Essay Two - Chapter Two: Christianity and the Crisis of Culture

Essay Two: The Right to Life

Chapter Two: The Law of the Jungle, the Rule of the Law

Without the ability to come to a basic moral understanding, the foundations of a healthy society cannot stand. The current mode, which society bases its political and social decisions puts the freedom of expression above the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

Through this gaze the right to an abortion is invoked through the liberty of the woman, man and society. The woman has her right to her professional work, the safeguarding of her reputation and a standard of life. The man has the right to his lifestyle, pursuit of his career and the enjoyment of the fruits of his labor. And for society, it has the right to control numerical population, guarantee the prosperity of its citizens and the management of resources. 

Nevertheless exercising these rights leads to the detriment of a life. The rights of some are affirmed at the cost of the rights of another. This leads to the proof that to exercise the right to an abortion is in support of the mindset that laws are related to power and that laws protect the most powerful. This implication poses a threat to authentic democracy. 

So in saying abortion is a right negates that all men are created equal and that it is a profound iniquity when the rights of some prevail over the rights of others. In fact, it negates that human rights belong to man by nature: fundamentally, the right to life. 

"A state that claims the prerogative of defining who is and who is not the subject of rights consequently accepts that some persons have the right to violate the fundamental right to life of other persons, which contradicts the democratic ideal. When it accepts that the rights of the weakest may be violated, it also accepts that the law of the jungle prevails over the rule of the law." (p64) 

Essay Two - Chapter One: Christianity and the Crisis of Culture

Essay Two: The Right to Life

Chapter One: Why we must not Give up the Fight

"What is man that you should be mindful of him? Mortal man, that you keep him in mind?" (Psalm 8:4)

The question of the right to life for life that has been conceived and not yet born is a decisive question. To present all the seemingly logical reasons why the problem of abortion ought not be taken so seriously, or even fought over is to neglect the fundamental element that builds our societies: man. If you are not beginning an argument by first going to its source, then all philosophies and ideals founded on that argument are vain-glory. 

There are those who despair of a solution and remain on a superficial level. Siting responses such as:

• The legal approval of abortion has not changed much of our private lives or the life of society. 
• Each can act in accordance with his conscience. 
• A woman who doesn't want an abortion isn't compelled to have one. 
• Women who have abortions would have had them even if it were illegal, and this way they at least have medical attention.

Man's very existence is a gift. So if a man exists he ought to be mindful of his own frail mortality. To have a society ordered by justice would begin with this concrete truth. Man is mortal. So to deal deathly blows upon those conceived in the womb, is not only filled with the basest form of injustice, but is the weapon by which "man loses his own identity." (p60) 

There are many passages where God stakes his claim on man as made in His image. Giving each man his worth and dignity. This inalienable dignity of man made in the image of God sets us apart from the rest of creation. The attack on the right to life is also an attack on the dignity of man.