Beware the Ides of March!
Catholics & the Pro-Life Movement.
Abortion is now the single largest cause of death — worldwide.
The first way Catholics should oppose abortion is through prayer: this helps us to listen to the Holy Spirit and discern how we can personally oppose this genocide. For some it will be a discussion with a pro-abortion friend over coffee. Others are able to provide financial and material support, while more can lobby politicians or demonstrate, often as part of the “Pro-Life Movement.” (A few labour under the delusion that their scribblings might help...!)
The harsh reality is that if today we ‘succeed’ in making abortion illegal, we will have completely FAILED. Success will only happen when abortion becomes unthinkable and unnecessary. To make that happen, the majority must believe that the unborn child has the Right to Life and, to that end, Supreme Courts around the world must ratify their humanity. Secondly, we must provide adequate supports for women and families such as reduce poverty; increase addiction services and adoption / fostering services etc. With these ‘Whole-Life’ / ‘Consistent-Life’ values, we can minimize the draw to abortion. Saint Teresa of Calcutta — Mother Teresa — answers the tough question: “How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts.”
The Pro-Life Movement involves a wide variety of people and organizations, all with different opinions and approaches. That diversity is a great strength and a significant weakness. Strength comes when liberal and conservative Catholic joins with atheists and people from most every religion. The weakness is that such diversity also brings opinions and beliefs which conflict with our own or those of the Church.
The Pro-Choice / Pro-Abortion Movement is also diverse and includes some nominal Catholics. The Pro-Aborts do not advertise that there is strong support for limiting abortion within their ranks!
“In 2018, the most recent year for which I have the data broken down by sex, 31 percent of women said abortion should be legal in any circumstance, 14 percent said in “most” circumstances, 32 percent said “only in a few,” and 20 percent said “illegal in all” circumstances.” So, 52 percent of women think abortion should be legal in few or no circumstances! A 2021 Marist College poll confirmed similar numbers: “More than three quarters of Americans (76%), including a majority who identify as pro-choice, want significant restrictions on abortion.”
Enter, Julius Caesar!
Julius Caesar can illustrate the healthy tensions between the Pro-Life Movement and Catholicism. (Shakespeare used his plays as allegories on the English Reformation! In “Shadow play: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare” Clare Asquith contends that every 16th-century Catholic knew the hidden ‘code’ and ‘sub-plot’ in his plays. For example, the conflict between the Montague and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet, mirrored the Anglican and Catholic Churches!)
Our Players
Brutus: The Catholic Church.
The Conspirators: The Pro-Life Movement.
Julius Caesar: Abortion.
Mark Anthony et al: The Pro-Abortion Movement.
Octavian: The Supreme Court.
The Common People: The Common People.
As portrayed by Shakespeare, BRUTUS is an honourable and noble man who reasonably feared that Caesar would become a tyrant over the Roman Republic. He was naïve in thinking that the average Roman would understand the conspirator’s motives. He refused to kill Mark Anthony, Caesar’s supporter, in case they appeared ‘blood thirsty.’ He did not fix the root cause of troubles in Rome (such as poverty) and he achieved that which he feared most — the Fall of the Roman Republic.
A gold coin issued by Brutus commemorating the assassination of Caesar
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH is similarly honourable and noble but, like Brutus, the Church often fails to communicate properly with the secular world. The Church naïvely thinks that everyone understands the principles behind Catholic Dogma. It does not “sell” the fact that the unborn child has the Human Right to Life. The Magisterium does not acknowledge the very human need to reduce the suffering behind the “hard cases” for abortion (even if a misguided option.)
The CONSPIRATORS Cassius, Casca, Decius Brutus, Cinna, Metellus Cimber and Trebonius in Julius Caesar are very similar to the named assassins in 44 BC. Obviously, the conspirators brought differing opinions and intentions as to why they wanted Caesar dead.
THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT includes a wide variety of agencies and individuals. Most are moderate people working hard for women and children, or, to maintain the political pressure against abortion. The March for Life in 2013 drew an estimated 650,000 Pro-Life supporters! Some in the PLM are more extreme. D.W. Lafferty wrote an excellent article on LifeSiteNews (in Where Peter Is) and Fr. Pavone (a staunchly Pro-Life Catholic priest in the US) is alleged to have placed the body of an unclothed aborted fetus on the altar…
JULIUS CAESAR was a military genius and deftly arranged for himself to become a popular dictator even though Rome was a republic. Much of his popularity with the common Roman was bought with free games, etc.
ABORTION: there is no negotiation with a dictator or a mass murderer and there is no negotiation with the Pro-Abortion Movement. (Disclaimer: Caesar is used with poetic license only: murder is not acceptable!)
