By Willy Peterson
The Sacrament of Abortion, written by Ginette Paris (Spring Publications, Dallas, 1992), proposes paganism (i.e. polytheism, witchcraft, earth worship, etc.) as a superior model for a society struggling with abortion issues.
In addition to providing an ecological relief valve for the misrepresentation of human population as the root of all evils, Paris adopts the Jungian models of mythology as universal archetypes for the evolving human consciousness, a common dogma among neo-pagans. Jung was a spiritualist who was fascinated with the occult. His ideas provide a multi-dimensional bridge between pagan mythology, psychology and atheistic existentialism, the outcome being the emergence of a universalist atheistic religion.
Having rejected the gospel message of the Bible, Paris reduces Christianity to a common mythology wherein the buyer can pick and choose according to the whims of the individual. But she doesn't care to leave it at that, but campaigns for its demise, tooth and nail, also typical of paganism. How does this work alongside an obligation to accept everybody's deity? Once the Godly influence of the Bible has been thrown out, then the selection for viable models becomes an act of moral relativism, subject to carnal proclivities and post-modernist fads such as the destructive anti-human doctrine of biocentrism.
How does the story of Artemis vindicate the taking of innocent human life? According to Paris, Artemis slays her prey out of love. If women are to identify with her they must love the children that are offered to her in death. That "love" is supposed to provide a balancing influence to this bloody romp that mimics the huntress in competitive pursuit of her prey.
The religion of self plays in as the foundational god to whom pagan pantheons provide excuses for one's own appeasement. Self seems to be behind a lot of ungodly masks these days: pantheism, black magic, psycho babble, New Age, humanism, the "I Am" movement, and so on. And now in the name of self, our humanity released, we can assume the throne of heaven and get on with the job of rationalizing morality for the sake of comfort. At this point, the hypocrisy of human nature and its sad ramifications become all too obvious.
The following excerpts provide a glimpse into one witches attempt to infuse this abominable practice with an air of polytheistic spirituality:
"I have drawn inspiration throughout this book from a guiding image, the Artemis of Greek mythology (known to the Romans as Diana, the Huntress). She is an untamed Goddess, a champion of what we would think of today as ecological values ... her myth is full of what appears to be the same kinds of contradictions that abound in considerations of abortion. Artemis is both protector of wild animals and a hunter who kills them with unerring aim..." (p. 1)
"The same goddess thus offers protection and also death to women, children, and animals. Why these apparent contradictions ... personified in a feminine divinity? Is it a way of saying that a woman's protective power cannot function properly if she does not also possess full power, namely, the power over death as well as life? Her image belongs to us as well as to antiquity, because like all fundamental images of the human experience, which C.G. Jung called 'archetypes,' she never really ages but reappears in different forms and different symbols ... She encourages us to become more aware of the power of death, its inescapable nature, and its necessary role in a living ecology. Abortion is about love, life, and death." (p. 2)
"The collective unconscious has always used different ways to reduce the population when resources and space are lacking or when the social climate deteriorates." (p. 26)
"Artemis had a reputation for liking bloody sacrifices, including human ones ... a practice that has given paganism such a bad name.... The story of Artemis claiming Iphigena as a sacrifice can be told and understood in more than one way ... in one, Iphigenia is a victim, offered in sacrifice on the altar of Artemis; in the other Iphigenia becomes a heroine, and sacrifice takes on a different meaning. Since abortion is a kind of sacrifice, I believe an exploration of this myth may open up fresh avenues of thought." (p. 34)
"From a pagan point of view, it is quite stupid and even absurd to sacrifice a mother for the sake of a newborn, because the child obviously needs her ... Artemis, who personifies respect for animal life, accepts the necessity of the hunt, but only if the rules and the absolving rituals are observed. In most Goddess religions a similar reasoning is applied to the fetus and the newborn. It is morally acceptable that a woman who gives life may also destroy life under certain circumstances ..." (p. 53)
