THE HOLOCAUST OF OUR TIME by Gary L. Morella
here have been many people who are reluctant to compare the Jewish Holocaust
with the killing of babies in the womb, the holocaust of our time. I don't
understand this for the following reasons.
Holocaust means "a thorough destruction." How anyone could say that a
holocaust is not occurring when babies are brutally killed in their mothers'
womb defies description. I would invite anyone who identifies themselves as
"pro-choice" to watch a film on embryoscopy to see the fully formed transparent
baby at four weeks with the heart clearly beating and then to watch a film on
abortion where baby parts are cavalierly deposited into trays. This isn't
about a person's "choice"; it's about life and death. A child is not a
"choice" except in a desensitized society that calls the removal of a fully
term baby from the womb by its feet and the subsequent sucking out
of its brains "dilation and extraction."
Simply put, the human embryo is not potentially a new human being, but
a new human being full of potential. Everything needed for the adult
person is already biologically present with the formation of the first
cell. This is recognized by the vast majority of medical schools
The theological perspective, beginning with the light which
Revelation sheds on the meaning of a human life and on the dignity of
the person, supports and sustains human reason in regard to these
conclusions, without in any way diminishing the validity of
contributions based on rational evidence. Therefore the duty of
respecting the human embryo as a human person derives from the reality
of the matter and from the force of rational argumentation, and not
exclusively from a position of faith.
From the juridical point of view, the core of the debate on the
protection of the human embryo consist in the recognition of
fundamental human rights by virtue of the presence of a human being.
The right to life and to physical integrity from the first moment of
existence, must be respected. Recent findings of human biological
science recognize that in the zygote (the cell produced when the nuclei of the
two gametes have fused) resulting from fertilization, the biological identity
of a new human individual is already constituted.
Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its
existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands
the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his
bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and
treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that
same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the
first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.
Many are complaining about an exhibit at Penn State which shows babies
killed in the womb. I ask why not show this. Why not show the horror which
man is capable of perpetrating on his fellow man to learn from history, sadly a
history which we're still living. Why not educate our students as to what they
are really standing for when they say that they are "pro-choice?"
Not only do I see a comparison with the "legalized" killing of babies in the
womb since Roe v. Wade and the Jewish Holocaust. I see the former exceeding
the latter by an order-of-magnitude. Both were the results of "man-made" laws
whose results are tragic but not unpredictable since man has no law except that
rooted in the Natural Law given to him by Almighty God. This moral foundation
is necessary in society else anarchy reigns as what happens when A's unlimited
freedom conflicts with B's? In the absence of a universal absolute law, just
what can be appealed to? Thus, saying that "it's the law" is specious as Dred
Scott can attest to in regard to slavery being the law of the land upheld by
the Supreme Court. Both result in the brutal killing of human beings on a
scale measured in the millions with the former ongoing for over 25 years.
I would challenge those who hold to a "pro-choice" position to answer the
following question. Where would you be if your mother didn't receive the Grace
from God to believe that you, in her womb, at the earliest of pre-natal stages
had an inalienable right to life?