THE SHAMEFUL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SLAVERY AND ABORTION
The parallels between attempts to justify abortion and the slave trade are shockingly identical at times. The unborn child is not a human being / The African is not a human being. The unborn child does not feel pain and distress / The African does not feel pain and distress. Keep abortion safe, keep it legal, because if we don`t do it, unsavoury abortionists will; at least our abortion clinics are clean. / Keep slavery safe, keep it legal, because if we don't do it, smugglers will; at least our slave ships are clean.
If one refers back to the infamous U.S Supreme Court`s 1857 'Dred Scott' case legitimizing slavery, one sees that almost identical reasoning was used and very similar statements were made in the equally appalling 'Roe vs Wade' decision that unborn children have no rights protected by the Constitution and that the states have no right to abolish abortion. Both rulings found that the words "citizens" or "persons" used in the Constitution were never meant to include Blacks/unborn children; that the rights to privacy protects the decision to own and dispose of slaves/unborn children; that slavery/abortion is justified because historically the rights of Blacks/unborn children have been abused; and, that slavery/abortion is for the victim`s own good.
Stephen A. Douglas, a slavery advocate who debated Abraham Lincoln, made this modern-sounding argument: "I hold that the people of the slave-holding states are civilized men... and that they are accountable to God. It is for them to decide the moral and religious rights of slavery."
Until Lincoln abolished it, slavery was justified by "States` Rights," the right of people to "choose" the advantages of slave ownership, and the conviction that a black slave could be the absolute property of his or her owner. Now we hear the claim that abortion is the centrepiece of women`s rights, that it is the choice above all choices, and that the unborn child is simply the property of his or her owner. In the days of slavery, the aspirations of the slave owner were seen as more important than the slave`s very life. Today we recoil from these beliefs, only to condemn unborn babies to crucifixion in their own mother`s womb.
In the 1860s, Lincoln ended the moral outrage of slavery in North America because he knew it was wrong. Abortion is now the moral outrage of the 20th century, and we will end it because it too is terribly wrong. A question, though, which still remains unanswered is why the most powerful and arguably most compassionate country in the world, for the second time in its short history, has written off an entire class of people.
Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1772, 61 years before it was eliminated in the colonies. The man there leading the battle against slavery was a Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, a courageous man not blinded by the prejudices of his day. He could clearly see the countless thousands of his brothers and sisters and their children suffering on the coast of Africa, waiting in the dark, sinister prisons of the slave ships to be transported like cattle across the Atlantic to European colonies. How many Canadians and Americans today fail to recognize abortion in the same way Wilberforce described slavery, namely, as "the guilt of our wicked land?"
The dedicated pro-choice (on slavery) elite, enjoying the overwhelming support of 16th century British media, voiced the same inanities as their 20th century pro-choice (on abortion) clones are currently mouthing, when they maintained that "Men who would destroy the slave trade are fanatical dreamers." They were even supported by a future king of England who declared that "the promoters of abolition of slavery were fanatics or hypocrites" - labels that are now commonly applied to today`s pro-lifers.
What was the motivating factor driving the inhuman slave trade? Money! Why would slave ship captains squeeze 500 slaves into space for only 200? Money! Why would the victors of tribal wars in Africa sell captives of defeated tribes - men, women and children - as slaves? Money, pure and simple! What is the motivating factor behind the vast, world-wide abortion industry today? Compassion? One would have to be an ideological descendant of those cruel slave ship captains to really believe anything so intellectually dishonest. The principle motive behind the abortion industry today is the same as what it was in the heydays of slavery - profits!
Before William Wilberforce convinced the British Parliament to end slavery, about 15 million African slaves had been taken to European colonies against their will. Since the legalization of abortion in Canada (1969) and the United States (1973), twice that many people have been painfully dismembered by profit-seeking abortion "doctors."
Contemporary English church leaders of Wilberforce described slavery at the time as "the most execrable and inhuman traffic that ever disgraced the Christian world." One wonders what word they would use to describe the yearly commercial destruction of some 55 million pre-born children in our "civilized" world today.
Except perhaps for a very few countries such as Sudan, where the tyrannical leaders deny they practice slavery, there are no more slaves to free, only preborn children. The pro-life movement is here to champion that cause and accomplish what the anti-slavery movement finally did - return a fundamental, precious human right to every human being. This is our goal, and we will not stop until it is achieved. We are and will remain today`s William Wilberforce!
Thaddée Renault