Brandon McGinley, Torture and PP videos

At National Review Online Brandon McGinley writes an article entitled "The Planned Parenthood Videos Expose Our Country's Silent Pact with the Abortion Industry."

He begins by discussing the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report, and the "Dirty Hands" description posed by Michael Walzer, in 1973.

He likens responses to the torture report and the Planned Parenthood secret videos.  His most important passages are at the end of his piece:

Like the Senate’s torture report, the Planned Parenthood videos explode this convenient arrangement. They compel us to confront the grisly details of the bargain we’ve made. They eliminate our pretense to innocence. They force us to undertake honestly the moral reasoning we have shirked.

In the end, the “dirty hands” theory was always unstable. Evil cannot be neatly contained, even (especially not!) by legal and governmental institutions. We can’t dabble with the demonic. Having heard the frigid voices of the abortion industry, having witnessed the illogic of its inhumanity, having seen the hands and feet and innards of the victims, we face the danger that, knowing nothing else, we will still choose that nightmare. And all our hands will be filthy.

This reminded me of an article  by James Martin, SJ  at America Magazine about the erection of a Satanic statue near Detroit MI.

He begins by discussing the movie The Exorcist, and his own experiences.  He concludes:

In other words, I’m describing not only my belief, but my experience. Evil is real. How Satan fits into this, I’m not exactly sure, but I believe that a personified force is somehow behind this. There is a certain “intelligence,” if you will, and a sameness, as St. Ignatius identified. As C.S. Lewis said about Satan, “I’m not particular about the horns and hooves, but yes I believe.” Me too.

So while the Satanic Temple may smile at their victory, and the mainstream media might chuckle at the “Gotcha” moment vis-à-vis other religious groups (If the Ten Commandments, then why not Satan?) my fear is directed in another place. I recall all those stories I read and heard about Satan, and I think: You have no idea what you’re dealing with.

You are playing with fire.

 So is our society when in dabbles in the Dirty Hands of abortion.