The picture of the man above is taken from a video that was posted this week on Life Site News. The video is very graphic and very upsetting. The man is an abortionist, and the video shows him rooting through a metal sieve for the body parts of the human being he has just murdered. He measures the little foot in order to confirm the age of this human being and he also holds the crushed head up for the camera. This man, and other murderers like him, will never be charged with the murder of human beings because killing innocent human beings in their mother’s wombs has been declared legal in many countries. These murderers are paid to kill these innocent human beings.
There are those who will argue that this is not murder because the definition of murder is “the illegal killing of another human being”. Because this particular killing of innocents has been legalised, they say it is therefore not murder. These people do not understand the nature of ‘law’. It is never permissible to enact a law that allows for the killing of innocent human beings. Such a ‘law’ is not an actual ‘law’ for the very reason that it claims to allow innocent human beings to be killed. It is a travesty of law.
St Thomas Aquinas writes on this as follows in the ‘Summa Theologiae’
“Laws framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding in conscience, from the eternal law whence they are derived, according to Proverbs 8:15: “By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things.” Now laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit, they are ordained to the common good – and from their author, that is to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the lawgiver – and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the subjects, according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the common good. For, since one man is a part of the community, each man in all that he is and has, belongs to the community; just as a part, in all that it is, belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss on the part, in order to save the whole: so that on this account, such laws as these, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in conscience, and are legal laws.
On the other hand laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good, through being opposed to the things mentioned above – either in respect of the end, as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive, not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity or vainglory – or in respect of the author, as when a man makes a law that goes beyond the power committed to him – or in respect of the form, as when burdens are imposed unequally on the community, although with a view to the common good. The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5), “a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all.” Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance, for which cause a man should even yield his right, according to Matthew 5:40-41: “If a man . . . take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him; and whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two.”
“Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts 5:29, “we ought to obey God rather than man.” ” (St Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologiae – Part 1:2 Question 96)
Abortion laws, that is, laws which permit the killing of innocent human beings, are not laws for several reasons. They go beyond the power of the lawgiver. Man does not have the authority to put innocent human beings to death. They are not ordained to the common good. Killing innocent human beings serves no good purpose. They are opposed to the Divine Good because they deprive innocent human beings, who are created in the image and likeness of God, of the gift of life He has given to them. They also constitute an act of violence against the innocent and are therefore not laws.
These ‘laws’ do not bind in conscience rather they must be resisted by all legitimate means and by everyone who seeks the good of his neighbour.
So how do such laws come about in the first place?
These laws are a reflection of a society that has lost the Faith. In these societies man is King and is not answerable to any other power. The existence of God is denied. The existence of absolute moral truths is denied. Man is free to legislate as he wills according to his morally relativist mindset. The enactment of these laws signals the end of the society in which they are enacted. Once respect for human life is lost, it becomes only a matter of time before the categories of those human beings who can legally be deprived of their lives is expanded. The handicapped, the infirm, the elderly, those who are unable to produce for the economy, all eventually become targets and the society sinks into barbarism.
The Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith is the only antidote to this depravity and therefore the Catholic Church and those Catholics who are willing to bear public witness to the beauty of their Catholic Faith, also become a target for the enactment of unjust laws in order to suppress them. This has always been the way of the Catholic Church and of Catholics. Christ Himself was killed under the auspices of the ‘law’ even though He only did good. The Church has always celebrated the cult of her martyrs.
Let us therefore not lose hope, but let us have a firm purpose of resisting these unjust laws and let us pray for the conversion of the hearts of the abortionists, for the conversion of mothers who kill their children, and for the conversion of our society. Let us also act in such a way that we are witnesses to the great love God has for his children.
