The Republican presidential debate from a few weeks ago was largely devoid of any significant moment. There was, however, one candidate that actually said something quite profound about the future of our country. Discussing his stance on abortion, Florida Senator Marco Rubio noted, “I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws…future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live”.
Barbarians. We will be seen as barbarians. Tell it like it is, Senator Rubio!
The truth is, he’s absolutely correct. I have to completely agree with Senator Rubio, and not just because abortion is an abhorrent, genocidal, barbaric assault on human life and dignity, though it certainly is all those things. He is correct also because through all of history, pretty much every single major human rights injustice and violation is looked back on with condemnation. From slavery and different forms of oppression to Hitler’s Germany to Stalin’s Russia, we don’t look back and admire heinous acts of injustice against entire groups of people. Rather, we look back on such injustices and ask how something so barbaric and insane could have taken place right under the eyes of everyday citizens. We wonder how nobody could have stood up and stopped these runaway trains of evil before they got out of control. At the very least, we are thankful that civilization has progressed enough that we no longer have to worry about certain groups of people being dominated or exterminated by other groups of people.
Except abortion. Abortion is a practice by which an entire population is stripped of the right to live and exists on the whims of whether each person is wanted by their mother or not. Certainly not all children are aborted, and some mothers do allow their children to live. But unborn children are given virtually no protections, no safeguards against the subjective preferences of their mothers, and no value until the mother decides to bestow it. Abortion is the greatest human rights injustice of our time, a practice by which living, growing human beings are extinguished inside their mothers’ wombs in the name of “freedom” and “women’s rights”. I feel fairly confident that Senator Rubio is correct, and that future generations will look back at us, shaking their collective heads and wondering how we let this happen.
On the flip side, if I am wrong and Senator Rubio is incorrect, it means that we will have descended even further into a culture of death and destruction. If future generations do not see us as barbaric, that will mean that things have gotten worse, perhaps so bad that those of us who stand up for life will no longer be around anymore. I refuse to accept that this will happen, and I am filled with hope about the generation of people my age and younger who are, by and large, anti-abortion. We understand that freedom doesn’t mean the right to destroy our offspring in the womb. We understand the importance of defending those among us who are the most innocent and defenseless. I feel confident that our society will eventually come to its senses and realize that we will never be a great country again unless we learn to protect and guard the lives of all of our citizens.
What Is a Barbarian?
Anyway, a barbarian is, of course, someone who engages in barbaric practices. After examining the definition of barbaric, it’s clear that abortion fits the description perfectly.
Barbaric: adj, savagely cruel, exceedingly brutal
It’s not all that often that we have to qualify the definition of a word using adverbs to make it stronger. A barbaric practice is not just cruel, it’s savagely cruel; it’s not just brutal, it’s exceedingly brutal. We have to use adverbs just to get the idea of how cruel and brutal a barbaric practice is.
In order to see the barbarism in abortion, we need to look no further than the abortion procedures themselves and what remains after they are completed.
For the sake of prudence, I’m going to warn you to skip the next two paragraphs if you are not able to stomach the details of abortion procedures. I wasn’t going to include them at all, but I think for sake of demonstrating barbarism, a couple quotes needed to be included. These are actual procedures used on women who wish to abort their offspring. There are different procedures used depending on what stage of pregnancy the woman is in, but they are all equally graphic, horrific, barbaric… and legal. So here’s a sampling of quotes taken from descriptions of different abortion procedures:
- “The suction and cutting edge dismember the baby while the hose sucks the body parts into a collection bottle.”
- “The baby’s body parts are then removed and checked to make sure that no pieces were left in the mother’s womb.”
- “The abortionist uses a forceps to grab parts of the baby (arms and legs) and then tears the baby apart. The baby’s head must be crushed in order to remove it because the skull bone has hardened by this stage in the baby’s growth.”
- “The baby breathes in, swallows the salt and dies from salt poisoning, dehydration, brain hemorrhage and convulsions. Taking nearly an hour to die, the baby’s skin is completely burned, turns red and deteriorates.
