Jan 10 2009
Could Abortion be Likened to Burning God in Effigy?
I turned on Catholic Radio today and thought I heard the person on (who I will not name since they are well known) liken abortion to burning God in effigy. Mind you, I was driving in snow that was getting worse and I turned it on part way through the program However, this actually makes sense if you consider that an effigy is the likeness of a person and we are made in the likeness of God (Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness [Gen 1:26 RSV]).
The murder of the unborn (as is any murder) the deliberate destruction of a human life. The burning of the effigy is the deliberate destruction of the likeness of the person. Linking the two acts as similar is not that far of a reach.
Now consider the following:
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Mt 22: 35-40 RSV)
Abortion, (as would any type of murder, would fail both these commandments. We would not want to be treated as the aborted baby and we sure would not be loving God by destroying his likeness.
