Four degrees

In the U.S. and other developed democratic nations, there exist four levels or degrees of injustice with regard to the slaughter of innocent pre-born. In my estimation, the latter levels are more troubling:

• The first level is the taking of the human life. The murderer who wields the scalpel or suction tube, the mother who makes the fatal decision to hire the murderer or to use the abortifacient drug or device, the boyfriend, counselor, friend, parent or pastor who agree to and affirm the crime, are all guilty of a most grave injustice toward a fellow human being and toward their Creator.
• The state is guilty of the second level of injustice. The main purpose of human government, its raison d'être, is to protect basic human rights. To deny legal protection to the most innocent and helpless humans is an injustice in its own right. There have always been murderers; only a corrupt and evil government offers them legal protection.
• The state is also guilty of the third level of injustice when it compels its citizens to cooperate in the crime via taxes and mandates. This is no mere failure to protect life, but is a proactive assault upon both human life and upon human consciences. The judges and legislators and bureaucrats who enact and enforce such measures damn themselves in a most despicable way.
• Finally, there is the fourth degree, an injustice perpetrated by an acquiescent citizenry. These otherwise decent people might fast and pray and protest, but as long as they willingly obey the aforementioned government measures, they are guilty of crime as well. Mandates without compliance are meaningless and harmless; the obedient citizen makes the mandates effective. Willing cooperation with evil is itself evil.