Homily

You may have heard of a famous Princeton University philosophy professor named Peter Singer. He is probably the number one promoter of an ethical system that is based on Utilitarianism. Simply put, Utilitarianism calls for moral decisions being based on what will create the greatest happiness and reduce suffering. It is very closely linked with Consequentialism—the morality of an action depends on its outcome, and Naturalism—nothing exists above or beyond the material universe.

So, for Professor Singer, there is no such thing as the Christian belief that human life is sacred and of infinite worth. Therefore, there are times when it is justifiable to kill the young. We say that abortion is wrong because from the moment of conception to birth, there is no point where we can say this baby has now become a human being whereas just a moment before this point it was not a human being. Singer agrees with this approach and he pushes it even further by saying that even after birth the status of the child doesn't really change, because in his view, neither the life in the womb NOR the life of the newborn child have any kind of "right to life."

In his moral system, since both the unborn and young children lack the rational ability and the self-awareness to desire to go on living, their lives are not of any moral value in themselves. Singer believes there should be rules, but those rules should not be based on what he calls the mistaken idea that a child's life has some value all on its own. Instead, the morality of killing a child should be based on what positive effects it may have on others—creating the greatest happiness and reducing pain.

Singer gives an example: Let's say there is a child with hemophilia and the mother decides that the burden of caring for this sick child will make it impossible for her to be able to raise another child. "We have to take into account that when the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled child is killed. The loss of a happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second infant." One man wrote, under Singer's system, life is just a set of decisions based on a moral spreadsheet of figures and calculations.

Utilitarianism has a great appeal to people in our society today, as we can even see in the expressions, “Do whatever makes you happy” or “I should be able to do what I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.” Pro-abortion forces consider the unborn to have no intrinsic rights to their own lives. The only moral question to be asked is will this abortion bring greater happiness to the mother and/or will it lessen her pain? The so-called "woman's right-to-choose" even implies that a moral choice is being made, but it is based on how the choice will affect the woman only, not the child itself. The person who holds the power becomes the person who decides who gets to live. Rather than sticking to the Christian teaching that every human life is sacred, there are many who accept the principles of Utilitarianism in moral decision-making. In fact, there are people who promote this ethical system as a way of liberating society from the shackles and chains of antique Christian doctrine and allowing it to flourish and grow under enlightened and rational thought and scientific certainty. (Just like Communism did!)

Now it's true that while many would accept Utilitarian principles for abortion, they might be horrified to hear of infants being killed in the name of "more happiness and less pain." And yet the longer this kind of moral thinking exists in a society, and the further it is allowed to express itself, the more its principles seem to be accepted as morally correct and acceptable. We see this in the whole transgender business that has been flourishing the past few years.

In Iceland, they have practically done away with the possibility of any child being born with Down’s syndrome by genetically testing pregnant women, and those women whose tests are positive always choose abortion. 100%! Imagine! One genetic counsellor speaking in defense of this practice said,

"We don't look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder—that's so black and white. Life isn't black and white. Life is grey."

But I have to think that if someone wanted to murder her, she would not see her life as grey. Look at King Herod today. What are the lives of a few boys in comparison to his happiness? Besides, if he’s not happy why should anyone be happy?

The pagan world at the time Christ’s birth certainly did not hold that any human life had any particular value in and of itself. The value of your life always depended on the attitudes of the people who had power over you, as it still does in so many places in the world today. Christ our Lord took on flesh because of His deep love for every one of us, for every man, every woman, every child. The Jewish law held to the sacredness of life, but the law of Christ perfected that truth, for our Lord gave His own life in order to save us all.

It is no wonder then that the Gospel message quickly spread throughout the pagan Roman world, and other places as well. Slaves, the poor, the sick and the handicapped, women and children, and all those under the power of other people embraced for themselves a genuine power. It was not the power of happiness or freedom from pain, but the power of the love of Christ for them. This is our good news, this is our gospel, this is our ethical stand, that Christ loves us, each and every one; that He loves us most completely by sharing His own life with us and He desires to do the same for every person on this earth. He does not promise us an abundance of happiness or a freedom from pain in this life, which is so very short. Without threat, or force, but only by invitation He promises us eternal happiness living in Him, if we choose to live with Him today. And our job is to gladly be willing to share this great invitation with as many people as we can, by our words, by our example, and by our prayers. St. Stephen was killed for doing the same and he gladly accepted this sacrifice. We’re probably okay on the death threat thing…. let’s live and share the Good News!