"Our attitudes toward abortion are subconsciously stamped by Judeo-Christian values, even among those people who consider themselves completely liberated from them. We are now on the threshold of a liberalization of attitude toward abortion in many ways comparable to the freeing up of sexual attitudes thirty years ago." (p. 5)
"Abraham's bloodthirsty God had been encouraging human sacrifice long enough for the patriarch to believe that the offering of his only son would be pleasing to Him ... When he restrains Abraham's arm, Jehovah states that he doesn't want to be honored in that way any more: this scene marks an evolution in Judeo-Christian mythology." (p. 37)
"Paganism was discredited by the image of an innocent child being dragged by evil pagans to an altar to be sacrificed to a cruel female Goddess, as if God hadn't also demanded the sacrifice and crucifixion of his only son." (p. 41)
"Judeo-Christian mythology has had the major influence on our Western culture for over two thousand years, providing the ideas, values, and symbolic images. Can we erase two thousand years of monotheistic influence by dropping all religious practice and declaring ourselves free of our parents' faith? Certainly not as has been proved by our sudden awakening to ecological values. We're only beginning to understand how a religion which strips nature of its sacredness so as to place everything sacred in one God (whose realm is not of this world) can be dangerous to trees, animals, oceans, forests, and body-consciousness, all of which were considered receptacles of the divine in polytheistic antiquity." (p. 4)
"...there is more than one way to define morality, human dignity, children's rights, and the collective responsibility for life and death issues. It is also clear that all of this is intimately connected with global ecology." (p. 6)
"...we must constantly monitor the values attached to shame, as we educate the next generation, so that it can be put aside when it no longer expresses our ideals... "When an abortion is necessary, not only should there be no shame but there should be a new consensus that to have a child who cannot adequately be cared for is shameful." (p.106)
"It is not immoral to choose abortion; it is simply another kind of morality, a pagan one. It is time to stop being defensive about it, time to point an accusatory finger at the other camp and denounce its own immoral stance." (p. 56)
"As Artemis might kill a wounded animal rather than allow it to limp along miserably, so a mother wishes to spare the child a painful destiny." (p. 56)
"... men who decide whether or not to kill in war then dare to talk about crime and murder when a woman sacrifices a fetus no bigger than a raisin and less conscious than a chicken.... The beings sacrificed in abortions do not suffer as do the victims of war and ecological disaster.... War is sanctified ... by our religious leaders. But let a woman decide to abort a fetus that doesn't even have the neurological apparatus to register suffering, and people are shocked." (p. 25)
"It's rare for a woman to choose abortion because in some way she dislikes the fetus. She sacrifices it for the sake of something she judges at this moment to be more important, whether it be her existing children ... or her own physical, economic, or psychological survival, or the fate of the planet." (p. 95)
"This same quality allows us to visualize a world of increasing respect for children, a world in which one can occasionally resort to abortion when it is necessary to sacrifice the fetus to a higher cause, namely, the love of children and the refusal to see them suffer." (p. 107)
"Some values are worth the sacrifice ... Abortion always has been and continues to be another way of choosing death over life." (p. 51)
"... the return of the ancient Goddess Artemis invites us to imagine a new allocation of life and death powers between men and women, and allocation that allows men to appreciate the cost of a life and women to make decisions based on their mother-knowledge." (p. 27)
"One must preserve in one's self ... an intact strength, inviolable and radically feminine; this is the Artemesian part of the anima which guards the untamed zone of our psyche, without which we risk becoming over-domesticated human beings, too easily touchable." (p. 107)
"Obviously, everyone has a right to his or her religious beliefs, but what if mine are Pagan?" (p. 57)
"Our culture needs new rituals as well as laws to restore abortion to its sacred dimension, which is both terrible and necessary." (p. 92)
"Abortion is a sacrifice to Artemis. Abortion as a sacrament for the gift of life to remain pure." (p. 107)
A final word:
"All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever." Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. (1 Pet. 1:24, 25)
If you would like more information, please call Willy Peterson at: (913) 441-1710, or E-Mail at willypete@juno.com