Addendum:
The first step to destroying a people is to dehumanize them. The slaves
were not defined as people in the early 1800's, so it was okay to use
them and abuse them, to own them as cattle. Negroes were not human. In
Nazi Germany, Hitler's first step in the persecution of the Jews was to
define them as sub-human; to create a separation between classes that
made identification with their humanity difficult. Once that separation
was established in the minds of the people, the holocaust was a logical
outcome. By the way, the most distorted rhetoric of the pro-choice movement
is that Adolph Hitler was against abortion. While it is true that Hitler
did forbid abortions among Aryan stock because he wished to produce a
Master Race, he instituted a policy of forced abortions against inferior
races such as Jews, Poles, and various Slavs in Germany and in his conquered
countries. Abortion was simply one of his tools to promote a selective
breeding campaign on his chattel.
Today, although fetus, in Latin, means "young child," we see the same
dehumanizing process. When is a child a child? At 9 months? at 8? at 7?
Planned Parenthood and Feminist groups advocate unrestricted abortions
through the 9th month. That is one of the principles of FOCA (the Freedom
of Choice Act), and a key plank of the Clinton/Gore Campaign. As a medical
doctor, you know better; by 7 months there is no scientific debate as
to its viability. It is a human being not a blob of tissue. Yet for some
reason, its humanity is not important. And far from being truly "pro-choice,"
these same groups are prime advocates of the anti-choice polices of forced
abortions in non-white, third world countries, like China. To me, this
is not true choice, but a veiled hatred of life, with continuing racist
motivations. But when you deny the humanity of the child, all else is
possible.
By the way, the one sin that God would not forgive
the nation of Israel, and the primary reason that He destined them for
slaughter and exile to Babylon, was because of Judah's participation in
and condoning of child sacrifice: 2 Kings 21:6, 16; 2 Kings 23:24-27 (the
story of Manassah and Josiah).
But in the final analysis, right and wrong are not a matter of opinion.
And morals are not determined by majority vote. A majority of people in
Germany voted in Adolph Hitler and approved of his racist and war like
policies. But the majority consensus was an evil that had finally to be
restrained through force of arms. A majority did not consider slavery
an evil in 1850; but man's opinion did not change truth or justice. If
there is a God in heaven, then the only thing that really matters is what
he considers right and wrong. If the unborn are children to him, then
abortion is murder in his eyes, and all man's opinions to the contrary
only stink before him and are nothing more than a rationalization for
great evil.
But if there is no God in heaven, then all our protestations to virtue
and to right and wrong are only so much striving after the wind. For then
there is neither Ultimate Truth nor a Judge who is able to weigh the merits
and evils of human affairs; it is only survival of the fittest. Who then
is to say that my set of values is right and another's wrong? Who then
is to say that Jews and Christians are not a sub- species of humans fit
for persecution and slaughter? Who is to say that in this world of relative
and subjective truth that the Neo-Nazi's in Germany are not the future
leaders of the human race? That conclusion points up the inherent problems
of cultural relativism and using the ethic of individual rights as the
touchstone of the moral order. We can see that this appeal to my wants
verses yours soon degenerates into a swamp of competing self-interests,
legalism, and eventually into ethnic striving as one group pits its interests
against another, as in Serbia today.
Thomas Jefferson put it well; "God who gave us life gave us liberty.
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their
only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties
are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his
wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that
his justice cannot sleep for ever." - From the Memorial, and the full
text of one quote from Query 18.
If there is a God in heaven, a God who is consistent with the Scriptures
as we have received them in our faiths, then perhaps in our pursuit of
individual rights, we have pitted ourselves against God's right and his
moral order. Then what makes us think that God will allow a nation to
prosper that slaughters its own children? It is interesting to note that
Bill Clinton graphs the economic decline of real family incomes beginning
in 1973, the year of the legalization of abortion. It is also the year
of the first Arab oil embargo. If God is judging our nation, then no amount
of wisdom and technical expertise will solve our economic and social situation.
Without repentance, there will be no healing of our land.(see 2 Chronicles
7:11-14, God's response to Solomon after the building of the Temple).
And economic judgment on our land has just begun. If there is no God in
heaven, then I guess it doesn't matter; all we can do is hope that Neo-Nazis
do not gain power here in the U. S. and abroad. And hope is a pitiful
thing if that is all we have.
