The Texas Alliance for Life—along with the Diocese of Austin—commemorated the infamous Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton decisions on Saturday. It was a day filled with Masses and marches, rosaries and rhetoric, statistics (over 50 million dead in the American abortion holocaust alone) and speeches—of prayer and politics. The problem in America—indeed, in what was and may someday again be Christendom—is one not merely of politics, but also of culture. The late (and perhaps great) president Ronald Reagan once referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire; it was true, but the late and certainly great Pope John Paul II offered a more profound critique of culture when he called ours “the culture of death.”

Abortion is a cultural problem first, but it has increasingly become a politicized problem, if not actually a political one. The Democrat National Party has been all-too-happy to claim the role of being the party of “choice”—indeed, they are so pro-choice that they will do everything in their power to force this choice on everybody, as witnessed first by their increasing hostility to the rights of conscientious objectors, the sometimes slow, sometimes not so slow chipping at the conscience clauses which protect the rights of medical professionals and pharmacists who affirm that abortion is murder. One need only read the book co-written by current “science czar” John Holdren to find the recommendation of forced abortions and mandatory (if secret) sterilizations. One need only to look at the current state of health care legislation—the supposed chief legislative goal of the Democratic party—and see that it is stalled in a democrat-dominated congress for no other reason than that a few individuals refuse to use such legislation to fund abortions; indeed, they refuse to move forward in spite of the fact that a solid majority of Americans oppose mandatory funding’s for abortion being written into the bill. One need look no further that the latest election—the one to fill the senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy—and to listen to Attorney General Martha Coakley’s assertion that “You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

Thankfully, Ms Martha Coakley was beaten in that election, by the unfortunate fact is that her opponent was not much better. Senator elect Scott Brown—whom Mr Mark Shea has called “Rudy Giuliani with a pretty face”--is not by any stretch of the imagination pro-life. However, he and his party are more than happy to claim that label and to receive the lion’s share of the pro-life votes. However, the Republican party is on the verge of orphaning social conservatives in general and pro-lifers in particular. It has taken a number of wrong lessons from its recent victories: namely, ignore social issues, focus on economics—and on torture.

It’s been a bit of a slide for the Republicans. They never were explicitly the party of life, but they have long been the party in which pro-lifers felt most at home. However, they are increasingly becoming the Party of Torture as a counter to the Party of Death. Now, of course, they can be dissenters form the party line on torture, just as there are dissenters from the Democrat Party’s line of being pro-abortion. However, by and large the Republican Party is now the pro-torture party as the Democratic Party is the pro-abortion one. Sure, they began by using a euphemistic name: “enhanced interrogation;” similarly, abortion is a euphemism for murder, and “choice” is in turn a euphemism for abortion. Moreover, torture was first touted as the “unfortunate” means to the end of protecting innocent Americans. Abortion was first justified as the “unfortunate” means for the end of a woman becoming “liberated.”

And now the party’s organs are beginning to say that torture is not so bad after all, just as the folks at NARAL and Planned Parenthood have all-but-dropped any pretense of thinking that abortions are unfortunate. I would not be the least bit surprises to learn in the not-so-distant future that torture is actually a good thing in itself, just as Planned Parenthood and NARAL and a few fanatics have helped to elevate abortion to the level of sacrament, good even if the woman doesn’t seem to need it (she never actually does need an abortion), indeed, sometimes good even if she doesn’t want it.

The parallel is actually quite shocking. Ignoring for a moment that torture is itself an intrinsic evil, it is fair to ask: when was the last time that torture yielded good information which saved lives? Television dramas don’t count. Torture is about as useful for helping to save lives as abortion is for helping to save women: not at all. Or does it make sense that the US government has so much information that we can capture the right suspects by knowing exactly where they’ll be and when, but not what they’re doing and how?

But the parallel does not stop there. Consider the debate over abortion: one tactic used by abortion proponents is to ask just when the baby becomes a baby, as if this is a difficult question. “When oh when is it really a person?” The answer is pretty simple: it’s a person as soon as the sperm and egg unite, making a new human life whose DNA is distinct from both the mother and the father, which occurs shortly after sexual intercourse. Similarly, “When oh when does it become torture?” Try asking instead “Are my actions in accord with a respect for the sanctity of human life and with the inherent dignity of every human person?” If the “interrogation” techniques strip the prisoner of his dignity as a person (let alone of his life), then it’s probably torture. Suppose that the person—the prisoner—were your own brother (see Matthew 5:44 and John 4:20 for starters); treat him as you’d want your brother to be treated in the same situation.

Pro-lifers in general and Christians in particular need to be very clear: we support a culture of life which affirms the dignity of the human person. Abortion is anathema to such a culture, but so too is torture.