January 4, 2012 (Unmaskingchoice.ca) – One of the most common questions we as pro-lifers get asked is why we have chosen to engage in full-time pro-life work. Of all the career paths to choose, why choose to take a job that consists of long hours, a low salary, and antipathy from the general public? Why this issue? Why this cause?
We have all struggled with this question in our own way, including myself. In university, I was involved with a number of causes, from federal politics to Israel advocacy. I still hold strong opinions on these issues, and had opportunities to engage in full-time work surrounding these issues as well. Over four years of university, however, I found myself drawn to the pro-life movement time and time again—drawn to the fundamental issues of justice and human rights.
We live in an age of many “causes,” and these are trumpeted with such vigour and hysterical rhetoric that it is increasingly difficult to convey in words the import and gravity of an issue. Both the right and the left have adopted such a screechy tone that when they warn the masses of another impending Armageddon, they get nothing but a yawn. They haven’t realized it, perhaps, but both sides of the political spectrum are being treated in much the same manner as the unfortunate pastor Harold Camping, who repeatedly predicted the end of the world in 2011: When you consistently say the sky is falling with no results, people will begin to ignore you.
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In this new ideological age, where it seems that great and magnificent causes of our century have been replaced by a buffet of tempests in teacups, moral terminology is consistently applied to morally neutral debates such as tax cuts, tax hikes, healthcare, and forms of governance. This, ironically, is one of the reasons that the left and the right cannot compromise on anything: Once you have convinced your base that something is not only flawed, but fundamentally evil, you cannot give an inch unless you would like risk the appearance of having made a pact with the Devil. It’s almost hard not to become cynical.
It is this situation that drew me into the pro-life fight. I do have my opinions on topics such as universal healthcare, systems of taxation, and whether or not we should have a constitutional monarchy. Almost everyone does. But I will say that these topics are not a matter of good versus evil. Abortion, the systematic decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment of a tiny human being, is evil. It is a destroyer of the innocents. It is a horrific and brutal procedure that maims, shatters and kills. It is an evil that must end. It is an evil so insidious that its abolition should take precedence over the political squabbles that otherwise dominate our time.
This is why I have thrown my lot in with the pro-life movement. There are many debates in our society today. The majority of them are debates worth having. Some of them even have moral implications that deserve our utmost attention. However, the abortion debate deals with a genocide happening in our own towns and cities. The sewers of our cities, as Gregg Cunningham says, run red with the blood of pre-born children. The smoke of abortion clinic crematoriums hangs over the houses of you and me, a silent testimony to an apathy that has gone on far too long. Even those of us who have never faced the situation and would never make that tragic choice cannot emulate Pontius Pilate and wash our hands of innocent blood. Above the cacophony of squabbling ideologies, a silent scream calls for our aid.
This is why I have chosen to fight for my pre-born neighbours. Join with us. Together, we can EndtheKilling.
Reprinted with permission from Unmaskingchoice.ca