Contraception, Abortion & the World's Oldest Lie

Without doubt, this is one of the best cartoons I've produced in my entire career as an illustrator. And anyone who truly understands our culture of death can see why. As described below, credit belongs to tireless defender of human life, Fr. Frank Pavone. --JFB

Several summers ago, Fr. Frank Pavone spoke at our diocesan Respect Life conference in Salina, Kansas. Until that moment, I thought I knew our opponents: greedy, disingenuous medical practitioners who make fortunes taking advantage of naive, misguided and frightened youngsters. Then Fr. Frank approached the microphone and said, "The lie told by Planned Parenthood is the same lie told in the Garden of Eden."
Suddenly it was obvious. Is there anything Satan hates more than life? Hatred is sterile; it cannot create, only destroy. Every human being is an affront to Satan, a reminder of his impotence and a potential threat to his grip on the world. Ergo, contraception and sterilization. And when those fail, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, suicide, embryonic experimentation, capital punishment, terrorism, war...

As in the Garden, Satan plays on our pride, offering us power over life.

This was one of the most sobering moments of my life, the realization that the anti-life politicians, activists and organizations I'd been confronting are but the slavish front line of a demonic army that stretches back to the gates of Hell; the sudden understanding that our anti-life neighbors are merely gullible enlistees, cannon fodder despised by the very monsters who command them from the unseen bunker of another realm. As St. Paul wrote, "...our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and the Powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness..."

Ours is an Apocalyptic battle. Literally. It is a clash between Heaven and Hell so vast and costly that all wars throughout history are little more than skirmishes by comparison. In the industrialized world, where contraception is endemic, populations are aging and collapsing, strangled by a rampant selfishness that considers family life onerous and children burdensome; stretched to insolvency as a result, socialized health care systems now ration life-saving treatment, de facto euthanasia for cases in which it is not already legal; and around the planet, roughly as many children are intentionally aborted annually as were killed in all six years of World War II. But because soldiers aren't marching, tanks aren't clamoring and cities aren't burning, few of us notice.

Such is the serpent's quiet efficiency.