Bishop John Stowe of the Catholic Diocese of Lexington recently made the news. As the Bishop of the diocese where Covington High School is located, he penned an op-ed against the students in the viral and highly misleading video. Bishop Stowe singled out the symbolism of the MAGA hats some of the students were wearing, implying the hats had no place in a pro-life march.
A number of things are not precisely pro-life. Bishop Stowe, in that ill-advised op-ed, alluded to the canard that the pro-life movement aims to make abortion ‘unthinkable’. In his words:
The pro-life movement claims that it wants more than the policy change of making abortion illegal, but aims to make it unthinkable. That would require deep changes in society and policies that would support those who find it difficult to afford children. The association of our young people with racist acts and a politics of hate must also become unthinkable.
Whenever somebody claims to want to ‘make abortion unthinkable’, you can bet the rent money the last thing they are thinking is ending abortion. It is a convenient cop-out. To make abortion unthinkable, you would have to make premarital sex unthinkable, partner abandonment unthinkable, selfishness unthinkable, even conflicting desires unthinkable. To believe that kind of thing is possible in a fallen world is most unthinkable of all.
Imagine a world in which opponents of the death penalty claiming to make the death penalty ‘unthinkable’. These activists, instead of lobbying state legislatures, Congress and the Supreme Court, would try exclusively to make the death penalty so repulsive, no one would even think of executing a Ted Bundy. The hearts of the parents of the young women tortured and murdered would be so tender with mercy, the thought of rightful vengeance wouldn’t even cross their minds. In such a world the “Taken” movies would make no sense.
People claiming to be for making the death penalty unthinkable could hardly be imagined. The position would be nonsensical. The same applies to ‘pro-life’ activists whose last priority is protecting innocent human life. Such pathological passivity amounts to surrender. People like Bishop Stowe are in no meaningful sense defenders of innocent life.
