During a Sunday visit to Facebook (I'm fasting from it for Lent except on Sundays) I spotted a friend's post that began as follows:
"Question: why aren't more people talking about repealing the 2nd Amendment? That's really what this country needs. ..."
My hurried response - I was about to sign off from Facebook for a week - was:
"Important topic - certainly reasonable limits on types of guns and on who can buy them make sense - but what about an objective discussion of overturning Roe V Wade and thereby saving hundreds of thousands of lives?. Thanks to advances in science when it comes to the unborn we now know far more than what they knew back in 1973, so why aren't more people talking rationally about that?"
I could have said more. For example, just to be nit-picky, there are many people calling for repealing the Second Amendment and doing so for many years now.
I don't know all the responses to my comment - I'm off Facebook today - but I can imagine many will be about mixing of issues - gun violence and abortion - and defending legal abortion.
But I see the two issues as related. They are both life issues. Both are a reflection of the violence in our culture, and of the idea that one way to deal with problems is through violence rather than seek healing or accept responsibility. Indeed, there are some who say abortion is one of the root causes of the increased violence in our society that we've seen in recent years. (Keeping in mind, of course, that our history is full of violence, sometimes even greater than what we see now in terms of crime, murder, and riots, just to name a few examples.)
St. Teresa of Calcutta observed, "The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want." She also noted, "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?"
I think she is right on target here. Gun violence and abortion are both parts of the what Pope St. John Paul II described as the "culture of death."
(Interestingly, reporter Becky Griffin gave the link a different spin, tweeting, “Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong,” Even some pro-choicers responded to that one negatively!)
My second point was about the scale of violence. The killing of 17 in the Florida school was horrible. All homicides are horrible. According to FBI statistics, in 2015, there were just under 16,000 homicides nationwide, approximately 70 percent of which involved guns - about 11,200. Yet that same year just over 900,000 abortions took place - that's more than 50 times the number of people killed by murder that year, and 80 times the number killed by guns. Why aren't people more upset about that? And while there are some pro-lifers who would favor repealing the Second Amendment, or would support more gun control, I get the sense that many of the people speaking up for those positions are also pro-choice - a seeming inconsistency. If you are opposed to the murder of innocent human beings by one method why would you not be opposed to it by a method that claims many times more lives?
As for the Roe decision, it was terribly flawed, based on incomplete and distorted "science." We now know so much more, and we are aware of the forces that helped to push it through. Supreme Court decisions have been reversed before, so it's not a reach to say it could happen again. Indeed, it's far more likely than repealing an amendment to the Constitution (though that has happened before).
What this country really needs is honestly and objectively to examine the root causes of the brokenness and violence that lead to some people thinking using guns or aborting babies are somehow appropriate responses to problems.
Pax et bonum
I could have said more. For example, just to be nit-picky, there are many people calling for repealing the Second Amendment and doing so for many years now.
I don't know all the responses to my comment - I'm off Facebook today - but I can imagine many will be about mixing of issues - gun violence and abortion - and defending legal abortion.
But I see the two issues as related. They are both life issues. Both are a reflection of the violence in our culture, and of the idea that one way to deal with problems is through violence rather than seek healing or accept responsibility. Indeed, there are some who say abortion is one of the root causes of the increased violence in our society that we've seen in recent years. (Keeping in mind, of course, that our history is full of violence, sometimes even greater than what we see now in terms of crime, murder, and riots, just to name a few examples.)
St. Teresa of Calcutta observed, "The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want." She also noted, "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?"
I think she is right on target here. Gun violence and abortion are both parts of the what Pope St. John Paul II described as the "culture of death."
(Interestingly, reporter Becky Griffin gave the link a different spin, tweeting, “Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong,” Even some pro-choicers responded to that one negatively!)
My second point was about the scale of violence. The killing of 17 in the Florida school was horrible. All homicides are horrible. According to FBI statistics, in 2015, there were just under 16,000 homicides nationwide, approximately 70 percent of which involved guns - about 11,200. Yet that same year just over 900,000 abortions took place - that's more than 50 times the number of people killed by murder that year, and 80 times the number killed by guns. Why aren't people more upset about that? And while there are some pro-lifers who would favor repealing the Second Amendment, or would support more gun control, I get the sense that many of the people speaking up for those positions are also pro-choice - a seeming inconsistency. If you are opposed to the murder of innocent human beings by one method why would you not be opposed to it by a method that claims many times more lives?
As for the Roe decision, it was terribly flawed, based on incomplete and distorted "science." We now know so much more, and we are aware of the forces that helped to push it through. Supreme Court decisions have been reversed before, so it's not a reach to say it could happen again. Indeed, it's far more likely than repealing an amendment to the Constitution (though that has happened before).
What this country really needs is honestly and objectively to examine the root causes of the brokenness and violence that lead to some people thinking using guns or aborting babies are somehow appropriate responses to problems.
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