“If you strip somebody of their humanity long enough, you will arrive at the chilling conclusion that they don’t deserve to exist at all,” said Erika Kirk.
Dressed all in black, she sat next to her husband’s empty chair and soberly observed, “There is a serious epidemic of dehumanization plaguing this country.”
Kirk was commenting on the assassination of her husband and the multiple attempts to assassinate President Trump. But my mind was on the unborn children of Wyoming.
A Temporary Restraining Order issued by Natrona County District Judge, Daniel Forgey, now prevents Wyoming law enforcement from defending them from harm. For Forgey it may be only “temporary,” but for every child who dies in the meantime, it is final.
For them, abortion is not about a polite discussion of “social policy.” They experience abortion as a brutal and nasty invasion of their sanctuary that unjustly executes them without a trial. While we wring our hands when somebody opposes abortion with too much vehemence, they would be astounded at the utter disregard that we have for their humanity.
Speaking for myself, if a man were trying to tear my leg from my body using a Sopher clamp, I would not consider it “extreme” should a couple dozen police officers chase him through the lobby with guns drawn. And I would be more than a little miffed at anyone who blocked them from defending me.
As I read a litany of “retired state judges and two retired Wyoming Supreme Court justices. . . voicing shock, consternation or sadness,” at an inappropriate comment about Judge Forgey, I was struck by the grotesque contrast.
We wring our hands over the dainty standards of civil discourse while the brutal lived experience of the unborn goes unmentioned.
Loud protesters demand to know every salacious detail of the child-abuse perpetrated by Epstein. But when Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Tx) described exactly how the bodies of unborn babies are abused by every method of abortion, his words were censored and his reach was algorithmically restricted.
Let’s face it, abortion is morally equivalent to assassination. If we want people to consider assassination as taboo and unthinkable, we should work toward making abortion taboo and unthinkable.
And if we teach that abortion is no more consequential than pulling a tooth, we should not be surprised when a perfectly sane and well-educated teacher of our children takes a train to Washington to execute multiple elected officials. It’s just another day at the office.
We were warned about this from the start.
Pro-lifers regularly point out that the State’s protection of the unborn serves two purposes. Not only does it save particular and individual lives, it also safeguards all of society from becoming Hobbesian hell - nasty and brutish. The most honest proponents of abortion agree.
In 2008, Camille Paglia recognized that euphemisms about abortion may win rhetorical wars, but do so at the cost of hollowing out our humanity. So, she challenged her fellow pro-choicers to join her in admitting “that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful.”
In 1995, arch-feminist and abortion defender Noami Wolf made the same point. “(C)linging to the rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs, and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish, and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life.”
Today, they stand vindicated. It is no longer a question of whether the abortion regime will make us callous. If you are incapable of empathizing with the unborn, you have already been dehumanized.
Attorney General, Keith Kautz, made a valiant effort to defend unborn individuals and to re-humanize our social consciousness in the State’s 57-page brief to Judge Forgey. He laid out an unassailable case in defense of the Heartbeat Bill. You should read, at least, its most important section (pp. 29-41) where he lays out the State’s compelling interest in defending the unborn.
Kautz’ brief goes on to show how that compelling interest is heightened when children are left defenseless. Entire chapters of Wyoming statute are devoted to protecting children. Child Protective Services, the Child Protective Act, Terminating Parental Rights of Abused or Neglected Children, and numerous other laws have exercised this compelling interest for our 135-year history.
Like allowing assassinations to go unpunished, “(a)llowing abortion undermines the State’s legitimacy and subverts the State’s primary purpose of securing the well-being of all living humans.”
In the face of this thorough and airtight brief, Forgey offers no answer whatsoever. He simply granted the TRO as though the defenseless children did not exist at all. Thus, he condemns unborn Wyomingites to the irreversible harm of violent death because the “irreparable injury” of an abortion mill losing revenue carries more weight.
Erika is right, “If you strip somebody of their humanity long enough, you will arrive at the chilling conclusion that they don’t deserve to exist at all.”
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/
Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
