O dear, it’s really getting boring!  After seventy-four years in this world, it is only in the last two that I have seen the inside of a courtroom. I have stood before a judge as a “defendant,” almost a dozen times, and most recently, on January 21st of this year. I was charged with “trespassing,” at the Morgentaler abortuary, in April 1986, and with “refusing to leave the premises, when requested to do so.”

Court language always amuses me. You don’t “go west” – “you proceed in a westerly direction.”  Neither do you “get out of a car” – you alight from a motor vehicle.”  Finally, you don’t “remember” things, you “refresh’ your memory.

The Judge was a very courteous gentleman, and I told him that “at my age” – I suppose I should have said, “in my senior condition” – I could not remember all the details of what happened nearly a year ago. However, my memory was “refreshed” by the evidence given by the security guard on duty that day, and that of Kennedy, my arresting officer. I have had the distinction of having been arrested by “English,” “German,” and “Irish” police officers – what nationality will be next?

Pitiable Arguments

While I was in the dock, this Judge, in his “very courteous manner,” proceeded to lecture me, using the weakest arguments imaginable. He said, “You see, Father, I know that the Catholic Church has very strong views on abortion – I was baptized a Catholic myself. But, if every religion tried to impose its views on society, we would have chaos. Isn’t that right?”  bowing respectfully – I’m always very respectful to judges – I pointed out to His Honour, that murder is not a “Catholic” issue, but rather a human and social issue.

He seemed to miss the point, for he continued, “Your Church is against homosexuality, but if you knew that two men were engaging in homosexual acts in a house, would you break the door in and try to stop them?”  Here I failed miserable in my logic, replying, “No, I don’t suppose I would.”  What I should have said was, “If I knew that an individual was being forced to perform these acts, or that his life was being threatened, I would most certainly break in the door.”

“In the case of abortion, the baby’s life is being destroyed and I believe it should be saved if possible.” I added, “If I were passing by a swimming pool marked ‘No Trespassing,’ and aw someone drowning a baby, I would not consider it illegal to ‘trespass’ and save the baby.”  The judge said, “But that’s different.”  I suppose that there is a difference between an abortuary, and a swimming pool, but the principles are very similar.

Be Patient

The Judge then pronounced my “guilty” of trespassing and imposed a suspended sentence. He exhorted me to “be patient, and go through the normal channels – the Government, the Church, etc.”  Needless to say, these channels have been tried over and over again, and to no avail. It is so sad, that in 1987, “Justice” amounts to sentencing trespassers outside an abortuary, while at the same time ignoring what goes on inside and abortuary. Inside, the laws of God and State are being broken, while outside “officers of law” stand guard against any possible disturbance of this nefarious work. “Oh Judgment thou hast fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason.”

“The laws of the land must be obeyed, if we are to have ‘order’ in society,” according to the Judge. I reminded him that – virtually speaking – the unwritten law in Nazi Germany, was to gas, or in some other way put to death, “unwanted” people. People who are inconveniently born. He said, “But I think we are a long way from Nazism in this country.”  I said, “I’m not so sure about that.”  A society, which accepts the killing of its inconvenient unborn, is not too far from one that accepted the killing of its inconvenient born.

This is not a gross exaggeration. I suggest that you read The German Euthanasia Program, by Fredric Wertham M.D., which quotes “In the latter part of 1939, four men, in the presence of a whole group of physicians and an expert chemist were purposely killed by carbon-monoxide gas. They had done nothing wrong, had caused no disturbance, they were trusting and cooperative. They were ordinary mental patients in a state psychiatric hospital which was – or should have been – responsible for their welfare. This successful experiment led to the installation of gas chambers in a number of psychiatric hospitals.”  The book also lists six hospitals, in well-known cities, where this procedure was practiced, this was not back in the “Dark Ages.”

Dangerous Doctors

In the last century, a doctor named Christopher Hufland (1762-1836) wrote these words, “If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.”  The philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) made the famous statement – quoted by Winston Churchill – “Those who ignore the lessons of the history of the Thirties and we are now repeating them. In North America, some doctors are “dangerous.”

Just suppose, that instead of being charged with trespassing at the abortuary, I had been charged with dashing into a burning house to save a baby whose life was in danger. Would I be charged with trespassing, and found guilty?  Or, suppose I knew of a teacher who was murdering children, and went in to save them. Would I be charged with something like, “Interfering with a teacher in the performance of his or her normal duty?”  The answer is obvious!  There would – I hope – be a public outcry.

Why then, are doctors, whose commitment it is to preserve life, allowed to kill, and kill, and kill?  And why is abortion socially acceptable, politically ignored, and saddest of all, observed in prudent silence by Christmas!