{"id":3062,"date":"2008-07-15T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/war-torture-the-death-penalty-poverty-racismare-fully-present-in-abortion.html"},"modified":"2008-07-15T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T10:30:00","slug":"war-torture-the-death-penalty-poverty-racismare-fully-present-in-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/war-torture-the-death-penalty-poverty-racismare-fully-present-in-abortion.html","title":{"rendered":"“War, torture, the death penalty, poverty, racism…are fully present in abortion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a little late posting this, but it’s well worth your time and attention: take a look at what Elizabeth Scalia, The Anchoress<\/a>, has to say about abortion. I suspect the arguments over it have never before been presented with such clarity and, in fact, poetry. Because Scalia raises the debate to the level of metaphor, and then methodically brings it down to earth<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The moral calculus does look easy until one considers that war, torture, the death penalty, poverty, racism, and even the excesses of capitalism \u2014 those evils so well defined in Catholic social teaching, and of concern to Catholics of all political persuasions \u2014 are fully present in the act of abortion.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/p>\n

War is a struggle between two evolving powers over who will have dominance; whether just or unjust, it involves the murder of the innocent and the disruption of families. War introduces pain, fire, violence, savagery and torture into societies.<\/p>\n

Abortion is a struggle between two evolving powers over who will have dominance; whether \u201cjustified\u201d or not, it involves the murder of the innocent and the disruption of families. A vacuum abortion, saline abortion or a D&C introduces pain, fire, and a limb-shredding, relentless violence deep into the very being of a woman\u2019s body, within her very womb. A partial birth abortion, which involves inserting a scissor into the base of the skull of a partially delivered fetus, then suctioning out its brain before fully withdrawing the fetus from the birth canal, embodies the sort of savagery and real torture which is the most abhorrent part of any war.<\/p>\n

The death penalty is a legal execution of an individual judged guilty of heinous acts against the larger society; convicts are sometimes discovered to have been innocent of the charges made against them only after their lives have been taken. Many consider even the most \u201chumane\u201d means of execution to be cruel and inhuman, and even when the convict is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, it may be well-argued that killing a murderer does not bring back the victim and that \u201ctwo wrongs do not make a right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scalia finds truths in the abortion argument that should be plain to any thinking, feeling, believing human being — but often aren’t. Read the whole thing, and her link<\/a> to Pajamas Media. It’s potent, and it’s important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a little late posting this, but it’s well worth your time and attention: take a look at what Elizabeth Scalia, The Anchoress, has to say about abortion. I suspect the arguments over it have never before been presented with such clarity and, in fact, poetry. Because Scalia raises the debate to the level of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\n"War, torture, the death penalty, poverty, racism...are fully present in abortion" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/war-torture-the-death-penalty-poverty-racismare-fully-present-in-abortion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""War, torture, the death penalty, poverty, racism...are fully present in abortion" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m a little late posting this, but it’s well worth your time and attention: take a look at what Elizabeth Scalia, The Anchoress, has to say about abortion. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}