Sickening. I think those quotes effectively speak for themselves. It is a barbaric culture that allows these practices to happen each day. There’s really no point in arguing it. Can anyone tell me that those are sophisticated medical procedures that should be allowed in the name of “women’s rights”? No, that’s not women’s rights, it’s barbaric evil.
But that’s not it. It turns out that we can get an even closer look at the reality of abortion by examining the remains of aborted babies. It’s not often that we get an “insider’s view” of such things, but a few brave souls have recently offered us a glimpse.
Recently, a number of videos have emerged showing various aspects of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue donation program. I’m not really interested in trying to decipher the ins and outs of the legality of the videos, whether or not anyone is making any profit, or the motives of the organization behind the videos. What’s clear, however, is the barbarism of abortion, which is clearly on display in the videos.
The videos discuss the abortion procedures themselves, the “crunching” of body parts, and even show dish platters with aborted body parts lying around awaiting sale and dissection. Platters of aborted baby body parts. Arms and legs.
If you don’t see the barbarity of baby dismemberment, skull-crushing, limb-tearing, body burning, or brain-sucking, I don’t know what to tell you, because we will never agree on anything. If the fact that body parts need to be reassembled after an abortion to ensure that no parts are still inside the mother doesn’t bother you, there’s simply nothing left to discuss.
But anyone with a shred of decency can see that the abortion procedures are savagely cruel, exceeding brutal, and thus, barbaric. The fetal remains shown in the videos attest to the evil that happens each and every time an abortion is performed and an innocent life is taken.
And it’s happening right under our eyes. In our world, in our civilization.
The United States is among those countries with the loosest abortion laws, though the abortion advocates would have us believe otherwise. They repeatedly whine about how restrictive the laws are and what an undue burden they place on women. In reality, only about 40% of the world’s countries allow unrestricted access to abortion, and only a handful of them allow abortions as late into pregnancy as the United States does. We can’t even convince our president or our Congress to pass laws restricting abortions after the point at which unborn babies can feel pain. We literally have leaders in our country who think it’s okay to torture and kill unborn children in their mothers’ wombs. If that is not the definition of savage, cruel, and barbaric, then nothing is.
Now is a time, more than ever, when society needs to stand up for the sanctity of life. We are responsible for the most innocent and defenseless among us, and our culture has repeatedly shown for decades now that they are unwilling to step up and do it when it comes to abortion. We are willing to sit idly by and watch the barbarity of the situation unfold without doing a thing about it.
Hope for the Future
All is not lost, however. There is always hope. There are always things that can be done; hearts can change, minds can change, and light can come from darkness. But those things aren’t going to happen on their own. It’s going to take people like you and me working to make some headway in this culture of death we live in. It’s going to take some effort to build this culture of life we are so ardently striving for.
For starters, we can initiate conversations. And hey, I get it. Initiating a conversation about abortion is probably about as much fun for us as initiating a conversation about concentration camps would have been for a German dissenter in the 1940s. But there’s enough on the line here that our discomfort ought to be overshadowed by our zeal to end the injustice.
Next, we can get involved. This can happen to a greater or lesser extent, depending on our availability or what we have to offer. Some ideas include things as simple as donating to pregnancy centers or sharing ideas on social media all the way to more front-line things such as sidewalk counseling outside of an abortion center. No matter who you are, there is a place for you in the pro-life movement.
Lastly, and as always, pray. Don’t forget that God has the power to make all things new again. He alone can cast out evil and bring about healing. I think we often forget about the power of prayer and the change it can bring about. Let’s make an effort to include pregnant mothers, unborn babies, and pro-life advocates in our daily prayer. But don’t stop there. Include prayers for changes of hearts for abortionists, those who assist in the abortion industry and all abortion advocates. Pray for women who have had abortions. Pray for God’s mercy and love on everyone involved.
