Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

Prayer for this day

 Lectionary: 516A

Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.

When I first heard the theory of evolution I imagined animals surviving as their bodies adapted to different kinds of behavior. For instance, I supposed that those high flying birds that dive for fish developed thicker skulls to absorb the impact. The thin-skulled died; the thicker-headed survived and multiplied. It was a crude supposition and, for all I know, my classmates thought the same way. 

I have come to a better understanding as I watch a climate change within my own lifetime. Evolution doesn't tweak the bodies or the behaviors of evolving species to fit the circumstances. Rather, entire species and their multiple relationships to others species evolve with the changing environment in collaboration and competition. The gazelle runs faster because the cheetah runs faster. The mongoose develops lightning quick reflexes to match the lightning quick strikes of the cobra. 

This evolution happens on the microscopic as well as the macroscopic levels. Mastodons had germs in their intestines that might not exist today. If scientists discovered mastodon DNA that could be stimulated to create a latter day monster, they might not know which microbes to plant in the infant intestines. Nor could they recreate the ecological landscape with all its flora and fauna where those animals roamed. 

My patient reader wonders what this has to do with the abortion controversy. 

Abortion as it is practiced on a global scale fits the economic, social, political, philosophical, and religious environment of our time. It can no more be eradicated than a surgeon could remove a diseased spinal cord and expect the patient to walk away. So long as consumers can buy whatever they want -- foods, clothes, entertainment, guns, drugs, sex, etc. -- they will demand and receive abortions. A consumer-driven economy must meet their demands, regardless of moral considerations. 

Abortion is deeply rooted in an economy of consumerism. If there was resistance to its legalization in the United States until 1973, consumers didn't demand it until then. The small demand was met illegally and often dangerously. And the belief that consumers should be able to purchase whatever they want was not as deep until the Baby Boomers came of age. That generation's buying power was discovered and nurtured to a hideous maturity by Walt Disney and other entrepreneurs.

Abortion will disappear as a legal institution when consumerism disappears. Not within my lifetime or yours. But someday. It wasn't always taken for granted, nor will it always be. Philosophers of the Enlightenment developed the radical idea that an individual could own as much as they could amass. More than a king, emperor, or pope -- and why not? The Church had always opposed greed but its authority was waning, and technological developments promised an unheard of prosperity and freedom for an awakening middle class. 

So consumerism has a long history and deep roots, especially in a nation founded upon middle class rights. Even the notion of rights, as in certain unalienable rights, is new to history. 

But the culture of consumerism will pass. It is founded upon too many untruths. The Earth cannot endure uninhibited waste and endless exploitation. Our "social security system" bears a troubling resemblance to a Ponzi scheme; it cannot provide aging parents with the protective care their children should provide. The middle class which demands its rights against the wealthy is disappearing. 

Paleontologists tell us the Earth has seen several "mass extinctions," global collapses when a way of life became unsustainable. Protests against abortion must oppose the culture of consumerism. Despite the starry-eyed optimists, it is unsustainable. 

If that seems unimaginable we turn to...

...him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.