Gazing Into The Abyss

Six million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi regime during World War II. Stalin dispatched of roughly 20 million persons. In only 100 days, at least 500,000 Rwandans were murdered by their own countrymen. On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden masterminded an attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and shattered the lives of so many others.

We rightfully cringe at these statistics. If it’s difficult to really process such absurd numbers, just start by imagining everyone you love—no, everyone you have ever met or known or even know of—being removed from your life.

On Wednesday, nearly half a million people will descend upon the national capital to protest a subtler  genocide. Since 1973, an estimated 53 million children have been slaughtered by the very same parents who gave them life. No empathetic endeavors can make that fact relatable.

There is simply no justification for this, one of the most horrific genocides in history. But if I had to think of an explanation for why Americans get up in arms, devote billions of dollars, hours of service and volunteer time, and dedicate their lives to preventing such atrocious episodes as those described above from continuing or happening again, while simultaneously citing a “right” that awards legal license to murder others’ (or their own) children for convenience’s sake…well, I can’t finish that sentence after all.

Hitler and Stalin are universally acknowledged and appealed to as embodiments of evil. We all remember the degree of rejoicing with which the news of bin Laden’s death was met. These men, all together, took but half of the innocent lives that we ourselves have taken in the past four decades, in the war against the womb.

These men had justifications for their choices, though: They weren’t slaughtering the innocent so much as defending ideals, defending rights, defending themselves, securing the good. Yet everyone agrees that these men and their philosophies epitomize evil.

What does that say about us and ours?

“But abortion isn’t murder because unborn babies aren’t really, or fully, persons.”

Neither were the Jews. Neither were the Tutsis.