Prayer and action are the means by which we can change the world. Then maybe, instead of seeing us as barbarians, history will see us as the society that ended one of the greatest human injustices of all time.
24 thoughts on “We Will Be Seen As Barbarians Because Of Abortion”
I have a dream that one day all human life will be respected and treated with dignity.
Congratulations. Cullen, for a brilliant and well-reasoned article. As a nation, we are descending into barbarism and I fear that the future will exactly as you envision it. With Roe v. Wade and the recent Supreme Court decision, the Court is tampering with the biological origin of human life. However, it is also remarkable that no one in the pro-life community in the last forty tears has challenged Roe v. Wade in the courts. If no one had challenge previous Supreme Court decisions slavery, segregation and Child Labor would still be lawful, and workers would have no rights to decent wages and working conditions.
In the last 100 years, three Supreme Court decisions were overturned by action in the courts; Muller v. Oregon, which created Labor Law, United States v. Darby Lumber Company, which outlawed Child Labor and Brown vs. Board of Education which outlawed segregation.
Why has no one in the Pro-Life community challenged Roe v. Wade in the courts?
Father Clifford Stevens
Boys Town, Nebraska
Cullen, I would like to see catholic women wake up and see how the pro-choice movement has devalued their standing in the eyes of the Hierarchy. Women have less importance in the church than their grandmothers,because these holy men are fearful of the feminists who.have some good points to make ,such as an order of married priests and women deacons.but go way too far.
As a Catholic female, I don’t think women should be priests. One reason being that the Church is the Bride and priests represent Jesus, the groom… As for married priests, that’s not written law, however, I think married life would distract priests from their true calling, focusing more on worldly matters before the faith.
I agree but do we have a choice? It would be nice to have both celibate Priests who are most desired and married priests to fill the gap. I never mentioned anything about women being Priests. Please look at the future statistics for Priests in N. America. Someone needs to lead us in saving souls.
You’re right that souls need to be saved and a gap needs to be filled, but I caution compromising the faith, which is what many laxed and desperate Catholics are calling for nowadays, among other things: accept gay marriage, let’s allow for exceptions on abortion in the case of rape, etc.. This country needs more priests, but even more so, we need a strong leader. Maybe I’m ranting now, but I miss Pope Benedict XVI. He wasn’t afraid to be crystal clear on where the Church stood on such issues. Meanwhile, Pope Francis’ words are being twisted and he isn’t all that clear on where he stands on issues either, I’m sorry to say. I also haven’t heard anything from him concerning Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts and that disturbs me greatly. It hurts me to say this as I don’t like to criticize the Church, but the Pope is not a strong leader and I feel that’s where the problem lies. He is popular, but only from a laxed perspective, i.e. “it’s all good,” and “the Pope is cool”. This is not enough. We as Christians/Catholics, need to do more.
I like what you have to say and agree with most everything except compromising our faith by allowing Priests to marry. We are not compromising our faith by going back to the church Christ formed. Priests were married until the 13th century and even St. Peter was married. These holy men are waiting to be called back to serve. My heart goes out to the 1/3 of our Priests who left to marry
It’ so god to hear from a faithful catholic woman. Please pray that we will both be given the wisdom of God.
But the Early Church has also had a long-standing tradition of celibacy: St. Paul was celibate. So was Jesus Christ. And St. Peter did not re-marry. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, both Early Church Fathers, didn’t marry.
There is also a difference between a celibate priest getting married and a married man being ordained a priest. I suspect that the reason may have something to do with a celibate priest already being married to the Church, but that’s just speculation on my part. Holy Matrimony itself has theological connotations, just as every sacrament in the Church does. The Church understands celibacy and marriage to be complementary, not opposed, and she understands that chastity is required to love as Christ does, because it is the pure of heart who shall see God. Like chastity in marriage, celibacy isn’t always easy, but it is always lived by the grace of God– because the Devil hates faithfully married couples and faithful priests, and tempts us daily.
