(Written by Jennifer Hartline, Posted at www.catholic.org)
After I finished reading Rev. Matthew Westfox's article entitled, "Resurrecting Pro-Life", I couldn't shake an image in my head of the father of lies smugly patting himself on the back for this one. A very delicious deception, indeed.
Rev. Westfox begins, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" reminds me that Easter is a celebration of life itself and what Christians honor and revere about life. Easter reminds me of the respect and reverence for life that is at the core of my theology, that I am in my heart a deeply "pro-life" person."
That first paragraph left me with a vague uneasiness in my stomach, and the next paragraph got worse. A lot worse.
"Today most of us won't use that term because it has been co-opted by those who oppose reproductive choice and abortion access. In the spirit of Easter, I want us to resurrect that term, to re-claim a pro-life theology that is deeply supportive of reproductive justice."
Westfox, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, serves the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice as their Field Services National Coordinator. A perusal of RCRC's website reveals it to be little more than a pro-abortion platform, complete with all the usual euphemisms and standard pro-abortion arguments about women's health, safety, and right to "privacy" and "control." The site condemns laws that attempt to restrict abortion, require parental notification, and the current wave of state efforts to pass Personhood laws. There's no denying their loyalty to abortion.
Continuing on with Westfox's article: "To be pro-life, after all, means to honor life and to cherish it. But do we honor life, or do we honor a heartbeat?" And with that, Westfox howls through the last shred of pretense and bares the wolf fangs behind his fluffy wool.
"Life, after all, is the ability to LIVE, to connect with other human beings, and for Christians, life is among other things the ability to experience the presence of Christ through those connections. To live is to use our God-given conscience and power of moral decision-making. It is to act as a truly free person with control over one's own body, sexuality, and reproduction."
Westfox denies any inherent value of human life, instead parroting the abortion rationale that a human being only becomes a person of value after the select criteria of independence has been achieved. He wraps it in Christian-speak to make it sound noble and himself credible, but it's the same regurgitated bile so typical of the culture of death.
He insists that God gives the conscience but not the heartbeat. Whatever god Westfox preaches, it is not the Living God; not the Incarnate God who took on human flesh. Was Christ not quite human, not really alive in Mary's womb?
He goes on to twist Jesus' teaching in the parable of the sower to fit the pro-abortion theology of "choice." He says, "In the parable of the sower, Jesus reminds us that seed alone does not bring about new life - that all aspects of the conditions into which the seed are cast must be suitable to sustain life.the story reminds us that respecting and honoring life means doing all we can to create the conditions that will allow life to flourish - while at the same time respecting and accepting that some conditions are not suitable to sustaining life. We do no service by trying to force life into places where the ground is not right."
Westfox is actually saying we have a duty - based on Jesus' teaching about seed falling on good ground - to abort all babies who may be born to mothers who are unfit ground or whose present circumstances are not suitable. To not kill those babies would be to ignore the lesson Jesus was teaching, and therefore, to not follow Christ.
He borrows another common pro-abortion tactic (in which pro-lifers are mocked for supposedly considering an individual sperm or egg to be a living human being, minus conception) by equating a new human soul with a seed. He again denies that God is the Creator and Giver of life by implying that life depends on the soil and the conditions, rather than having inherent, God-given value by virtue of being His creation.
He continues, "Similarly, living out a pro-life theology means ensuring that those who want to create new life or parent a child never feel they cannot because the ground they stand upon is not suitable. It also means that no one should ever be coerced into bringing new life into a situation they do not believe is ready to sustain it."
Those who want a child can go about creating new life themselves, and those who do not want a child must not be "coerced" into bringing new life into the world. When the baby is desired, it's the couple who creates new life; when the baby is unwanted, it's the couple who must not be forced to sustain a life they didn't want to create. In the latter instance, the "seed" has fallen on bad ground and should therefore be destroyed. In both cases, the Author of Life is not mentioned.
It's not life that is sacred to Westfox, but the power over life and death he believes should rest with each sexually active person, not with God. His creed is about control, not honoring life.
Nowhere in Westfox's exposition does he acknowledge the purpose of sex or the obligation to respect its life-giving nature and the marital relationship for which it was created. He says nothing of responsibility unless it's the responsibility we have to "not force life" into an unsuitable situation.
A convincing deception always contains valid truths, as this one does. Indeed, a truly pro-life theology does include proper health care, employment, community support, and many other factors. But Westfox builds his theology on a mirage of sand. He has no foundation because he denies the inherent dignity of every human being from the moment of conception. What good are health care and employment if you don't first protect the human person?
Regardless of circumstance, each child conceived has the right to live and be born. We are the recipients of each gift of new life; we are not the creators or the judges who can decide who lives and who must die.
Anyone unwilling to defend human life from the moment of conception has no pro-life theology. Westfox is stunningly deceived. His "reproductive choice" theology is not remotely pro-life. He is a mouthpiece for the culture of death, sadly feeding other weak souls this poisonous diet of sophistry. That he uses the Resurrection and the teachings of Christ to sell his snake oil is the worst kind of blasphemy.
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Note: I find it interesting that this well-justified article leveled at a Protestant "minister" was written by a lady who probably finds no irony in the fact that the Catholic Church practices blatant occult paganism. That, folks, is what the organized church has come to, for the most part. CMR
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