Equality Under the Law in a Culture of Life

This is the conclusion from my first talk for the Newman Club: "The Gift of Life: Abortion, Euthanasia and the Death Penalty". I think I did borrow at least some parts verbatim from other's articles and wove them into my own, particularly at the end, but I did not reference them. Not quite the best start for my new method :D, but it shall have to do.

Conclusion

The Church asserts that one cannot argue for any right to kill as a basic right of human beings and certainly not as a basis for any claim to universal human rights. Thus, a woman’s right to effectively kill her child cannot, by its very definition, serve as a basis for women’s rights. Doing so maligns and destroys the dignity of the most weak, vulnerable members of our society.

I purposely have waited till now to mention one clause of the Catechism’s remarks about abortion because I thought it was so apt and brought out something so profound that ties all of these issues together:

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law.

Thus, these matters are not just about trying to insert “religious morality” into the civil state. A rational analysis in light of faith illustrates that by legalizing abortion, euthanasia and [in most instances] the death penalty, America is acting in grave contrast to its own ideals of equality. The result is the rule of the strong over the weak, who are counted as less than equal citizens under the law. This results in the mentality known as the “Culture of Death” that John Paul II has famously defined.

In contrast, Jesus’ ministry, from the Catholic perspective, is completely counter-cultural to modern mentality’s culture of death. He taught that suffering was beneficial, important, vital, full of dignity. Because it is through suffering, that we come to learn our own humility before God and our own connection to God.

As the Beatitudes speak, the meek will inherit the land, not the strong. Not the rich, the proud, the ones in control – but the weak, the defenseless, and the humble.

As a society, we often associate what is “receptive” (traditionally, a feminine trait) with being weak – children who depend on the mothers body for growth, the ill who depend on compassion and medical care, the criminal who depend on society’s containment so they do not injure themselves or others – society often looks upon all these people not as gifts, but as burdens. We are having more and more trouble appreciating and protecting them, and esteeming them precisely as receivers – acknowledging their indispensable part in the very real process of discovering and realizing ourselves as gifts from God, by God, and for God.