Progress or murder?

Are the pro-abortionists (they prefer to call themselves 'pro-choice') progressives or murderers?

A correspondent writing in last Wednesday's Malta Today referred to Obama's so-called 'progressive' position on abortion. Obama wants to make abortion more easily accessible. He is not alone.

On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Marie Stopes International, the London-based abortion advocacy group, is petitioning members of the United Nations to declare abortion as a universal human right. They are lobbying for what they call "safe abortion". Their petition said that it was "intolerable that millions of women continue to suffer severe injuries and trauma, and more than 66,000 die needlessly each year from abortions that are procured unsafely from unskilled providers or self-induced, almost all in developing countries."

I am baffled by such statements. Safe abortion? My foot. All aborted foetuses know how safe abortion is. It is difficult to ask them because their life was snuffed before they could say "ahh". Trauma? Why are these gentlemen and women surprised? Isn't it natural that one suffers trauma after killing one's offspring? Besides, why is the killing of the most vulnerable among us considered as a progressive act? Isn't this a perverse way of thinking?

Abortionists are not progressive. They are regressive.

But are they murderers? Pro-life group members often describe them as such. A couple of years ago I remember reading an article in L'Osservatore Romano that discussed the decision taken by the administration of one of Italy's regions to distribute the abortive pill RU-486. A quote in the article said the pill was "really and truly murder".

The late Cardinal Mario Pompedda took the author of the article to task. Cardinal Pompedda was not some leftwing radical constantly sniping at the ecclesiastical establishment. He was the retired head of the Apostolic Signature, the Vatican's supreme court. I don't think that one can get more prim and proper than that.

The cardinal said that the Church was right to condemn all forms of abortion, but he added he would not call abortion "murder", because of respect for language. "Murder refers to man, while here the reference is to the embryo. Law and morality have always distinguished between murder, infanticide and abortion. Should we suddenly erase this distinction?" he queried.

Pompedda said he thought the Church could fully defend the human embryo's right to life without artificially dramatising the conflict with those who think differently.

"I've also heard the killing of embryos compared with the Shoah. But I would invite people to use more moderate language. Isn't it enough to say 'abortion'?" he suggested.

I think that Pompedda gave very good advice.

Abortionists are definitively not progressive, but following Pompedda's advice, nor should they be called murderers. We should unremittingly and assiduously fight against this most horrible and inhuman crime, but I also think that our line of battle and strategy should be dignified and correct.