Whatever you do to the least of these...

The least of these. Society generally deems the "least of these" to be those who are poor and destitute. I think that's a fine definition, but is this definition complete? I would argue that definition is not complete. Maybe it really isn't even a "definition." But generally when people talk about the "least of these" they are referring to the disenfranchised of society. Those human beings who have been treated as less than human. The abolitionists and other anti-slavery groups of the 19th century would definitely define those being used as property by other humans beings, and being counted as less than human in the ruling law document for this country, as the least of these. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 definitely made the claim that African Americans were less than human according to the Constitution of the United States of America. An abominable claim if there ever was one.

In 1973 the Supreme Court made another decision and based it on the Constitution. Human fetuses, babies in the womb, have no Constitutional right. The right is only there for the mother carrying that child. Human fetuses, developing or fully developing human beings, are less than human. The thing that rules the day is not humanity in the collective sense, but the one individual's "right." An abominable claim if there ever was one.

I'm on a Neuhaus kick as of late. I found this article from October 2009 to be most helpful in sorting out this situation. Here are a few paragraphs from the above linked article that get at the heart of the problem.

No other question cuts so close to the heart of the culture wars as the question of abortion. The abortion debate is about more than abortion. It is about the nature of human life and community. It is about whether rights are the product of human assertion or the gift of "Nature and Nature’s God." It is about euthanasia, eugenic engineering, and the protection of the radically handicapped. But the abortion debate is most inescapably about abortion. In that debate, the Supreme Court has again and again, beginning with the Roe and Doe decisions of 1973, gambled its authority, and with it our constitutional order, by coming down on one side.

The result is the Court’s clear declaration of belligerency on one side of the culture wars, endorsing the radically individualistic concept of the self-constituted self. In the Casey decision, for instance, it waxed metaphysical in its assertion that the unlimited abortion license is necessary in order “to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” (Such philosophical speculation, bear in mind, is made by lawyers presumably interpreting the Constitution.) Not only does authentic personhood require freedom from the state, but also freedom from other potentially encumbering communities. From spouses, for example. The Court struck down the requirement that fathers be notified before mothers get an abortion. That, it is said, would be an “undue burden.”

The Court has from time to time cautioned against the state establishment of a “civic religion.” The same justices seem to be blithely unaware, however, that in Casey and other rulings they are in fact asserting and endorsing a philosophy of at least quasi-religious status. Addressing the “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” crosses into those “ultimate concerns” by which religion is ordinarily defined. Against alternative understandings of the self in relation to community, normative truth, and even revelation, the Court recognizes no other reality than the isolated individual defining his or her reality.

I especially like the last paragraph I posted just above here. It shows what the real issue is here. The Court in this ruling is establishing a sort of religious philosophy, and the decisions, as was the case in the Casey Decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey in 1992, are some quasi religious philosophical reasons for why abortion or "choice" is necessary. The Court(s) and others assert this understanding that goes beyond the realms of legality and secularity that a human is an individual autonomy. And in the case of abortion the mother who is living, but outside the womb of her own mother, is more human than the developing (or developed) human being, who is living, but inside the womb of his/her own mother.

In actuality what we have here is the Supreme Court and our individually autonomous society asserting the same decision as the Dred Scott one in two ways

1) The Court takes one side and demands everyone follows

2) Certain human beings are less than human

This is tragic. Is this really Liberalism? Is this really Libertarianism? Can we be beholden by such labels as Conservative/Liberal, Republican/Democrat, Theistic/Atheistic, etc., or at some point in the given moment of time are we all actually human beings? I'm a Conservative, registered Republican, and a confessional Lutheran, but when I see someone on the street who is poor I don't give them a background check to see if they match my worldview in order to give them help. I help my neighbor because I am a creature created by God, and redeemed by God, I serve my neighbor because it's the right thing to do. In the same vain I don't stand and speak against abortion because I am a Conservative Republican Lutheran. I make my stand because that is a human being, my neighbor, and Jesus told me to look out for the least of these.