From NY's Cardinal Egan:
The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that
has been within its mother for 20 weeks. Please do me the favor of
looking at it carefully.

Have you any doubt that it is a human being?
If you do not have any such doubt, have you any doubt that it is an innocent human being?
If
you have no doubt about this either, have you any doubt that the
authorities in a civilized society are duty-bound to protect this
innocent human being if anyone were to wish to kill it?
If your
answer to this last query is negative, that is, if you have no doubt
that the authorities in a civilized society would be duty-bound to
protect this innocent human being if someone were to wish to kill it, I
would suggest—even insist—that there is not a lot more to be said about
the issue of abortion in our society. It is wrong, and it cannot—must
not—be tolerated.
* * *
But you
might protest that all of this is too easy. Why, you might inquire,
have I not delved into the opinion of philosophers and theologians
about the matter? And even worse: Why have I not raised the usual
questions about what a “human being” is, what a “person” is, what it
means to be “living,” and such? People who write books and articles
about abortion always concern themselves with these kinds of things.
Even the justices of the Supreme Court who gave us “Roe v. Wade”
address them. Why do I neglect philosophers and theologians? Why do I
not get into defining “human being,” “person,” “living,” and the rest?
Because, I respond, I am sound of mind and endowed with a fine set of
eyes, into which I do not believe it is well to cast sand. I looked at
the photograph, and I have no doubt about what I saw and what are the
duties of a civilized society if what I saw is in danger of being
killed by someone who wishes to kill it or, if you prefer, someone who
“chooses” to kill it. In brief: I looked, and I know what I saw.
* * *
But
what about the being that has been in its mother for only 15 weeks or
only 10? Have you photographs of that too? Yes, I do. However, I hardly
think it necessary to show them. For if we agree that the being in the
photograph printed on this page is an innocent human being, you have no
choice but to admit that it may not be legitimately killed even before
20 weeks unless you can indicate with scientific proof the point in the
development of the being before which it was other than an innocent
human being and, therefore, available to be legitimately killed. Nor
have Aristotle, Aquinas or even the most brilliant embryologists of our
era or any other era been able to do so. If there is a time when
something less than a human being in a mother morphs into a human
being, it is not a time that anyone has ever been able to identify,
though many have made guesses. However, guesses are of no help. A man
with a shotgun who decides to shoot a being that he believes may be a
human being is properly hauled before a judge. And hopefully, the judge
in question knows what a “human being” is and what the implications of
someone’s wishing to kill it are. The word “incarceration” comes to
mind.
* * *
However, we must not
stop here. The matter becomes even clearer and simpler if you obtain
from the National Geographic Society two extraordinary DVDs. One is
entitled “In the Womb” and illustrates in color and in motion the
development of one innocent human being within its mother. The other is
entitled “In the Womb—Multiples” and illustrates in color and in motion
the development of two innocent human beings—twin boys—within their
mother. If you have ever allowed yourself to wonder, for example, what
“living” means, these two DVDs will be a great help. The one innocent
human being squirms about, waves its arms, sucks its thumb, smiles
broadly and even yawns; and the two innocent human beings do all of
that and more: They fight each other. One gives his brother a kick, and
the other responds with a sock to the jaw. If you can convince yourself
that these beings are something other than innocent and living human
beings (perhaps “mere clusters of tissues,” as one national
newsmagazine suggests), you have a problem far more basic than merely
not appreciating the wrongness of abortion. And that problem is—forgive
me—self-deceit in a most extreme form.
* * *
Adolf
Hitler convinced himself and his subjects that Jews and homosexuals
were other than human beings. Joseph Stalin did the same as regards
Cossacks and Russian aristocrats. And this despite the fact that Hitler
and his subjects had seen both Jews and homosexuals with their own
eyes, and Stalin and his subjects had seen both Cossacks and Russian
aristocrats with theirs. Happily, there are few today who would
hesitate to condemn in the roundest terms the self-deceit of Hitler,
Stalin or even their subjects to the extent that their subjects could
have done something to end the madness and protect living, innocent
human beings.
It is high time to stop pretending that we
do not know what this nation of ours is allowing—and approving—with the
killing each year of more than 1,600,000 innocent human beings within
their mothers. We know full well that to kill what is clearly seen to be an innocent human being or what cannot be proved
to be other than an innocent human being is as wrong as wrong gets. Nor
can we honorably cover our shame (1) by appealing to the thoughts of
Aristotle or Aquinas on the subject, inasmuch as we are all well aware
that their understanding of matters embryological was hopelessly
mistaken, (2) by suggesting that “killing” and “choosing to kill” are
somehow distinct ethically, morally or criminally, (3) by feigning
ignorance of the meaning of “human being,” “person,” “living,” and
such, (4) by maintaining that among the acts covered by the right to
privacy is the act of killing an innocent human being, and (5) by
claiming that the being within the mother is “part” of the mother, so
as to sustain the oft-repeated slogan that a mother may kill or
authorize the killing of the being within her “because she is free to
do as she wishes with her own body.”
* * *
One
day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United
States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the
center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my
judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings
within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved
by the Supreme Court in the “Dred Scott Decision” in the 19th century,
and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in
the 20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness
of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that
wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it intensifies it.
Do me a
favor. Look at the photograph again. Look and decide with honesty and
decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of
“legalized” abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look,
and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.
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