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Financial Assistance requested
Reverend David C. Trosch June 29, 1994 TO: Pro-Life Rescue Leaders and Interested Others
Dear Pro-Life Advocate, Am in receipt of recent correspondence from Don Treshman of Rescue America. His letter demands that all who will be attending an upcoming combined Rescue America and Operation Rescue event sign a pledge of nonviolence. While I understand Don's motivation of unification with Flip Benham of Operation Rescue, I believe that the demand for non-violence in regard to the imminent deaths of innocent human beings is totally misguided and is a work of Satan. To promise to be peaceful while innocent human beings are being murdered would be unconscionable. The concept of achieving desired goals through nonviolent intervention is highly laudable. It is born of the desire to obtain success in the cause of the unborn by following in the footsteps of such notables as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. The actions of these men and their followers accomplished the desired goals. There was however a big difference between their goals and the reason for the pro-life activity of our age. Mahatma Gandhi, who died Jan 30, 1948, was internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolence to achieve political and social progress. He was the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule. Because of the nature of their cause, and the military strength of the British government, it would have been counter-productive to use violence which would have resulted in the deaths of large numbers of their own people while inflicting little damage upon relatively peaceful, perhaps even benevolent, occupation forces. Martin Luther King, Jr., who died April 4, 1968, led the mass civil rights movement in which he applied principles of nonviolent resistance to the struggle for racial equality. As with the Indian nationalist movement there was a generally peaceful, though unjust, coexistence with those who were seen as oppressors. There was no imminent need for violent protective action. Note: Nonviolent tactics will only work when those with whom they are being used against are practicing Christians, generally peaceful -- opposed to unnecessary suffering and death --, and primarily just. They will never work against those who have, as their foundation of life, love of both sin and death of the innocent. Such people have general ambivalence towards God. Depending upon their current impulses they hypocritically espouse a relationship with God. They are either false or non-believers without a proper sense of truth and justice. In the desire for humanized peace and nonviolence, the true meaning behind, and the true purpose of the anti-abortion movement has been neutralized. The concept of imminent death of innocent human beings has been subrogated to, or coexists with, the pro-abortion concept that somehow a preborn person does not actually have the full value to God of a born person; a person not only of body but with soul and spirit. The pro-life movement, including the rescue movement, while desiring to achieve the good end of saving innocent human life, is in effect denying the reality of the existence of the lives they are trying to protect when they decry the wielding of licit, even if not civilly lawful, means which are useable and necessary to immediately save clearly innocent lives now in the process of being killed. Such a position should be seen as an abomination to the Lord. One cannot logically take a position which has opposing realities. To insist upon the signing of promises to be nonviolent when death of the innocent is occurring is a ludicrous and even a psychotic position to take. Enclosed is a copy of a document I recently mailed to the Vatican in regard to this question. Even though a large number who will be receiving this letter are not Catholic -- it is written from a Catholic perspective -- I believe you may find it both interesting and informative. It would be edifying to have your answers to the questions submitted. As always, I will be interested in hearing any well thought out comments you may have. Thus far comments in opposition to the position I have taken have been based upon humanism, emotion, and misuse of Scripture. A most evil belief is that a murderer of innocent children should not have his or her life terminated. This belief goes directly against God's express will stated in Genesis 9:6, "Who ever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed." God is unchangeable. His is totally consistent. If this were not true there would be no reason to accept His teachings or to have faith in Him. For over twenty years now pro-lifers in America have been peacefully protesting while over thirty million people, their fellow citizens and co-children of God, have been cruelly slaughtered. It is past time for the pro-life mentality to upgrade to accepting the reality that innocent life is being terminated while protesters pray and are being nonviolent about the great violence which is taking place around them. sincerely in Christ,
fr. David C. Trosch Addendum: Many are having difficulty comparing the value of life between an unborn person and a born person. Perhaps this is so because historically, in Christian countries -- and I am not sufficiently familiar with countries having other forms of dominant religions -- I have never heard of anyone being sentenced to death for willfully, with premeditation, taking the life of an unborn child. To my knowledge this has been true not necessarily because the seriousness of taking of a preborn infants life was improperly understood, but because, until our present era, when abortion was both decriminalized and made legal, it was not widely known and eminently clear that at least some women were having abortions from purely selfish motivations. Prior to our present age, in our seemingly purist society, the thought that a woman could conceive of having an abortion was not part of the popular trend of thought -- a mom was thought of as a good woman who baked homemade cookies and apple pies. No reasonable person wanted to consider the possibility that motherhood could be tarnished in such a fashion. The idea was and is abhorrent that if women did, with malice, do such things, perhaps their own mother had murdered one or more of their brothers or sisters. Perhaps they themselves would have been murdered if their mother had not been in a proper mood. There is also the question of confusion as to rather an abortion may have been a spontaneous occurrence or was willfully induced. Additionally the question of mental condition, of a female having an abortion, presented doubts as to the degree of her accountability for the offense -- it was for all practicable purposes inconceivable, to the general run of church going Christians, that any woman would willfully, with sound mind, murder her own child. Such a thought, a woman killing her own child, was not in accordance with the prevalent Judeo-Christian ethic. Therefore the general consensus was in favor of the notion that even if she did intentionally kill her child, it had to be because of some degree of mental illness or even insanity, even if only of a temporary nature. Historically speaking the intentional abortion of babies was considered a pagan practice. In early Christian times the dominant cultures were pagan. It was thought that only those of pagan cultures would follow the practices of self-induced abortion and infanticide. But in recent centuries, in dominantly Christian countries, different conditions have been prevalent. It has been very difficult for the average person to conceive the idea that a woman raised as a Christian would deliberately seek the death of her child. Such an act of pure selfishness, which leads to the intentional murder of a child by its mother, was not an acceptable consideration. Today the motivations and excuses for having an abortion proliferate, but, are never in accordance with the will of God. At least part of our current failure, in understanding the full impact of the evil of abortion, is that, historically speaking, induced abortion was not criminalized to the extent that it was ever considered to be first degree murder. For the above reasons we have been conditioned against seeking the ultimate punishment for murder by abortion, however induced. We no longer have the vagueness of understanding which permits moderation on this subject. Let there be in the future a clear and unambiguous message, given by society, as to the full seriousness of murder in the womb. I now propose that full criminalization for procured abortion should be promoted in light of the greater knowledge and understanding that is currently available. Induced abortion should be classified as first degree murder warranting the death penalty for everyone who is directly involved with an abortion. This would include the mother (when culpable), the abortionist, staff workers of an abortionist, anyone who pays for an abortion, anyone who forces a woman to have an abortion, etc. For all of those who object to capital punishment, it should be kept in mind that they are objecting to the specific
and clear directive of almighty God who early on, GN 9:6, commanded that executions were to take place for premeditated
murder. The directive was not given as an option. It was not a mandate that would ever be modified or deleted by the
unchangeable and wise God -- an unclear insinuation of a change of command should never take precedence over the clear
presentation of an edict. Neither in the Old nor in the New Testament has the law ever been modified or reversed that
whoever takes the life of man, by man shall his (or her) life be taken.  Editor
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