In addition, both the Eastern and Western Rites of the Catholic Church respect celibacy, even if their emphases are a little different. So even if the Latin Rite did allow married men to be ordained, it would likely follow the Eastern Rite’s example.
I don’t have a problem with married priests as such. Because we have them in the Eastern Rite, even if it’s not part of the everyday life of Latin Rite Catholics. What I do have a problem with is a disrespect for celibacy in general, the suggestion that marriage will somehow solve all of the Latin Rite’s problems, when what might be more fruitful, holistic, and capacious is talking about celibacy and Holy Matrimony in the same conversation, and not compartmentalizing the two. In the Catholic worldview, the two aren’t opposed, even if the modern world insists on pitting them against each other, the way it presumes to separate and pit against each other all kinds of things that God has joined and which no man may therefore separate. In fact, much of the Catholic conversation on the Sacraments seems to be strangely, stunningly (and illogically) fractured– not only do we not think to talk about Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony as complementary and related, but we don’t talk about the Eucharist and regular Confession as related and complementary, either.
Celibacy is a witness to the Kingdom of Heaven– where none are given in marriage, anyway. The celibate points beyond himself or herself to God, and what therefore lies beyond this world. Moreover, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration between Men and Women in the Church and in the World” wrote that it is the Catholic Church’s respect and reverence for celibacy and virginity that force us not to reduce women to an exclusively biological destiny; motherhood isn’t just biological. It is also spiritual, because man is matter and spirit, both, and not either/or. To translate, using popular parlance: the Church’s respect for celibacy and virginity is what reminds us of the spiritual aspects of reality. In not reducing everything to the material or biological, we Catholics do not disrespect women by viewing them and the vocation to motherhood merely as being “breeders” or somesuch.
In the Eastern Church, a married man may be ordained. A man who is not married before he is ordained, however, remains celibate. Monks are all celibate, and all of the bishops in the Eastern Church are primarily and usually chosen from among their number. In addition, a married man who is then ordained a priest, who is then widowed may not remarry; in fact, he is returned to the celibate state. The same or a similar discipline for married men who are ordained in the Eastern Rite, by the way, applies to permanent deacons in the Latin Rite: a permanent deacon whose wife dies cannot remarry. The Latin Rite also ordains previously married men who are widowed.
I love Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI– he was very influential in my coming back to the Church. Benedict showed me that the colorfully vibrant, reasonable, rich, profound, and lovingly warm Catholicism I’d been searching for all my life was not only possible, but exists. I see the same in Francis, only on a different level: everyday piety which, like the Catholic intellectual life of a Thomas Aquinas or a Joseph Ratzinger follows the same faith-elevated logic coming from the Logos– Jesus Christ.
I love Pope Francis also, because in the midst of reading a lot of Joseph Ratzinger’s work, I did contemplate what it would mean to put all this wonderful stuff into practice, and after a lot of prayer, it wasn’t too difficult to see the likes of Francis coming. I was very sad indeed when Benedict stepped down, not because I didn’t like Francis, but because the one person who embodied everything I’d been looking for in the Catholic faith all my life was leaving not long after I came back. Selfishly speaking, I didn’t have enough time to “enjoy” Benedict’s papacy. …one thing that really did help was reading Francis not only through Benedict, but through the lens of the Extraordinary Form. Francis coming on the scene forced me to put what Benedict had taught me into practice. So much of what Francis says keeps putting Christ at the center, where He should be. Well, if it’s indeed true that the TLM’s focus on God is way more obvious, then it shouldn’t be that hard to make that connection. In fact, “Laudato Si'” presents one heck of an opportunity for those traditionalists who are determined not to drop the ball, because the parts on beauty and the Catholic sacramental worldview are in there for a reason and cannot be excised: because LS is about the right and proper stewardship of Creation– i.e. in accordance with the things of Heaven. Utilitarianism won’t cut it. Loving one Pope (i.e. Benedict) very, very much has helped me love all of the others, too: not just Francis, but John Paul II, whom I had to rediscover, John XXIII, Paul VI, and Leo XIII.
