Revolutions come quietly, little by little, step by step. Some small steps, however, turn a corner. In this revolution we're at a crossroads.

The issue before the President and before this country is not freedom of choice, or privacy, or the health of the mother, or even abortion itself. The issue is whether or not this beloved nation, esteemed for it's commitment to human liberty, will regain its moral sanity. Will we protect our most vulnerable citizens, little children, or will we continue to allow de facto infanticide?

Senator Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the ban on partial-birth abortions "extremist legislation at its worst." [1] In one sense he's right. This legislation is aimed at one of the most extreme practices in our history.

Partial-birth abortion is like a window into the womb. It shows us what every abortion does--it brutally takes the life of a living human child. D&X makes that undeniable. No fuzzy sonograms here. The living baby hangs helplessly before our eyes, no interpretation necessary.

Either you see this or you don't. To the morally sensitive, no argument is necessary beyond a simple, clear description of this procedure. To the morally velocitized, no argument is adequate. They'll be content with the thinnest rationalizations to justify this barbarism.

Never Again?

Earlier I mentioned that we have been morally velocitized once before in this century, with tragic consequences. It deserves comment here.

I have visited two different concentration camps in my life, Majdaneck (little known, but among the largest in Europe) and Auschwitz, both in Poland.

In the cell blocks that once housed human beings like cattle, awaiting their turn to be slaughtered, are displays of the mingling of the Nazis' advanced technology with their enlightened ethic: lamp-shades made of human skin, mattresses stuffed with human hair, and gold dug from the teeth of corpses on their way to the ovens.

These, too, were human beings who were in the way and couldn't defend themselves. More than that, they were a cash crop. Why waste what others could benefit from? To the civilized world this was unbelievable; it was unthinkable. But now we've been velocitized.

What is the difference today? Once again we have human beings who are in the way, human beings whom society has branded expendable. The brand is no less real than the faded yellow star of David stitched to the striped uniforms of every Jewish inmate in Auschwitz. The star and the brand both mean the same thing: human garbage.

Once again we have a cash crop. The only difference is that the victims are smaller, more defenseless: they're infants. Among the most heart-wrenching images of the Nazi death camps--and there were many--were the images of children. Whole sections of the memorials are dedicated to them.

It's easy to dismiss any likeness to the Third Reich. "Never again," we've said repeatedly. "It could never happen here. You're just playing with my emotions." But we have been numbed by the velocity of our own moral descent.

In a sense, we're still making lamp shades out of people's skin and mattresses out of their hair. We're still stealing gold from their teeth. Now, though, we smash the "gold" from their skulls while they're still alive and aware, while they're still kicking and feeling. At least the Nazis waited until their victims were dead.