Legislating Morality: Can we or Should We?

Legislating Morality:  Can we or should we?

Does the idea of intervening in governing something that is at the top of Spiritual thinking in a world that is losing the moral status with too many people?  To legislate in a free society is one freedom we must depend upon if the rules of a law-abiding community respect each other without succumbing to anarchy from disobeying citizens.  

Morality is the essence of determining issues that deal with right and wrong concerning the actions of anyone following the principles of proper conduct by individuals whether in spiritual or legal aspects of rational people.  In any society the decision to adopt and enforce specifics regarding morality must depend upon the accepted laws of conduct that lead everyone to follow their required intentions.

This puts the question of religion and social media on a high docket of concern.  With so many new generations entering mid-life and following the pattern of leaving Church affiliation of their parents, worship style can become a Godless society.  Therefore, much of the trending acceptance of an evil connotation is taking hold of our values that are spelled out in the Ten Commandments.  

Abortion is at the top of moral degradation which is the one issue in the 2024 presidential election, especially with many women who insist their bodies are their legal property and no law is going to take that away.  What is at the crux of this decision is the right of human life that has slipped apart from what that is within a womb.  

As mentioned in previous articles, the ancient allowance of parents handing their children into fires as an offering to pagan gods was the most obnoxious sin that offended God.  The god or gods called Baal normally required the sacrifice of children, often the first-born-male child, by sacrifice by fire.  Can anyone see a difference between these ancient atrocities then and abortions in today’s society?

We are living in a lawless acceptance of evil with different names that could become a legislative morality that will hurl the participants into the fires of Hell.  Do we know the one entity that is leading humanity in the direction of eternal death?

“The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day.  Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.”  

(Gaudium et spes).  (Joy and Hope).

“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:  (CCC 2273).  ”The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority.  These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin.  Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”  (CDF, Donum III).  (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).  

The answer to the heading Can we or Should we?   We must legislate the right to life at all stages of development in everyone's life.  That must be the morality of humanity that will make a difference now and into eternity.

Ralph B. Hathaway