The problem is that certain “usual” suspects have been tuning out so much of what Francis has in fact been saying, whereas they were already pretty much determined to hate Benedict XVI, especially after they could dismiss him as “God’s Rottweiler” and “Ratzi the Nazi.” Benedict, I’m sorry to say, was probably a far easier target in so many ways: Old World, traditionalist-leaning liturgically, an intellectual, introverted, slight, elegant, older (even if far more youthful, hopeful, and vibrant than so many young people), former prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which so many people call “the Inquisition” on the cheap), and German. This is not much different from being an ethnic minority, whereby everyone in the majority is quite determined to let you know that they’ve already made up their minds about who you are before you can even open your mouth. And every time we have a new Pope, there’s always this hope that the Church will “change” what the modern world demands that she change, anyway– except the modern world doesn’t seem to think to ask why the Body of Christ, Who Himself is eternal, alpha and omega, and Lord of all time should do so in the first place. Why should the Body of Christ, Who thinks with Eternity, use as a measuring stick that which is passing away? The usual euphoria and then the wailing and gnashing of teeth that follows is predictable and a waste of time. Francis is traditionally Catholic with a simple piety in everything he says. It’s just that he says it in an often disarming way. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a lot of Italian priests, and the way Francis communicates reminds me of them: personable, but no-nonsense, even to the point of being blunt; will joke around easily with you, but will never treat the faith as a joke.
Whatever one thinks about Pope Francis’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s also true that the laity has dropped the ball in so many ways: there is a legitimate lay vocation that is not served by clericalizing the laity. Those are Francis’s words, not mine, though when he said them, I wasn’t surprised. An understanding of “active participation” that means that lay people “do more stuff” around the altar at Mass is a surefire way of keeping the Catholic faith private and within four walls. Because it allows us to think that so long as we’re “participating” in that way, we’re living our faith, when our vocation as lay people is to take the Church out into the world the way that Mary did when making haste to visit Elizabeth. And certainly here in the United States, we seem to be quick to bash our bishops for their considerable failings (which are immense in some cases) and scream “the Church is ours, not theirs!” (when she belongs to Christ, not them or us), “WE are the Church!” or we equate “we, the people” with the Church– but when it comes to the hard costs of discipleship, we scream “Let Father Do It!” It is important that we Catholics in America understand that the Church is mission, and she does not express herself and her mission in the language of the Protestant Reformation or/and the American Revolution.
A non-Catholic friend of mine, when we were once discussing Catholicism and B16, noted that where mainstream opinion was concerned, Benedict “didn’t stand a chance.” Especially in our anti-intellectual age, it’s true that even in the Church– like in many suburban American parishes, for example– Benedict gets dismissed as “too lofty” and “over intellectual.” So much for fides et ratio: no, Catholicism is “religion,” and Everybody Knows that having faith means chucking your brains out the window (even if the Church’s Magisterium teaches otherwise). As if Benedict had no heart and no warmth, when anyone who has ever read him and read him carefully knows how gently penetrating and penetratingly gentle he is. That combination of humility and brilliance is there in everything he’s written, and it’s rare.
And certainly here in the United States, we seem to be quick to bash our
bishops for their considerable failings (which are immense in some cases) and scream “the Church is ours, not theirs!”
And I can still see the dimming visages of the Sisters of Notre Dame pointing
to us kids, sitting straight up with our hands folded as she chanted “Don’t
ever forget that YOU are the church, you are the body of Christ”; this image
of all Catholicism, with eyes and ears, hands and feet and intellect and reason unknown in past ages. So, it is no wonder then how trads and orthodox who
see the ever fixed and rigid points of Doctrine and Tradition as unchanging,
do fail to see that a good part of the Church, Body of Christ, are using those
eyes to see a better Catholicism, ears to quietly hear the Holy Spirit so as to
better celebrate reason and intellect … all this, while the feet walk away from what cannot change but should.
