Choice Ironies

Letters to the Editor:

‘Thou shalt not kill'

Mary Agbakli wrote a rather confusing letter to the editor ("Advice to pro-life") in the June Interim. May I offer to her and to all some clarifications?

She wrote, "We have a right to our views." Do we have a right to wrong views? We have duties as well as rights. We have a duty to educate and train our minds to think clearly and to follow the lead of wise and holy minds who went before us.

She also wrote, "We don't have the right to impose our views on others." Yet thousands of laws in Canada are, in fact, imposed on us by our elected legislators. Parents, teachers, doctors, lawyers and pastors constantly impose their ideas on people under them. They are right to do so.

She wrote, "Choice is God-given, to kill or not to kill." This may be blasphemy. God has clearly said, "Thou shalt not kill." Shortly after God said this, Moses told the people, "I put before you death and life. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19)." Repeatedly, the prophets said that sin - breaking God's laws - leads to trouble, disaster and death. We certainly have no right to choose wrong.

We face thousands of choices in life. We cannot choose all the good or right options. We have the time and strength to choose only some. Our freedom is to make wise choices and our duty is to follow up on them, all in the light and love of God's good laws.

Fr. Stephen Somerville

Queensville, Ont.

Sharpen thinking

To the Editor:

Re: Mary Agbakli's letter in the June Interim. Her letter is a classic case of confused thinking. First of all, she points out that in a democracy, "we have a right to our views and a right to express them," but that we don't have "the right to impose our views on others." She does not make any attempt to define the difference between expressing and imposing our views.

Anyone might ask: why should her attempt to influence the pro-life movement's thinking by her letter be any less of an attempt to impose her views on others than the pro-life movement's attempts to influence pro-abortion groups?

She also claims she doesn't believe in abortion on demand, but in abortion when the mother's life is in danger, in cases of rape and if "the fetus" is severely deformed. What she does not realize is that, by accepting any abortion, one is forced by an inner logic to accept abortion on demand.

She then says that "abortion is a choice involving a woman, her conscience and her doctor. It has nothing to do with anyone else." She has completely overlooked the pre-born child who is killed by the procedure! How blinded such people are by the brainwashing of an abortion society!

My plea to the likes of Mary Agbakli is this: sharpen your thinking. Do not be brainwashed by the sophistry of a death society that undermines the very basis of democracy, with its requirement that the inalienable rights of everyone be protected. The powerful, in an atheistic-materialistic society, manipulate the media to brainwash the unwary.

The result is a widespread acceptance of a relativistic amorality and of a concomitant materialism that render human life meaningless by considering it as a passage to mere "dust at death." This atheistic-materialistic combination leads to a moral jungle in which "might makes right."

Fr. Lawrence Abello, S.J.
Calcutta, India

False premise

To The Editor:

This is in reponse to Mary Agbakli's letter in the June Interim, "Advice to pro-life." She used the well-worn argument that pro-lifers "impose" their views. We can understand the fallacy of this argument by taking it to its logical conclusion.

All laws, by this criterion, can be considered an imposition of a point of view. Society imposes its views by making rape illegal. It also imposes its views by locking up thieves. Courts impose their morality by taking thieves and locking them up. Courts impose their morality when they prosecute parents who abuse their children. The argument against imposing one's morality conceals a false premise that states all morality is purely private and subjective.

Pro-lifers wish to end abortion because it is wrong in and of itself (as is rape, theft and child abuse). The moral wrong of abortion is objective and not subjective. Misguided government leaders do not make it right by making it legal.

The second thing mentioned in the letter was the idea that God gave us free will simply for the sake of making choices, and that whether we choose good or evil is entirely up to us. The truth is, we were given free will by God only to choose good. The ability to choose evil is simply a logically necessary (and unfortunate) consequence of free will. An evil choice is something that no one has a right to.

The eminent philospher Dietrich Von Hildebrand said that the apex of the sin of pride is the satanic wish to exercise one's arbitrary choice simply for the sake of asserting one's own will. This is what the "reproductive rights" people aim for.

Jim J. McCrea
Toronto, Ont.

Spiritually correct

To the Editor:

I am concerned about recent politically - but not spiritually - correct pushes for society to accept homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. Sodomy is a sin, and although I believe we must be tolerant of sinners, I do not believe we must be tolerant of sin.

Gay and lesbian educators want acceptance of their lifestyles, and wish to introduce curricula in the schools that educate children about homosexuality. My concern is that this will desensitize children, so that young minds will become more open to homosexuality and begin to regard it as normal. As a parent, I am fearful of any education that makes the gay and lesbian lifestyle appear normal, when it is not normal, but in fact sinful.

Canadian governments have passed laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. They want us to become a "tolerant" society; one that tolerates sin and accepts all choices.

I would like to say how much I enjoy reading your paper. It is comforting to know others have the same beliefs and concerns I do.

Josie Nixdorff
Airdrie, Alta.

Bravo

To the Editor:

Bravo for printing Thadee Renault's article "Abortion is ultimate act of powerlessness" in the May issue of The Interim. He quotes the stark observation of a pro-choice feminist, that "women have abortions for the same reason that an animal will gnaw off its own leg: to get out of a trap."

Of course, abortion is violence towards other human beings. The trap analogy cannot be pushed all the way. Nevertheless, it coveys the kind of desperation that outweighs all else in many cases. Certainly, it gets away from the judgemental, holier-than-thou position.

Paul Giblin

Brampton, Ont.

Happier thought

To the Editor:

I refer to Fr. Ted Colleton's quotations in the May Interim from I Corinthians 11, wherein St. Paul writes, "The head of every man is Christ. The head of every woman is her husband," and from Colossians 3:18: "Wives, be subject to your husbands."

If a woman has to be told to obey her husband, it follows that she tends to be disobedient. Such a thing could never exist between equal spouses who work faithfully for the good of the family. All decisions, from buying the kids' shoes to investing family income, should be worked out together and agreed upon by husband and wife.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: ‘My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.'" This is a happier thought than that of the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit lusting against the flesh.

Lyn Sutherland, M.D.
Don Mills, Ont.