Dr. Alan Keyes
Marysville, CA
Part 2

And, of course, those of you who are here, you saw it coming. We knew what was going on, because we have understood the reality of abortion. When so many tried to tell us that there was some way -- some way -- that we could see that act as less than the destruction in principle of all justice, see it as less than murder, see it as less than an assault on the integrity of all human life, we knew that they were wrong.

But you know, in spite of that knowledge, it still chills me to the marrow now to see the steps, the consequences, coming forward so quickly. So much more quickly, I guess, than I had anticipated. But I stand now in a country where, on this side of the country, the folks up in Oregon decided they shall keep a law claiming that we have the right to kill ourselves.

It's interesting, by the way, though a little worrisome: y'all ought to pause and think about this. In the Northwest: in Washington State they defeat gun control, so we can keep our guns. I'm in favor of that, myself, but when you put it side-by-side with Oregon, it is a disturbing result. (laughter) Because it seems to be the case that they're gonna let us keep our guns, so long as we promise to use them on ourselves. An implication that, I think, ought to be quite disturbing to us. Because when they come to you and they offer you the right to kill yourself, you ought to pause for a minute and ask whether they are offering you a right or making a suggestion.

And all joking aside, if your hair is graying a little bit right now, I hope you didn't hear the words that I just read -- the words that say . . . this fellow, supposedly respectable scientist, writing in supposedly respectable journal, saying "the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess."

Now, let me tell you something. What if you don't happen to possess some traits that this gentleman considers morally significant? One of the traits that is, these days, considered morally significant is the ability to enjoy life. Have you noticed that? And as they talk about babies being born with Downs Syndrome and other difficulties, they kind of make it clear: "No, that one shouldn't live, because they don't have the ability to have a productive life, to enjoy life, have quality of life."

Haven't you figured out yet? that the quality of life at the beginning may be limited; at the end, it certainly gets more limited. So somewhere in between, you pass beyond the pale of morally significant traits. How gray does your hair have to be, do you think, before your old age becomes a sign that you are morally insignificant? How elderly? How diseased? How in need of the help of others do you have to become before you become morally insignificant?

We have listened to all these arguments about abortion as if we were talking about taking the life of an "it," of a being, of a thing, a cell --- didn't you understand? We were talking about taking YOUR life! And when this man comes forward to make his arguments as to how we can withdraw the protection of that respect for life from children -- maybe in just the first week, or maybe in just the second week. But see, once we have established it as fact that we human beings can establish the criteria, it just becomes a matter of how clever you are, who's going to be covered. Understand? The clever scientist, the clever philosopher, the clever demagogue. Just work it a little bit, and before you know it, your brown hair could be a cause for moral insignificance. My brown skin, certainly, could be such a cause -- has been, as I recall. (laughter)

So you see, what we're faced with here is not academics, not abstract. It is happening to us. It is happening now. And it is precisely this kind of intellectual drivel -- moral turpitude masquerading as scientific thought -- that softened, diluted, ultimately destroyed the conscience of the German people. So that when the demagogue came forward, they were all prepared to believe that there was nothing wrong in what he said. And this preparation is now going on here.

And it not only prepares us for the legal taking of life in all of its stages, without more justification than our articulated whim. It also, of course, continues the destruction of our most vital institutions. I was thinking about this today.

Think about families, for instance. Being part of a family -- being a parent, for instance -- is an extraordinary revelation about yourself. You discover a depth of feeling for another human being you weren't quite sure you had, especially since it doesn't necessarily involve yourself. The love we have for our children is something that is almost like a part of bodies. They work their way into our bowels -- what we would call our guts these days, I suppose. And they can wrench them this way and that. Highs and lows, joys and griefs and fears that are so intense, that it is sometimes hard to believe that you are feeling them about another.

But don't you see? The same is also true, although we don't always like to admit it, about the dark side of our person. Your children can make you happier than most human beings ever thought they could be; they can make you feel a pride, that you stumble across with great surprise. But if you are honest with yourself, you'll also acknowledge, they can get you angrier than just about anybody in the world. That's why, if you read the Bible carefully, the Bible is very clear on family life. The most wonderful and the most dangerous life of all. As I recall, the first murder was a family quarrel. Fathers and sons; mothers and daughters; brothers and sisters. The love is great; the hate can be intense; the resentment and jealousy, unbridled. That passion can be murderous. It can kill.

Now, somebody tell me. Most societies go to great length to make sure there is a feeling of absolute prohibition against destroying your children's lives. What do you think happens to these intense and strong emotions when we start to dilute that constraint. When we start to look at parents, and to say . . . . we already said to mothers, "You may kill your child in the womb." Everybody is trying to pretend that the increase we have been seeing in mothers killing their babies is somehow unconnected with this hardness of heart. We should know better.

Now, if we start to tell parents they can kill their children in the first week, in the second week, in the third week -- that's not going to have any effect on what they do to them in the second year, and the third year, and the fifth year? And maybe particularly in the fourteenth year and the fifteenth year? (laughter) I think we are kidding ourselves if we think not.

Part 3

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