Tribute to Moloch: Abortion and the Natural Law

MOLOCH WAS A FALSE DEITY THAT HAD HIS DAY and wreaked havoc among the ancient Israelites by demanding child sacrifice, the abomination of the children of Ammon. 1 Kings 11:7. The chief feature of Moloch's cult was the sacrifice of children, which is described in the biblical texts as passing through fire, probably a reference to the holocaust effect of the sacrificial rites. The chief place of Moloch's cult was a place called Tophet. II Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:30-32. Throughout history in various cultures, child sacrifice has from time to time raised its monstrous head, and it has done so again in the form of abortion, what more than one proponent has religulously religiousized into a "sacrament"* of the new secular order, the novus ordo seclorum. That we sacrifice children in the name of convenience, or social utility, or to avoid expense or raising children, as a means to compensate for failed contraception, under government mandate (as in China), or other reason it matters not. These are just our new gods, our new divinities, intangible, yet every bit as tribute-demanding as the tangible idols of old. We sacrifice to a hidden, an invisible Moloch, but one nonetheless made with human hands or human minds.

Abortion was rampant in ancient Rome. It is rampant once again. The light of Christ, like the efforts of the Jewish Kings, for a time overcame the darkness.

His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals' ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue . . . ."

(John Milton, "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity")

William Blake's "Moloch" from the "Butts Set" Illustrations for
Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity"

But the light of Christ has been progressively squelched since at least the time of the so-called Enlightenment. The laws and mores of Christendom have been dismantled, and a resurgent paganism, this one materialistic, skeptic, and relativistic in ethos, has wafted in like Satan's smoke. Like the paganism of old, this one is both lusty and bloodthirsty. The worship of the true God does not require human sacrifice. The worship of anything other than the true God usually does require some sort of human sacrifice. The new religion's first aim was against the Innocents outside the womb: the Jews and other believers and supposed misfits who were sacrificed at the altars of nationalism and materialistic communism in Konzentrationslager, Gulags, Killing Fields, and sundry other Death Camps. The new religion's second aim is more insidiously Herodian: its second aim is against Innocents within the womb.

William Blake's "Moloch" from the "Thomas Set" Illustrations for
Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity"

Once again, we hear the drumbeat of Moloch:

. . . MOLOCH, horrid King besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,
Though, for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire
To his grim Idol. . . .

(John Milton, Paradise Lost, I.392-96.)

"Moloch's Law," which allows, even demands, the slaughter of innocents is on the rise. The practice of abortion, is a crime against the natural law of immense proportion. It is an assault against all reality, against the good of life. It is a crime against humanity. All men and women are bound morally to oppose it. Those who advance it with their fellows are conspiring to advance an unmentionable, intrinsic evil.

For the next series of blog postings, we shall tackle the issue of abortion from the perspective of natural law or traditional ethics. We will loosely rely as a sort of guide upon the treatment given this issue by David S. Oderberg in his book Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2000), 1-47.
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*See, e.g., Ginette Paris, The Sacrament of Abortion (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1992), where the author claims abortion is a sacred act, in fact a sacrifice to Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana). Ginette Paris is a Canadian psychologist, therapist and writer. She teaches at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. The feminist lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy while peddling her book Abortion Rap (coauthored with Diane Schulder) was apparently told by her cab driver in one instance: "Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." See Carolyn Evensen Lazo, Gloria Steinem: Feminist Extraordinaire (Lerner Publications, 1998), 67. Although I have not been able to confirm the quote, Carter Heyward, an Episcopal feminist and lesbian minister (anyone see any incongruity there?), and the Howard Chandler Robbins Professor of Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is supposed to have said at the 1985 convention of the National Abortion Federation, "Abortion would be a sacrament if women were in charge. Abortion should be a sacrament even today. I suspect that for many women today, and for their spouses, lovers, families and communities, abortion is celebrated as such, an occasion of deep and serious and sacred meaning." In her recent book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Anne Coulter recapitulates the feminist and liberal psychobabble, pseudo-religiosity, and cab driver foolish sagacity: For the para-religions of liberalism and feminism, "Abortion is the sacrament and Roe v. Wade is Holy Writ." So it seems that the radicals and conservatives agree that modern liberalism and feminism demand tribute to a modern, resurgent atavism of Moloch. No longer in vain do "they call the grisly king," and the dance "about the furnace blue" is no longer dismal, but is, sadly, well-attended with highly-charged and highly-sexed ritual "dirty dancing" and with those in attendance wielding blood-wet scapels, flesh-flecked currettes, and boxes of RU-486.