Essay Two: The Right to Life
Chapter Three: "We Must use Our Eyes"
If you don't read any other part of this book, read this chapter. This chapter changed my life! So here's a summary of its goodness, which is not nearly rich enough.
The decision of abortion begins with the choice not to look at the baby. Hence the world hides its existence with words like fetus of zygote. They choose not to see the other because if they were to look at him, the unique and unrepeatable life would make demands on their liberty.
In their suffering they turn away from humanity. When it is in our suffering that we may truly answer the question "Who am I?" For example it was after Christ had been scourged that pilot cried "Ecce Homo" or "Behold the man." (John 19:5) As discovered in metaphysics: man is, the baby is (exists), necessarily his dignity also exists. (Metaphysics: the philosophical study that is concerned with the basic causes and nature of things)
Affirming this dignity begins when we affirm our own dignity. In the security of this knowledge we can truly look at the other in a way that affirms them and allows them to be free. When I see man as a thing, I forget my dignity and his.
The context for this respect for life comes from faith in creation. That each man is created in the image of God. In this way Christianity is a remembrance of that look of love from the Father upon humanity. Therefore the task of announcing the dignity of man falls on those who see man in his dignity. The Christian is among the world the life which animates it, as the soul with the body. In affirming the dignity of others, while at the same time loving those who hate you and rising above the flesh, the Christian can purify the world and its dignity.
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