MARK ANTHONY served as one of Caesar’s generals and then as administrator of Italy while Caesar was at war in Greece. After the assassination he joined briefly with Octavian to defeat the assassins but later fled to Egypt with Cleopatra where he fought — and lost — against Octavian.
THE PRO-ABORTION MOVEMENT is very strong. In many countries, including Ireland and Canada, they have won the legal battle and abortion is freely available. If the Supreme Courts ever ratify the Right to Life of the unborn, the Pro-Abortion Movement will go to war for “Reproductive Rights.”
Women celebrating the legalization of abortion in Argentina 2021.
OCTAVIAN was Caesar’s great-nephew and adoptive son. He inherited 2/3’s of Caesar’s estate and importantly, his name — Gaius Julius Caesar. Octavian put Caesar’s assassins to death and after defeating Mark Anthony, ushered in Pax Romana — 200 years of peace in the Roman Empire!
Using Octavian for THE SUPREME COURT is a wee stretch! That said, the Supreme Court is separate from the Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion Movements and functions as the highest court, confirming the constitutional requirements in each country. The Courts might establish a lasting peace on abortion if they validate the Right to Life of the unborn child and engage the public in that process.
The COMMON PEOPLE in Ancient Rome were like people everywhere — wanting to live their lives in peace. Caesar bought the support of the general population before and after death! Before with circuses and afterwards he bequeathed his orchards and arbors and 75 drachmas (approximately $277) to every man in Rome! Octavian took Caesar’s name — Gaius Julius Caesar — and easily stepped into his shoes.
In 2021, THE COMMON PEOPLE also just want to live in peace. The support for elective abortion was bought with the lie that a woman can only be happy or successful after aborting her own child. (“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” St. Teresa.) In the ‘hard cases’ no-one wants women or teens to suffer after rape, incest, human-trafficking and teen pregnancy and definitely no-one wants the return of the ‘Back-Street’ abortionist.
Shout Your Abortion
The seeming lack of conscience in women who publicly ‘celebrate’ their abortion is disconcerting. An article by Joel Berry published by the Human Defence Initiative puts it well:
“As a result, they immerse themselves in a world that affirms their decision, assuring them again and again that what they did was brave, empowering, even good. Surrounding themselves with this message, some women eventually become callous until they can barely feel the guilt anymore. They keep doing this until their self-loathing turns to hatred for anyone who would dare challenge the morality of their decision with “facts and logic.” The pain and hurt in the eyes of post-abortive women triggered by a pro-life display is often evident. They know what they have done and the knowledge they killed their preborn child is a heavy burden to bear.”
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a racist and a eugenicist. She planned “the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization…” In the USA, 2/3 of all abortion facilities are in Black and Minority neighbourhoods. Shockingly “In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women.”
The Governments in the US and Canada are now linking aid to the provision of abortion in developing countries. This extends the genocide of abortion internationally and will destroy the future of many poor countries. (Please consider following Obianuju Ekeocha on Twitter @obianuju about this topic, or, of course, you can read her book!)
Ekeocha’s book “Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism in the Twenty-First Century”
Beware the Ides
Ancient Romans had little concept of Human Rights. The games in the Colosseum were barbaric and both slavery and abortion were commonplace. Caesar had a prolonged affair with Cleopatra VII, yet was not considered to be in an adulterous relationship.
In the West we pride ourselves as being ‘civilized’ but have brutal games like Mixed Martial Arts and we knowingly buy products made by slaves in other countries. Abortion is rampant and apps like Tinder and Grindr allow people to have random sex with any number of anonymous partners.
Abortion has become an ‘All or Nothing’ choice. Thankfully, the Pro-Life Movement is robust and providing strong opposition despite the fact that the legal battle has been lost in most countries. The war is not yet lost!
To summarize attitudes:
Hard Core Pro-Aborts want no limits on access to abortion.
Many moderate abortion supporters agree to limits, but oppose complete eradication of abortion.
The Catholic Church and extreme Pro-Life advocates want complete eradication of abortion (without compromise.)
Moderate Pro-Lifers support some limits on abortion, while not risking the return of the Back-Street Abortionist.
Absolutely, every human being has value and all abortion is immoral. The problem is we must find a way to reduce the genocidal number of deaths and the only logical way is to find a functional compromise.
We must sell a Pro-Life alternative to Bill Clinton’s famous compromise: ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare’ to have any chance of limiting the genocide of abortion. A compromise might just help once the Supreme Courts ratify the Right to Life of the unborn and we provide proper social supports.
Let’s make abortion Unusual, Unthinkable and Unnecessary!
Dr. Kevin Hay.
Kevin is a UCD grad and a rural Family Doctor in Alberta, Canada.
You can follow him on Twitter @kevinhay77 (but please be careful on Anti-Social Media.)
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Shocking.