October 26, 2012 (Unmaskingchoice.ca) – Many pro-life leaders have often commented with frustration on the disparity between the passion of those who work within the movement, and the apathy of the population at large that the movement struggles to reach. In order to defeat the Culture of Death, the pro-life movement must activate the large swathes of the public who assert that they are pro-life—but who do not feel the urge to speak out, take action, or otherwise assist the pro-life movement.
There is a simple reason for this, and a very erroneous one: most people do not feel that the Culture of Death will have any impact on them. “I am against abortion and would never have one,” they rationalize, “And that’s clearly enough. Abortion and the Culture of Death will never personally affect me, and therefore I have no compelling reason to fight it.”
This dangerous view is the most significant factor inhibiting the success of the pro-life movement today, and one that has had devastating consequences.
First, briefly, there is a concept that noted author and conservative commentator Mark Steyn calls “Demography is Destiny”—in other words, a nation that kills its offspring is a nation in the most fundamental sense without a future. Wonder why nations are collapsing under the weight of massive debt and deficit because revenues are drying up? Well, if you kill off huge numbers of your future taxpayers through abortion, it cannot be much of a surprise when there are enormous numbers of elderly people needing health care and other services, while there are an increasingly shrinking number of young people entering the work force. With abortion having been legal and prevalent in most countries for decades, young people are, in essence, survivors.
The next time you shake your head at decades-old programs that are now proving unsustainable, you may want to re-think the idea that abortion and the Culture of Death do not affect you. It’s affecting you, right now.
Aside from what should be the obvious impact abortion has on the intrinsic functioning of a nation and everything from its economy, immigration patterns, and debt levels, there is a far more sinister way the Culture of Death can have a direct impact on you personally—and one you may not even have realized.
When human life is downgraded by abortion—essentially discrimination based on age and nothing more—the door has been opened to judge human value based on any other polemically arguable characteristic. In China, 37 million baby girls have been lost in what even The Economist is calling a gendercide. Across Western Civilization, the vast majority of children with Down Syndrome or other disabilities are being butchered in the womb. And now the debate surrounding euthanasia continually rears its ugly head—in Canada, the United States, and across Europe.
Dr. Margaret Somerville, Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law of McGill University, recently revealed how in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal for over thirty years, “some elderly Dutch people are afraid to go to their own hospitals, because they fear being euthanized—and that some are crossing the border to go into the German hospitals, where, as a result of the Nazi legacy, euthanasia is rejected.”
Pastor Martin Niemoller was a German pastor who was thrown into a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War for opposing Adolf Hitler. He once made a famous statement that resonates ever more loudly today:
First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
What prophetic words. This is the situation that many elderly people in the Netherlands and, we fear, in any nation where euthanasia begins to take hold, are beginning to face.
First they came for the pre-born, and I did not speak out, because I was born.
Then they came for the disabled in the womb, but I did not speak out, because I was not disabled.
And when I was elderly and sick and the doctor approached me in the hospital, there was no one left to speak out for me.
The battle for the lives of the pre-born and against the Culture of Death is one that is imminent, and one that the very survival of our nations depends on. We cannot help but wonder if the situation in the Netherlands might have been different if people had stood up and with a unified voice rejected the downgrading of human life. They did not realize what a Pandora’s Box had been opened—until it was too late. They permitted the Culture of Death to flourish, and when it finally came for them, there was no one left to speak up.
Do not be fooled by beautiful words and moving catchphrases such as “women’s right to choose,” or “every child a wanted child,” or “right to die”—insidious words that drip with the blood of millions of innocents and represent the shattered lives of all involved. Do not be fooled into thinking that the beast we have allowed out of its cage will never turn on you. Do not be fooled into thinking that the Culture of Death can be contained, and that you are safe.
How high must the corpses pile up before we say enough? Join with us, and together we can EndtheKilling!
Reprinted with permission from Unmaskingchoice.ca