Cecile vs.Cecil: Building a Culture of Life in an Age of Relativism, Part 1

Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards and Cecil the Lion

When Cecil the lion was killed last month, many on the Left were apoplectic. Media coverage of Cecil's demise and the subsequent demand for justice has been vociferous and sustained. Meanwhile, videos from The Center for Medical Progress showed conclusively Planned Parenthood officials trafficking aborted babies' body parts for profit. The Left has largely ignored them. The mainstream media has followed suit. The fact that Planned Parenthood kills human babies in the tens of thousands each year, at every stage of gestation, from the 1st week to the 40th, bothers them not. Neither does the fact Planned Parenthood aborts black babies at five times the number of white babies. Since abortion always involves a mother, and over half of the babies killed are girls, 3/4 of abortion's victims are female. Rather than see abortion as the systematic murder and exploitation of women, it is abortion zealots who accuse pro-lifers of "waging a war on women."

We are are called by God to be responsible stewards of nature. An adult, male lion is highly distinctive, a creature inspiring awe and wonder for nature's majesty and for God, at whose word the world came to be. Nonetheless, the murder of a lion pales in comparison to the killing of a human being through abortion. The death of the former is a tragedy. The death of the later is gravely and intrinsically evil. A sin against humanity so serious, it calls out to Heaven for justice.

Why does society recoil at Cecil's death but not Cecile Richards' lies on behalf of the deadly exploits of the organization she leads?

The answer, at least in part, is moral relativism.

The "dictatorship of relativism" of which then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke prior to his elevation as supreme pontiff in 2005, has extended in power and in scope in the decade since. That the butchering of babies on an industrial scale and the selling of their body parts for money garners less attention from fourth estate organs of record than a 30 second commercial is a scandal unto itself. That the death of a lion, however lamentable, has become a veritable cause célèbre warranting non-stop condemnation and media coverage is a reflection of our moral vacuousness. Society has so abandoned its Judeo-Christian roots so as too see nothing wrong with the slaughter and sale of the unborn. The concomitant rise of a politically correct sentimentality has allowed us to elevate the death of a lion above the methodical killing of innocents.

Part 2 will look at building a culture of life in an age of relativism.