COUNCIL #112
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Tony Marino is an Air Force veteran who later received a degree in English Literature at Long Island University. For more than 30 years, he was an insurance agent for Aetna before eventually becoming a private insurance consultant. Since his retirement in 2003, he has devoted himself to the service of St. Peter's Parish in Concord and the Right to Life movement in New Hampshire. Tony has been married to his wife, Annette for more than 40 years. They have ten children and 22 grandchildren.
Council 112
Respect Life Report
April 2007
I recently read part of a keynote address given by Professor Irwin Cotler, on January 29th, at the Holocaust commemoration held at the Salle des Assemblees of the European Headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva. Professor Cotler stated that the Holocaust was “uniquely evil in its genocidal singularity…," and Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel observed, “not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims." As I read the address by Professor Cotler, I could not escape the similarities between the Holocaust about which he spoke, and the holocaust that is taking place, daily, right here in the United States. It should be clearly understood by the reader, that it is not my intention to diminish, in any way, the reporting of the ferocity and tragedy of the Holocaust, and the Holocaust Remembrance addressed by Professor Cotler. Rather, this essay should be seen as an attempt to trace a parallel between two great evils. Professor Cotler provided six lessons to be learned to avoid another Holocaust similar to that of WWII:
Lesson 1: The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance
Lesson 2: The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hatred and Genocide –
The Responsibility to Prevent
Lesson 3: The Danger of Silence, the Consequences of Indifference – The Duty
to Protect
Lesson 4: Combating Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity – The
Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice
Lesson 5: The Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power
Lesson 6: The Vulnerability of the Powerless – The Protection of the
Vulnerable as the Test of a Just Society.
Similar to the belief of Professor Cotler, I believe that there are six
lessons that must be learned if we are to end the “abortion holocaust”, and
prevent the other evils now lurking about to find a place in our society, of
which some are already identified as being assisted suicide, euthanasia, and
cloning. I used Professor Cotler’s Lessons as a template to provide Lessons
on recognizing and ending the “abortion holocaust."
Lesson 1: The Importance
of Remembering That Abortion is a Holocaust
In the United States, since the Roe v. Wade decision by the US Supreme
Court, over 40 million babies have been terminated, both inside and outside
the womb. Justification for this abomination has been provided in a
political slogan, “A woman’s right to choose." Legally, the abomination
started and continues on the basis of a “right to privacy." Lacking from
both the legal basis and the political slogan is the fact that with each
termination, a person, an identity is lost. As Professor Cotler states, “For
unto each person there is a name – unto each person, there is an identity.
Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us: ‘whosoever saves a single
life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.’” As human beings,
we have an “abiding imperative” that each of us is a guarantor of each
others destiny. Failure to recognize the “abortion holocaust” is a failure
to guarantee the destiny of our children.
Lesson 2: The Danger of
State Sanctioned Murder – The Responsibility to Prevent
Most people do not want to address abortion as murder. We do not prosecute
the abortionist, or those who assist in the abortion, and many still believe
that a life is not forfeit. The definition of “murder” in The American
Heritage Dictionary, in its initial definition, uses the word “unlawful," so
the application of this definition is not valid, because abortion is
sanctioned by the state, and is therefore not unlawful. We have already
learned that a life is involved, because from the first moment of
conception, we have a human being identified by its “human genetic
material," and by its scientific description as a “self developing entity."
Once this concept of life is grasped, and applied to the termination of life
in the womb, it is difficult to avoid the concept of “murder." However, the
concept of “murder” does not have to be avoided, because the dictionary
cited above carries another definition of “murder”: “To kill brutally or
inhumanly." Newscasts over the last two or three years have reported court
decisions which confirmed the testimony of physicians who testified that
babies, during the abortion process, feel pain. Some states have passed, or
are in the process of passing, legislation which would require anesthesia
application to the baby, prior to the abortion. Is the dismemberment of the
baby in the womb brutal? Is the extraction of a child from a womb so that a
forceps can plunge through the skull to allow brain removal inhumane? I
leave the answer to the reader.
I believe that abortion is state-sponsored murder, parallel to what the
Nazis did to the Jewish people. Under the definition of “murder," as we
previously cited, the imprisonment and extermination of the Jews, in
Germany, was not “murder," because it was not unlawful. And so it is with
state sponsored murder: murder is not murder. How are you contributing to
this state-sponsorship. Are you supporting legislators who support abortion?
Are you “neutral?"
Lesson 3: The Danger of
Silence, the Consequences of Indifference – The Duty to Protect
Where do you stand in a society that allows the destruction of life in a
womb? Do you join those who march in protest? Do you pray for the aborted
children and their mothers? Do you see the “gathering storm” of assisted
suicide, euthanasia, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, reduction of the
family to an option? Or are you indifferent? No one today can say they do
not know, they can only say they will act, or they will not act. As Edmund
Burke stated, “the surest way to ensure that evil will triumph in the world
is for good people to do nothing," and Professor Cotler reminds us that
“Indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the
victimizer, never on the side of the victim. Let there be no mistake about
it – indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself – it
is complicity with evil.”
Lesson 4: Combating the
Forces Working for a Culture of Death – Public Responsibility
Many, if not all, of the organizations perpetrating and supporting abortion
receive funds from federal, state and municipal governments. They also
receive funds from corporations, small businesses, professionals, and
individuals. It is your responsibility to insure that your money is not used
to support abortion. Support legislators who want to shut off government
funding of abortion providers and supporters. If you learn that a
corporation, small business, or professional, donates to, or supports an
abortion provider, write or speak to them regarding your displeasure. If
they fail to act, strongly consider a change in your business relationship.
It is up to each individual to be personally responsible to see to it that
their business contacts do not participate in the abortion atrocity with
impunity.
Lesson 5: The
Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power
It is difficult for me to understand, without doing the enormous social and
legal research necessary, how the United States of America could become a
nation where children have become expendable, due to a host of reasons which
have nothing to do with either the health or liberty of its citizens. In a
country where most people believe in their responsibility toward a higher
power and love of neighbor. Professor Cotler makes reference to an author
who wrote that the Holocaust was made possible by the “bureaucratization of
genocide” and “the complicity of the elites." While we are not writing about
the “bureaucratization of genocide," we are writing about the “abortion
holocaust." That holocaust was made possible, and is being maintained, by
“the complicity of elites, "among whom are legislators, both state and
federal, judges, educators, lawyers, corporations, and entertainers.“ As
Elie Wiesel put it, "Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each
other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love
poems and kill children."
We have to make it our responsibility to end the “abortion holocaust." In
order to do that we will have to speak truth to power. We will have to let
those elites complicit in the supporting and maintaining of the “abortion
holocaust”, that what they are doing is unacceptable to humanity. We can do
that by writing letters, speaking out, and voting with a conscience.
Lesson 6: The
Vulnerability of the Powerless – The Protection of the Vulnerable as the
Test of a Just Society
If I may paraphrase Professor Cotler, the “abortion holocaust” is not only
occurring because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but because the
powerless are vulnerable. It is our responsibility to work for the
powerless. To fail to do that is to insure that we do not have a just
society, and that as time goes on, the injustice will become worse.
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