Roe v. Wade Must Be Destroyed

Cato would end every speech to his fellow Roman senators with the plea that "Carthage must be destroyed" ("Carthago delenda est"). Those many of us who find Roe v. Wade to be an evil and oppressive tyranny will also never tire of saying: Roe must be wiped out. By embracing the genocidal evil of abortion, the United States imported into the heart of its legal system the policies of Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein. The abortion tyranny imposed by a now discredited legal system was a unilateral surrender to all the ideologies of mass murder that marked the twentieth century, with the special twist that now the mass murder was justified as part of the "right" to casual sex.

One biblical commentator I read recently noted that we cannot view all distress that we suffer as punishment for sin (the Gospel story of Jesus and the man blind from birth and Jesus' commentary on those killed by a falling tower show that). But, on the other hand, the same commentator noted that we cannot automatically rule tragedy out as a punishment for sin. Catholics know or should know that sin, even if forgiven, carries temporal consequences. If sin is what is self-destructive to our humanity, then we should not be surprised if real and concrete destructive consequences follow when we mutilate our humanity. What the commentator sensibly called for was an examination of conscience in the face of tragedy and distress. The examination of conscience leaves open the question whether tragedy is a punishment for sin--but the question is there to be faced and answered one way or another.

If, as a nation, we do an examination of conscience today on the anniversary of the birth of the oppressive tyranny of Roe v. Wade, we can consider a distressing history that followed the infamous decision. In 1973, when the tyranny was born, the U.S. also lost its first war, ever, in Vietnam. The 1973 Vietnam Paris Peace Accords sealed the defeat. Shortly, thereafter, in 1974, the first U.S. President resigned from office to avoid impeachment. In the seventies, we went through our worst economic period since the Great Depression (remember "stagflation," that combination of high inflation and high unemployment?). We ended the seventies with the disastrous leadership of Jimmy Carter, who is still off-key and lost in his signature misguided way--most recently in his portrayal of Israel as a racist South Africa. We then entered the eighties with the renewed leadership of Ronald Reagan. But the social rot was in, even if there was finally a man of decisive character in the White House trying to bail us out: sexual shacking up became ever-present, bridal virginity rare, divorce almost inevitable, drug and other substance use continued to explode, all topped off with a giddy and tasteless consumerism and materialism fueled by obsessive status-seeking.

Then came the nineties with that persistent caricature of the confused baby boomer generation, Bill Clinton, who excelled in moral and political mediocrity, topped off with the Lewinsky fiasco (so graphically emblematic of the idolatry practiced by the devotees of casual sex); while Osama Bin Laden made his preliminary attacks in anticipation of 9/11. Yes, Nero fiddled; while Rome burned. We know what the Neronian Clinton did, while Osama planned and prepared. Clinton became only the second President impeached in American history (the only other was Andrew Johnson in the aftermath of the Civil War). Even Nixon had enough of a sense of honor to avoid that fate by resigning first. But, for many of the baby boomers, personal honor is an archaic leftover for the attic.

Finally, we have faced the attacks of Islamic fanatics under President George W. Bush, a president who is a baby boomer aberration: a committed Christian who is straightforward in taking the battle straight to the source of the evil threatening us. As to be expected, many of the rest of the baby boomer generation turned with venom and vitriol against this traitor to the moral confusion so openly pioneered by that generation. They have tried everything to bring him down, even seeking to promote an American defeat in the War on Islamic Terror.

A society that has enshrined mass murder in the heart of its legal system has made a mockery of the sacrifice made by so many in the wars against Nazism, Communism, and now Islamic imperialism. That consumption-addicted nation, bereft of honor in the most intimate relations of men and women, is burdened by the culture of selfish, mindless, and savage hedonism that gave us Roe v. Wade. That burden must be removed for us to flourish again. To update Cato, Roe v. Wade must be destroyed.