Why are deforestation practices so serious, while abortion, which is the murder of an innocent, seems so small, trivial, naturalized and without much relevance? Is the human species not at risk of becoming extinct?
4) If it is so serious, for example, to destroy sea turtle eggs on the coast of Sergipe, why is it not equally serious to take the life of a defenceless child in its mother’s womb, who can do nothing to defend itself?
Many other questions, perhaps even more relevant, can be raised so that a healthy debate involving the problem of pregnancy termination becomes possible.
Contemplating and learning to ask questions with and like Jesus!
Regarding this theme of “defence of life in its beginnings”, let’s turn to the example of the Master of teachers, who, without appealing to his divine authority, always acted as a true philosopher, and who, when faced with difficult situations, knew how to offer answers that still today silence and speak deep in the heart of every person of goodwill.
I am particularly charmed by the attitude of Jesus that, when faced with some questioning, which subtly or openly intended to put him in contradiction, he always used to return the questioning, turning the questioners into questioned ones. Let’s look at some of these strategies of Jesus, recorded in the canonical Gospels.
1) Once, when Jesus was driving the peddlers out of the temple, the priests and elders of the people angrily asked him, “By what authority do you do these things?” (Mt 21:23). Instead of immediately answering such an interrogation, Jesus returned them the following question, “John’s baptism where did it come from: from heaven or from men?” (Mt 21:25). They thought to themselves, “If we answer from heaven, he will say, ‘Why did you not believe in him? If we answer from men, we are afraid of the crowd, for they all regarded John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know. To which he also replied, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things” (Mt 21:25-27).
2) On another occasion, certain leaders asked Jesus about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of paying tribute to Caesar.
Seeing the veiled evil of the question (Mt 22:15), He did not answer them immediately either, but only asked them the following question: “Whose image and inscription is this? The interrogators, now questioned, answered: Caesar’s. Taking advantage of their answer, Jesus declared: “Return therefore what is Caesar’s to Caesar, and what is God’s to God” (Mt 22:21).
3) One day, a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought before him and asked, in order to test and accuse him (Jn 8:6), whether or not they should stone him, as prescribed in the Law of Moses. Jesus, again, did not answer right away, but simply stepped back a little, leaned over and began to write with his finger on the ground.
This gesture by Jesus denoted that He was not very interested in answering such an inquiry, but as they vehemently insisted, He stood up and asked, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her!” (Jn 8:7). This question from the Divine Master made the accusers become the accused, and the judges, the judged.
These individuals, feeling judged and condemned by themselves, went out one after the other, beginning with the elders (Jn 8:9). How not to be charmed and inspired by the person and attitude of Jesus, the Divine Teacher from Nazareth?
Times change, but the human being remains the same!
Establishing a serious and productive dialogue on the theme of the defence of life and the consequent disapproval of any and all practices of death – which, in a nutshell, will always be the murder of a fragile and defenceless human being – has become increasingly difficult, because international institutions, national groups, individuals linked to such organizations or volunteers lacking knowledge are militant abortionists and, not infrequently, intolerant.
Through the new forms of social communication, the number of misinformation grows, half-truths are duplicated, and the “number of experts” increases exponentially, trivializing the understanding of the value and dignity of the human being who lies alive in a womb.
Faced with this impasse, we Catholics, as an ecclesial institution, or as private entities, must be defenders of life, opposed to abortion, and have the courage to ask some uncomfortable questions to these abortionist individuals and groups, which continue to gain space, strength, and notoriety.
In my opinion, some questions should be asked to those who defend the interruption of intrauterine life. I propose to you, dear reader, a real case, which unfortunately occurs very often, and what we could argue against this same occurrence. Please, follow us:
1) What and how to act in front of a young girl, an underage, victim of rape? Should this young woman be forced to be the mother of a child she did not want?
This complex case, sad for sure, can make us think and awaken in us the following considerations:
a) Mother, this young woman is already, because her psyche and biological factors are already acting in the moulds of motherhood!
b) We can ask those who are stimulating this young woman to have an abortion if it is less aggressive for her to be the mother of a living or dead child?
c) We can also ask ourselves if it is fair to take the baby’s life for the benefit of the mother?
d) What benefit will this young woman actually receive if she has an abortion?
e) Why is the life of the baby in the womb less important than the life of the young mother?
f) In this situation, who is the most defenceless, the mother who was raped or the fetus that is about to be killed?
g) Why does the aggressor, in this case, the one who committed rape, not even figure as someone who should be punished for such a repulsive act?
h) And shouldn’t the State, to which we pay taxes that go to the security forces for our protection, be held responsible for the rape of a young girl?
j) Why does the baby, who is already a human being, who was not even consulted, become the great villain of the story?
i) Why is the most innocent and vulnerable punished with the death penalty?
m) Why not guarantee the young woman the possibility of carrying the pregnancy forward, and after the birth, she can decide for herself, with more tranquillity and reason, if she wants to keep the child or send it for adoption?
These and other, typically rational, questions should be listed so that a transparent and honest dialogue on the abortion issue can be understood in its various nuances and variables. As we well know, this is a difficult, broad, and long topic. Since it is neither possible nor pertinent to go on, let us move on to the final questions.
Encouraging abortion or preserving life
Faced with such a difficult issue as the murder of an innocent person (abortion), first of all, we need to question, philosophize, make use of rationality, self-analyze, and develop more encompassing premises, free of ideologies and broad.
Something that also needs to accompany this debate should be not to appeal to subjectivist, rhetorical arguments, always anchored in emotiveness, which usually attracts attention and commotion, but which removes objective reality from the discussion.
Since we have started and presented some uncomfortable questions to abortion advocates, we will also close this short article with the following questions:
1) If abortion practices belong to the sphere of public health, does this mean that pregnancy is an illness?
2) To what extent is having an abortion something strictly personal, and is it up to the mother alone to decide on the murder of an innocent?
3) Why is it that only the non-aborted have so much interest in this problem? That is, can only we, living people who have not been aborted, promote and encourage abortions?
4) If each of us non-abortees received care and protection when we were extremely vulnerable, why can’t we surround newborns with care and protection?
These and other questions rationally lead us to the assertion that life should be preserved from conception until its natural sunset.
Thank you very much for reading!
By Father Arilço Chaves Nantes
Compiled by Zephania Gangl
