Sometimes the siren-song of evil lets out a roar—exposing a horror that has been masked by seduction.
This happened in Virginia this week.
Delegate Tran admitted to a panel of legislators that a proposed law authored by human hands would allow for the murder of a child while being delivered. The sitting governor – also a human – carried the argument further that this child could likewise be murdered after delivery. All it would take is an agreement between the mother and a single physician – or worse, a physician convincing the mother — that having the child would in some way impair the mother’s mental or physical health.
In each of my four children’s birth sequence, their mother’s physical and mental health was impaired – and each of them were fairly normal births (except in one case she did receive an epidural). But every single delivery carries risk to the physical and mental well-being of the mother; and every single delivery does indeed impair the physical and mental health of the mother. Black’s Law Dictionary defines what it means to be impaired: “to weaken, diminish, or relax, or otherwise affect in an injurious manner.”[1] Is there any mother that has not been diminished in some way by the trauma of childbirth?
So we have a scenario now, which the pro-abortion sponsors have been forced to admit, in which doctors and mothers may be persuaded in any case whatsoever to declare that the murder of an infant is in all respects justified under the law.
The pro-choice siren has seduced its victims for decades using the melody of “women’s health,” but we might be grateful that more potential victims now can see that she seduces only unto death, not health.
This is how moral priorities shift. Abortion has always been immoral, even evil. But as long as it was an argument in the abstract – safely out of sight, sound, touch, and smell – it was too tempting and too easy for too many people to ignore its reality. The recent law in New York, and this recent legislation in Virginia, have made that reality much more evident, and people are realizing more and more that not killing babies needs to be a moral priority.
A similar thing happened in the 19th century United States. Many people knew that manstealing and chattel slavery were evil, and always had been. But it took an exposure to some horrifying realities for people en masse to reject the proslavery seductive sirens: that race-based slavery was actually more beneficial for the enslaved race; that the paternalist model of slavery was a friendly family to be emulated, not despised. Only by exposing the terrifying realities of slavery did the moral priorities of the nation shift to make emancipation a priority.
Perhaps New York and Virginia are those cracks in the voices of Parthenope and Aglaope that will allow many to wake and see evil for what it is: Human lawmakers elected by human voters are openly advocating for the murder of human infants. If your moral priorities have not shifted yet, they should shift now.
Odysseus was able to overcome the sirens by filling his crew’s ears with beeswax (himself excluded), preventing them from hearing the siren-song. He then tied himself to the mast, restrained and unable to go unto their seduction of death.
This is not the answer today, however. We must not go deaf to the evils of abortion; we must not simply restrain its evil. We must drown out the song of self-idolatry with the reality and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that despite our selfishness, our thievery, our idolatry, and our murderous ways, He has borne our sorrows and grief, atoned for our sins by the shedding of His blood, imputed upon us his cloak of righteousness so that we might be counted as just before the sovereign and ultimate authority of the universe. This He has done for those who are called and believe on him – regenerated into new life unto salvation.
This is a song infinitely more beautiful than any song of self-indulgence, seduction, or health and wealth, and it’s a song that all need to hear.
[1] Davey v. /Etna L. Ins. Co. (C. C.) 20 Fed. 4S2; State v. Carew, 13 Rich. Law (S. C.) 541.91 Am. Dec. 245; Swinburne v. Mills, 17 Wash. 011, 50 Pac. 489, 61 Am. St. Rep. 932.