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On The Western Front

It is perhaps not out of the way to give a short briefing on the abortion situation in some countries that have liberalized abortion. It is far from exaggeration to state that the large majority of abortion operations are performed on unmarried women. This seems to uncover the real need fuel- ing the enthusiasm of abortion protagonists. Abortion became part and parcel of a total wave preaching sexual license and uprooting the codes ofbehaviour prescribed by all God's religions. Nice names were used to enhance the acceptability of the new deal, such as personal freedom, love, emancipation and equality of the sexes: since man enjoyed free sex without inhibition and only woman faced the sequelae of a possible pregnancy. It had been thought that widespread availability of contraceptive means would be sufficient to relieve woman from the worry of getting pregnant, but this did not work in reality and out-of-wedlock pregnancies showed a steadily rising incidence. Promiscuity became rampant and girls in their couldn't-careless attitude did not feel responsible enough to contracept. Abortion therefore was a necessary backup, as well as the promotion of the 'single parent family' to the level of social acceptability and support.

In some countries, like Romania for example, it was realized that the matter got out of hand when the number of induced abortions considerably exceeded that of full time births. It was seen that the nation was in the process of committing suicide by extinction, and the state retracted the permissive abortion laws, making abortion legally justifiable only upon medical indications. It took steps to

encourage population growth by incentives like financial allowances, tax deductions, compensation for large families and fully paid adequate maternity leaves. Without these measures it was felt that the productive stratum of society would not be sufficiently replenished, whereas the unproductive aged stratum would continue to grow as a result of the rising longevity brought about by progress in health and medical care. Progressively less and less (people) would be carrying more and more.

It is indeed regrettable to see that the same anti-life pro-abortion factions have realized the problem but are forwarding a proposal to balance the equation at its other limb in a sinister monkey-and-cheese philosophy. If the carrying stratum is not to expand, then the carried stratum should not accumulate. Disposing of the old will be the social cry of the not too distant future. Already pressure is being applied towards legalized euthanasia, and-comparing with the early pro-abortion days-we must admit that the new cry has already covered part of the road. In his editorial in the News Exchange of The World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (No.80, June, 1983), doctor Ph. Schepens quotes the official Dutch medical weekly Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneskunde, which is the official publication of the Dutch Medical Society, that devoted six articles out of eleven in its issue of May 28, 1983, to the subject of 'Euthanasia for consenting people' or-so called-'Voluntary 'euthanasia'. Fourteen out of fifteen authors defended euthanasia and promoted it under such titles as: Editorial-about responsibility; Clinical lessons-Active Euthanasia; How the general practitioner learns to live with euthanasia; The responsible performance of euthanasia; About the declaration of death, euthanasia and how to help someone to suicide etc. Even various'lethal cocktails were described entailing the best way to murder the patient. According to this movement the medical professional should cease to assume his or her historical role as a servant of life, and means of taking life should be amongst the doctor's armamentarium. As the editor of that journal ex- plicitly admits it (NTG 1983, 127, No 22, p 945), "Times are changing and so are we. This means that there are no longer principles, norms or values that should continue to guide humanity from its beginning and for, good. Everything is 'time dependent' ."

It is no surprise then that glamorous names who pioneered the abortion movement are the same at the top of the euthanasia cult such as the late Dr. Allan Guttamacher, renowned gynaecologist and famous abortionist and member of the executive council of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, later become a member of the council of the Euthanasia Society of America. The kinship is also evident as Professor Michel Schooyans of Belgium points out, in the systematic recourse to the 'antiphrase', that is the art.of making a word mean the opposite of what it normally means. The followers of 'death with dignity' speak about 'death under the most favorable conditions', and a 'death of quality' both in reality being clinically planned murder (News Exchange of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, 1983, no.80, p 3). Being unable to conquer illness, the medical profession solves the problem by killing the patient. Incentives and pressures to pursue research would be undermined by this easy solution that runs at a lower gradient, instead of being bolstered up and fortified by faith in the statement of prophet Mohammad peace be upon him.

