George Ellis, South African scholar, Science in Faith and Hope: An Interaction (2004, Quaker Books), pp. 20-21
Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology produce arguments which claim to give complete explanations as to where our ethical views come from...if you did follow those precepts, you would rapidly end up in very dangerous territory, namely the domain of social Darwinism...The historical record is quite clear on this: see Richard Weikart in From Darwin to Hitler. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) to be the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination.
Ross Douthat, “160 Million and Counting,” New York Times, June 27, 2011, commenting on the book Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl
Western governments and philanthropic institutions have their fingerprints all over the story of the world’s missing women. From the 1950s onward, Asian countries that legalized and then promoted abortion did so with vocal, deep-pocketed American support. Digging into the archives of groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Hvistendahl depicts an unlikely alliance between Republican cold warriors worried that population growth would fuel the spread of Communism and left-wing scientists and activists who believed that abortion was necessary...For many of these anti-population campaigners, sex selection was a feature rather than a bug, since a society with fewer girls was guaranteed to reproduce itself at lower rates...[The victim is] society at large, [Hvistendahl] argues, citing evidence that gender-imbalanced countries tend to be violent and unstable. It’s the women in those countries, she adds, pointing out that skewed sex ratios are associated with increased prostitution and sex trafficking. These are important points. But the sense of outrage that pervades her story seems to have been inspired by the missing girls themselves, not the consequences of their absence. Here the anti-abortion side has it easier. We can say outright...The tragedy of the world’s 160 million missing girls isn’t that they’re "missing." The tragedy is that they’re dead.
This misunderstanding often causes people to criticize those whose individual or group ministry focuses on a specific issue exclusively...It is somewhat like accusing the Alcoholics Anonymous movement of not doing anything about the arms race...[and] it can tend to expect the impossible, and expect people and groups to use their already limited time and resources to address any number of issues, any one of which could easily require a lifetime of effort...Yet there is a truth here which must be stressed: no person or group is free to be unconcerned about all the attacks on human dignity, nor are we free to ignore the interdependence of all the efforts on behalf of human life. There are numerous activities being carried out in defense of human dignity. There may not be room for all of them on our schedule, but we must make room for all of them in our heart.
Gaudium et Spes, 24 (official Catholic document)
Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on the body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where [people] are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.
Faye Wattleton, then President of Planned Parenthood, Donahue, May 15, 1989, Transcript #3288 NBC
Women are not stupid...women have always known that there was a life there.
Peter Hitchens, British journalist and brother of Christopher Hitchens, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith (Zondervan, 2010), pp. 141-42
Left to themselves, human beings can in a matter of minutes justify the incineration of populated cities, the mass deportation – accompanied by slaughter, disease, and starvation – of inconvenient people, and the mass murder of the unborn...The Second World War, in which the good side committed dreadful crimes and the bad side worse ones, is a constant source of such confusion...Anyone who speaks the unpleasant truth about that war, and especially about the bombing of civilians, is met to this day with rage and resentment, just as is anyone who draws attention to the unpleasant truth about abortion (the one act of violence that British television refuses to show)
Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, p. 144
Violence is a method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.
Mark Shea, National Catholic Register, September 2, 2010, [Note: This is sarcastic; Shea is supporting our position.]
How can somebody be opposed to abortion and, at the same time, to the death penalty? Indeed, that is mysterious. It’s like being opposed to tyranny while simultaneously favoring freedom. It’s like enjoying exercise while simultaneously appreciating fresh air...Or singing both the words and the tune. Who can account for such a complete contradiction?
Joseph Bernardin, Put Life First, National Catholic Register, June 09, 2009
I know that some people on the left, if I may use that label, have used the consistent ethic to give the impression that the abortion issue is not all that important anymore, that you should be against abortion in a general way but that there are more important issues, so don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire just on abortion. That’s a misuse of the consistent ethic, and I deplore it. But the misuse does not invalidate the argument.
Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director, LifeNews.com, July 21, 2011
I am pro-life. I believe in the protection of all life. I am against abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty. I am pro-quality of life. I believe all children deserve quality health care. I don’t believe in reducing assistance benefits for those who are disabled or who have special needs...It’s not just about “saving” the baby. It is about empowering the mother as well. I am not against abortion because it takes an innocent life — I am against abortion because it takes a life. Innocence has nothing to do with it. They lives are not more valuable because they are innocent. They will not always be innocent, but their lives will still hold the same value.
Tom Neuville, leading Republican on Minnesota's Senate Judiciary Committee, on Governor Pawlenty's efforts to reinstate the death penalty, Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 7, 2003
Life is a gift from God. It isn't up to us to take it away. Whether you take an innocent life of a baby, or of a person who has committed a heinous act, it is still an act at our hands, and it makes us a less caring and less sensitive society.
Richard A. Viguerie, When Governments Kill: A conservative argues for abolishing the death penalty, Sojourners, 2009
Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation...But here the end result is the end of someone’s life. In other words, it’s a government system that kills people. Those of us who oppose abortion believe that it is perhaps the greatest immorality to take an innocent life. While the death penalty is supposed to take the life of the guilty, we know that is not always the case. It should have shocked the consciences of conservatives when various government prosecutors withheld exculpatory, or opposed allowing DNA-tested, evidence in death row cases. To conservatives, that should be deemed as immoral as abortion...But even when guilt is certain, there are many downsides to the death penalty system.
Joseph Bernardin, The Seamless Garment: Writings on the Consistent Ethic, p. 55
Precisely because the unborn child represents the weakest member of our human community, there is an objective link to be made between unborn life and the lives of others who live defenseless at the margin of our society.
Allen Ault – retired warden of the Georgia prison in which Troy Davis was held, and five other retired prison officials
We write to you as former wardens and corrections officials who have had direct involvement in executions. Like few others in this country, we understand...from our own personal experiences the awful lifelong repercussions that come from participating in the execution of prisoners...Living with the nightmares is something that we know from experience...we urge you to unburden yourselves and your staff from the pain of participating in such a questionable execution to the extent possible by allowing any personnel so inclined to opt-out of activities related to the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. Further, we urge you to provide appropriate counseling to personnel who do choose to perform their job functions related to the execution.
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