I recently wrote an open letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom to express my dismay that his executive orders have considered liquor stores, pot shops and abortion clinics as “essential” businesses, open to dispense their services at will, but churches are still ordered to remain closed.
Newsom, of course, is not the only governor to take this bewildering position. Many (mostly Democrat) governors bow to the god of “science and data” and lock down the economy, close schools, deny religious people their “free exercise thereof,” along with forcing young and old to self-quarantine in their homes for months at a time—all in the name of hopefully “saving lives.”
The spreading, Chinese-born epidemic became a global pandemic that has caused, in some U.S. cities and states, public pandemonium.
If these governors and health dictators really wanted to save lives and “follow the science,” they would also want to ban abortions. Instead, they conveniently cherry-pick the contexts in which science and data should be used to save lives.
Brittany Clingen Carl, vice president of Illinois Right to Life, has written about this at thefederalist.com:
“Scientific and technologic advancements in the fields of embryology and neonatology have made clear to laypeople what pro-life leaders have been saying for decades: A fertilized egg, complete with its unique and distinct set of DNA from the moment of conception, is a human being … and just as deserving of rights, protection and care as any person fighting for his or her life in a COVID-19 hospital ward.”
Every day, governors stand at a podium and call on their homebound constituents to cooperate with their edicts and make tremendous sacrifices to protect human lives. Yet the majority sign legislation to allow and encourage the daily killing of hundreds of innocent preborn children in their states via abortion.
Not only is abortion a moral tragedy but it is a strategic tragedy as well. These anti-life politicians and adherents have, by now, short-circuited tens of millions of potential citizens, voters and taxpayers who could have productively replaced the aging “surplus population,” to borrow a phrase from Scrooge.
Those who tout “science and data” as our way out of this novel-coronavirus crisis and those who share this life-ending political ideology are, as Brittany Carl says, “complicit in ending more lives than COVID-19 ever will.” {eoa}
Gary Curtis served in full-time ministry for 50 years, the last 27 years of which he was part of the pastoral staff of The Church on The Way, the Van Nuys, California Foursquare Church. Now retired, Gary continues to write a weekly blog at worshipontheway.wordpress.com and frequent articles for digital and print platforms. Gary and his wife live in Southern California and have two married daughters and five grandchildren.