"To every illness God has crf".ated, God has created a remedy. "

Having secured their success against life in the fetal stage, the anti-life lobby are doing well on the front of euthanasia and are even pushing a spearhead into the socio-political field. This is well illustrated in the writings of no less a man than Jacques At tali, advisor to the French President Miterrand. His following words speak for themselves (Jacques Atalli: 'La medecine en accusation' in Michel Solomon, 'L 'avenir de la vie', Coil. Les visages de I'avenir, Ed. Seghers, Paris, 1981 p 273-275). "I believe that it is in the logic of our industrial system that the prolonging of life is no longer a desired objective in our political system. Why? Because as long as the reason for prolonging life was to achieve the full capacity of the human machine, in terms of work, this was perfect. But when a man lives beyond 60/65 years of age he outlives his productive capacity and thus he is a financial burden upon society. So the objective, within the logic of the industrial society is no longer to prolong life but rather that within a given life-span of an individual he lives the best possible life but in such a way as not to undermine the collective good. And so a new criterion for life expectancy is that the value of a particular health system is not its concern with life expectancy but with the number of years a person has lived without illness or need for hospitalization. In fact, from a social point of view, it is much more preferable that the human machine is stopped abruptly rather than be allowed to deteriorate progressively. ' , The author adds "Socialist logic is liberty and the most fundamental liberty is suicide, consequently, the right to suicide whether done by one's own hand or another's is an absolute value in this type of society ...In a capitalist society, killing machines, which would pursue the elimination of life when it becomes too intolerable or economically too costly, will come into being and be in daily use. I therefore think that euthanasia, whether it be a value of freedom or a commodity, will one day in the future be very prevalent."

This advertant elimination of life, be it at its beginning in the form of abortion under the banner of 'the freedom of the woman over her body', or later for the sick and disabled under the banner of 'the right to die, and using the nice name 'mercy killing', or in old age when dying ceases to be a right and becomes a duty even if the person is unwilling, under the pretext that 'the human machine has outlived its productive span and its upkeep has become a financial liability', is becoming a political wave to be taken seriously. It has its logic; but only when human life is given the same status as animal life or machine life. Humanity per se ceases to be a value in itself, and an absolute value at that. Under this purely materialistic approach, which unfortunately continues to sway over the world, people become things-like other things. To speak about God, spiritual values, the hereafter, divine guidance, has no room in such vocabulary. Loving care extended to old parents would be a waste and a betrayal of society.

When people become things, fetuses of course are little things, and the abortion issue is judged only under the light of personal freedom. The public opinion in the United States of America is divided between a Prolife movement and a Pro-choice movement. The Pro-choice of course can see only the right of the woman over her body and the unacceptability of asking her to carry a fetus she does not want to carry .That the choice implied in the name of the movement is in fact a choice to kill an individual who is not part of the body of the woman (indeed it is genetically and immunologically different) is totally ignored. That the fetus is present in her womb as the result of her own doing and not by any will or action on its part is totally ignored. The taking away of the life of the only innocent party for the sake of convenience is totally ignored. The fetus is a biological parasite just as the old and disabled are social parasites. They aim at a lower number of those admitted into life, at its beginning, and a high number of those that have to be wilfully sent out of it near its end. It is a grave shortsightedness to study the issue of abortion in isolation from the totality of the ideological climate that sponsors it, and its implications in terms of the sanctity of human life and whether it is a value or a commodity. At this crossroads facing social ethics in our present day, the future of humanity for millenia to come is being decided.

But the Prolife movement in the U.S. have recently aquired momentum and become as vocal and as noisy as their adversaries. Since they are the ones seeking the change in the status quo regarding the legitimization of abortion, they are no more stereotyped as the conservative, old fashioned pedantic elements. They are in some measure America's reaction to a period of ultra-license that is leading to grave moral consequences, and their cry is more perceived as 'on to morality' rather than 'back to'. A film of their production was shown on television, illustrating an abortion operation shot by an ultrasound camera. The little fetus was there, alive and kicking. As the surgeon's instruments touched it, it retracted its limbs in an attempt to escape. But when its body was grasped and crushed by forcepts, it frantically convulsed and repeatedly opened its mouth as if crying for help, until it succumbed to the instruments invading its sanctuary and was brought out in pieces. That television release confronted the nation with what abortion really is, and aroused great revolt. Demonstrations were organized against abortion and abortion clinics were picketed and branded as murder shops. In the presidential election campaign of 1984 abortion was the subject of hot political debate. President Reagan in his book " Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation" declared that since abortion was legalized in 1970, fourteen million American lives had been lost by abortion, more than all lives lost in all America's wars. Many doctors gave up the practice of abortion, including one with a record of ten thousand abortion operations. Many women turned back from abortion and decided to carry their fetuses to birth. And the battle continues: