President Lincoln and Abortion Abolitionists

We are the new Abolitionists.

“John Paul II says you cannot simply live comfortably with an immoral legal system, any more than you could live comfortably with slavery, and therefore you have to work to change the law. It's a society-dividing issue, and on this issue, we're with Abraham Lincoln and he (President Obama)'s with Stephen Douglas, and he doesn't like to hear that, but that's where he is." -Cardinal Francis George, April 21, 2009. 2009 Louisiana Priests Convention.

"The question of slavery, at the present day, should be not only the greatest question, but very nearly the sole question. Our opponents, however, prefer that this should not be the case." -President Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856.

__________________________________________________________

"We believe that there are self-evident truths about the dignity of each human life, and that this dignity derives from our having been fashioned in our Creator’s likeness. In this new century, these beliefs make us the counterculture. One does not need to be a Catholic to appreciate that abortion involves the brutal taking of innocent human life. To argue that this is a Catholic truth, or even a religious truth, is to overlook what science and sonograms tell us – and to insult the Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and, yes, even some atheists, who appreciate that a civilization which sanctions abortion as a human right is in some essential way writing its death warrant." - William McGurn, "A Notre Dame Witness to Life," April 23, 2009.

"Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a ``sacred right of self-government.'' These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other." -President Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854.

___________________________________________________________

"…In the past few weeks, we have read more than once the suggestion that to oppose this year’s speaker and honorary degree is to elevate politics over the proper work of a university. In many ways, we might say that such reasoning lies at the core of the confusion. As has become clear with America’s debates over the destruction of embryos for scientific research, over human cloning, over assisted suicide, and over other end-of-life issues, abortion as a legal right is less a single issue than an entire ethic that serves as the foundation stone for the culture of death." - William McGurn, "A Notre Dame Witness to Life," April 23, 2009.

"The question of slavery, at the present day, should be not only the greatest question, but very nearly the sole question. Our opponents, however, prefer that this should not be the case." -President Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856.

____________________________________________________________

"With the idea that one human being has the right to take the life of another merely because the other’s life is inconvenient, our culture elevates into law the primacy of the strong over the weak." - William McGurn, "A Notre Dame Witness to Life," April 23, 2009.

"If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?—

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you." -President Abraham Lincoln,

Fragment on Slavery, c.1854.

____________________________________________________________

"The discord that this year’s commencement has unleashed – between Notre Dame and the bishops, between members of the Notre Dame community, between Notre Dame and thousands of discouraged Catholic faithful – all this derives from an approach that for decades has treated abortion as one issue on a political scorecard." - William McGurn, "A Notre Dame Witness to Life," April 23, 2009.

"The question of slavery, at the present day, should be not only the greatest question, but very nearly the sole question. Our opponents, however, prefer that this should not be the case." -President Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney