Beware — the chickens of ‘choice’ are coming home to roost…

We have taught young people to destroy humans who become burdens to them — and soon enough, we’re going to become burdens to them

Curses are like a young chicken: they always come home to roost. ~ Robert Southey (“The Curse of Kehama”)

Unintended consequences. It’s an old, well-known principle or adage meaning that we need to exercise wisdom and prudence because actions can sometimes cause other, unforeseen effects or outcomes. Typically, the direct actions themselves are positive or at least well intended, while the unintended effects or outcomes are negative. One can see this principle at work in cases ranging from rent control unintentionally causing apartment shortages, to the overuse of antibiotics creating “superbugs” that are difficult to cure.

But sometimes, the principle of “unintended consequences” involves evil actions borne of negative intentions that later spawn other, evil, unforeseen effects. When those effects harm the same people who started the chain of events, it’s called “the chickens coming home to roost.” The government-sanctioned curse of child sacrifice that is commonly euphemized as abortion or “choice” may well be creating just such a case — both for those individuals who have taken part in or otherwise supported the killing, and for our country as a whole. 

For instance, has anyone stopped to think that a great number of the post-1973 Roe v. Wade abortion regime survivors may have learned the lesson of “choice” — that we have the right to freely dispose of vulnerable human beings who are dependent upon us for survival if they are an obstacle to our desires — so well that they will make their own choice to be free of the increasingly heavy burden being placed on them by the financially and physically dependent elderly? Put another way, are children who were taught such brutal, self-centered, utilitarian principles likely to willingly accept and carry the burden of caring and providing for the very same people who taught them the “logic” of “choice” by killing off the brothers and sisters who could have helped to bear that load?

Many in the younger generations are already feeling and balking at the burden. And sadly, in my pastoral work in nursing homes, I too often hear elderly and frail parents express the heartbreaking worry that their families see them as a burden and it would perhaps be better for them to die. For some time now, the “right” to die has been degenerating into the “duty” to die. 

Then there is the issue of Social Security and Medicare. The money that retired senior citizens receive from Social Security and Medicare today is taken from the wages of younger people who are working today. There is no “trust fund,” no “lock box” where our contributions were saved for our own retirement. And, according to the Social Security Administration, the number of workers funding each retired person is dropping precipitously — from 41 in 1945 to a mere 2 (two) in the near future.

Why such a steep drop in the ratio of workers to retirees? Because we have sacrificed about 60 million of our children to the god of “choice” since 1973, are contracepting and having fewer children than ever, and people are living significantly longer. Barring a dramatic change in values and direction, we are on a collision course.

In fact, it’s already beginning. 

Do you hear the increasing din of “death with dignity”? If you listen closely, it sounds like the chickens of “choice” coming home to roost. 

Lord, have mercy.