By Mike Mehling
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“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
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The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is familiar to many of us. It’s the story of one man who demonstrated incredible moral courage in the face of a monstrous evil – Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe. One man with a passion for truth and a commitment to justice on behalf of those who faced this implacable evil, often alone. (From Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas)
And that’s a challenge we all face today in America on behalf of those who have no voice but ours.
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Attached below is a powerful guest Op-Ed that appeared several years ago in the Daily News-Record. It was written by Mike Mehling, who captures the spirit of guilt that many of us share as witnesses to a horrible crime, but who have done little or nothing to stop it – and the crime goes on.
But there is something we can do, now. Join us for the March for Life to DC next Thursday, Jan. 22, as we call on the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the President to reverse Roe v. Wade, shut down the abortion clinic killing fields, and help rebuild a culture of life in America.
Our bus leaves from the Blessed Sacrament Church in Harrisonburg at 8:00 a.m. with stops in New Market, Luray, and Front Royal, if needed, and returns around 9:00 p.m. The cost is $20/person. For reservations, reply by return e-mail to family@valleyfamilyforum.org or call (540) 438-8966.
For God, for Country, and for Life,
Dean
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My Confession: Silent Witness to a Crime
This is something of a public confession. I am guilty of witnessing a crime yet doing nothing to intervene.
Last Tuesday, approximately 3,700 innocent people were killed in the United States and I did nothing about it. The same number perished on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but for me, it was just another week. As a matter of fact, 3,700 defenseless people have their lives taken from them every single day, but my moral compass barely budges.
I’m suddenly feeling very guilty about it.
When 3,000 were killed on September 11, 2001, I, like most Americans, was outraged, angry, and ready to act. Why am I not equally provoked by the daily diet of human death by abortion?
Slavery and Abortion: A Common Theme
Did slavery persist in America as long as it did because average people like me were asleep at the wheel?
Pro-slavery advocates lulled average Americans into believing that our economy depended on slavery and that it was too big to fail. They defended it as biblical and claimed that it actually improved life for Africans when they were shipped to our country and enslaved.
These wicked pro-slavery sponsors fought to keep government from interfering with “their property,” the expendable human flesh working in their cotton fields. They had the endorsement of the Supreme Court which ruled in 1857 that African-Americans were property, not citizens, and never could be.
Are we in “déjà-vu all over again?” The pro-slavery advocates have been replaced with pro-abortion advocates. Like their pro-slavery forefathers, the pro-abortion supporters of today claim that abortion is good for the economy. Planned Parenthood collected one billion dollars in 2006 through abortion services alone while freeing us of the “expense” that millions of extra unwanted children would have caused.
The Right to Kill vs. the Right to Live
Abortion advocates today claim moral superiority on the grounds that it is better to be a dead child than an unwanted one, much like the slave owners of yesterday argued that it was better to be enslaved in America than free in Africa.
Today’s abortion proponents fight to keep government from interfering with the way they treat “their property,” the expendable human flesh growing in the womb. Like the slave-owners of 1857, abortionists today have the support of the Supreme Court which ruled in 1973 for all intents and purposes that a mother’s right to kill trumps a child’s right to live.
Proponents of abortion say it is necessary because it makes it just as easy for the mother to walk away from the pregnancy as it does the father, and that’s only fair. I’m sure the baby would like a say in what’s fair, too, since his or her life depends on it! If the father walks away, and the mother aborts, how do these two wrongs make a right?
Lessons from History: The Cost of Silence
In the 1800’s, a few “radicals” spoke out against slavery, but the nation at large accepted it despite its obvious immorality and its direct contradiction to our declared belief that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator will certain unalienable Rights, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Except for a dedicated few who have led the charge to undo abortion on demand, most Americans have responded like me, by doing nothing. When will we learn that we cannot be lulled into complacency by the persistent selfishness and empty arguments of the morally bankrupt? When will we learn that the Supreme Court can make mistakes, too?
When the Court declared slaves to be mere property, denying them the Liberty described in the Declaration of Independence, they were wrong. When they declared the unborn child to be mere property, denying them of Life, they were wrong again.
“I Tremble for My Country”
When I think of the high cost to eliminate slavery, and the exponentially greater evil of abortion, I, like Jefferson, “tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
As much as I appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers, I look down my nose with disdain at those among them who did nothing for all those years while slavery was our national shame. And I wonder how our descendants will view us?