James- Well said!
Sarah Harding
Thank you.
Sarah – we already have married priests in the Catholic Church — come check out the Byzantine rite. The tradition of married priests goes back hundreds of years and is shared by our Orthodox brethren. We are as Catholic as the pope. Better yet, the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom has not been degraded by modernist inventions that you may see elsewhere — it is essentially unchanged over the last millennia.
Jeff, my concern is the shortage of priests in the U.S. I went to a scheduled Mass 10 times within the year, only to find there was no Priest available and we would have a communion service. Our church of 750 families had to merge. We have a Priest from India now. We love him but most can’t understand him.
We need to bring back the 1/3 of Priests who left to marry so our people can be served.
Sarah – I understand your frustrations completely. We not only have a quantity issue regarding priests, but more importantly, we have a qualitative issue; many priests don’t seem to have the ability or moral courage to tell the truth about the nature, devastation and consequences of sin. God seems to be allowing us to feel the repercussions of a couple generations of contraception. I’m not sure that contracepting Catholics who stopped procreating after two kids ever stopped to think that perhaps the third or fourth child that God had intended for them was destined to be a holy priest. We are reaping what we have sowed in our contraceptive culture and a lack of vocations is a big part of that. I’m not sure that liberalizing rules on married men becoming priests will solve the problem…it’s never been a part of the RC Church tradition and I don’t see the idea getting much traction.
Jeff -There were married Priests in Roman Catholicism until the 2nd Lateran Council banned the practice in 1139.. Statistics show over 70% of Catholics in U.S. favor favor a married Priesthood.
Sarah – I didn’t know that about married RC priests before 1139; that’s interesting. I’m not qualified to opine on whether married priests would be good for the RC Church. I would, however, greatly scrutinize stats about what most Catholics think. After all, it is self-evident that over 70% of Catholic couples partake in birth control (a grave moral evil); a majority of Catholics have supported President Obama twice; he’s a staunch enemy to our faith. Regardless, stats are moot because the church is not a democracy. Finally and more importantly, the great saints over the ages have told us that the majority of baptized Catholics are damned. I don’t know about you, but I’m not following “70% of Catholics” anywhere…
” Finally and more importantly, the great saints over the ages have told us that the majority of baptized Catholics are damned … but I’m not following “70% of Catholics” anywhere…”
If we shall “know them by their fruits” then I guess it’s possible to divine the elect by their presumption.
James – I’m pretty dense and can only understand extreme clarity, so help me understand your point. I submit that only God can “divine the elect” and those that presume upon God’s mercy and their own salvation are foolish. I concur with your quote of our Blessed Lord that we shall “know them by their fruits.” The fruits of most baptized Catholics are rotten and fully evident to all except the blind– apostasy, contraception, infidelity, worldliness, compromising with the culture of death, etc. That is not to condemn them but to remind ourselves to pray and do penance for them so that we and they can escape eternal fire.
Maybe I was too curt, Jeff. Carry on.
Thanks for clarifying your intent to insult. Some folks are so smug, it’s hard to tell.
Jeff- Forgive me but I would like to discuss married priests and make it known to all Catholics that they should be allowed to function. Ounce a priest always a priest! This is an immediate problem and you and I can help with the grace of God.
Thank you for a very inspiring article, Cullen. These methods sound like cruel and unusual punishments to me. Even condemned murderers are entitled to protection against this. If we keep praying, saying, and acting for these little ones, we can end this butchery. Thank you also for your noble work at Rachel’s Vineyard to comfort those who have had abortions.
Thanks for the response Jamey. It absolutely says something about our country that we treat hardened criminals better than we treat innocent children. It’s my hope that we begin to grant the same rights and protections to unborn children that we hold as born human beings. This is the only way our country will be great again.
And yes, I cannot possibly say enough good things about Rachel’s Vineyard. That ministry has brought God’s mercy and healing to so many men and women. I consider myself immensely blessed even to be a part of it at all!