It is necessary to mention that human existential journeys flounder between purposeful movement and directionless wanderings because of our deprived nature. Consequent to man’s connatural imperfection, the struggle for the driver of this existential journey competes with the struggle for direction. The superego’s persistent effort to be on the driver’s seat suffers a defeat whenever reason recedes into disuse. In such an eclipse of reason, the momentary victory of the ego or id awards defeat to humanity. The battleground for this axiomatic war shifts according to times and climes. Presently, the sacred identity, inviolable dignity and irrepressible right to life of every person, especially the unborn, constitute the nouveau battleground.
Ego, consisting of the individual’s coalesced personal conscious app operating system, safeguards one’s interest. On the other hand, the superego, the union of the social mores that norm human actions in a given society, connects one with society and the supernatural. They nudge humans to act with reason consistent with their wellbeing and the health of society. The culture of death, manifesting as abortion, spells a failure of reason and humanity among the perpetrators. Otherwise, it is counter-intuitive that humans who are supposed to invest immensely in protecting life destroy it. Though abortion has the signature of legislative approval in some countries, it lacks the stamp of divine support. In such instances, abortion is the real capital punishment through which humans without capital suffer punishment for the faults of others. These potentates offer various alibis that neither justify nor excuse their unjust acts against the innocent. Their utilitarian and mercantile understanding of life excludes its fundamental meaning as a mystery and network of mutual generosity.
In abortion, humans succumb to enslavement by comfort and dictatorship of convenience. While it is undeniable that women often face difficult moments relative to pregnancies, yet nothing justifies a wilful killing of an innocent human being. Challenges facing a mother for an unprepared pregnancy might be daunting; however, the preborn child should not on any account pay the price. Since everyone has an inalienable right to life, then nothing justifies a wilful termination of the life of another person under any guise. Headaches are not cured by cutting off the head. While the situation might seem irredeemable, a child should not bear the consequences of the misdemeanour of adults. It is outsourcing punishment to the most innocent of all.
The victim’s innocence laments the evil of the power so cruel as to murder the innocent in abortion. With such an objectionable use of brutal force, doctors and healthcare workers submit their ingenuity to horrific murder, spilling the blood of the innocent. Irrespective of the intention, it is never permissible to do evil for the seemingly prospective good. And in this matter, since science has proved that an unborn baby is human, abortion is a termination of human life. No wonder our legal system recognises that when a man kills a pregnant mother, the person is charged for killing two victims. As such, the child is already recognised as human. This is not to introduce the argument of faith, which is quite obvious that no person who truly wants to serve God righteously will support such a heinous evil. By implication, there is an implicit or explicit knowledge that abortion is evil before God. Hence, to be at peace with God and self, one will not support abortion.
Within this regime of utility as the logic of life, human life is stripped of sacredness and death is emptied of mystery. It is the sovereignty in which the unbridled id reigns, and under this sovereignty of instincts, unhealed emotion and untaught habits terrorise the human person. Within this scenario, the culture of convenience, which functions perfectly in the pleasure industry, makes abortion the only viable option.
Making the right choices corresponds to the grammar of life. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that some circumstances appear so challenging and confusing that a victim thinks of absolutely no choice for unfounded or real fear. Such situations make abortion seem compelling and inevitable. However, it remains a morally depraved and dastardly act to summarize one’s life and delete someone’s aspiration forever and deny them the opportunity of experiencing the goodness of God in the world. Indeed, abortion denies the world the gift from God with possibilities of the positive impact of epochal dimension.
Despite the illegality of abortion in Nigeria, the bloodletting in hidden and known abortuaries makes a mess of the sacredness of life. These abortions feed the rivers of blood with the innocent blood of the unborn babies killed with the full cooperation of their mothers, fathers and death-care professionals. The value of human life in Nigeria makes the Hobbesian state of nature an eldorado. It is not only that life is short, brutish but the scale of its destruction spells a culture of death. It baffles one’s imagination how a society strongly professes the sacredness of life, yet the actual culture is death. Though the law remains prohibitive relative to abortion, it goes on unchecked. Hence, these abortion-related deaths in health facilities expose the hypocrisy and inefficiency of the law enforcement agencies.
Sadly, the killings by these law enforcement agents, at the slightest provocation, fund the enthronement of the culture of death. The government slumbers while the killer herdsmen kill with abandon and doctors and politicians refill the rivers of blood in Nigeria. Unfortunately, in a scenario where utility serves as the logic of life, its value is measured by the productivity factor. As life is stripped of sacredness and death emptied of mystery, citizens engage in devotion without discipline, and piety without virtues, promoting self-serving religiosity similar to the prevailing corrupt politics and socio-economics. Hopefully, if the rule of just law is instituted, it will certainly help to put undisciplined id to check and snatch victory from the sovereignty of instincts and reverse the triumph of the id. When emotions are healed, and habits taught, we can hope to have a culture of life where the inviolable dignity and sacredness of the human life is respected, whether in the womb or world.
• Fr George Adimike writes from Rome