Love and power are incompatible

This excerpt is from Chapter 8, called The right to be born from Dr. Donald De Marco's book Abortion in perspective published in 1974.

In this chapter, Dr. De Marco is talking about how the powerful thwart the rights of the unborn. I couldn't help but see the parallels to the passage below, and to what happened in Parliament these past weeks, with MP Mark Warawa's motion being killed. A huge blow to the democratic process and to our yet to be born citizens.

There is a lot of raw power at the top level in our Government. I think this passage speaks to that power:
"...but the human foetus, not possessing asserting might, clings precariously to his long awaited, slow-brought existence by the tenuous cord of his parents' will.

Here the cosmic paradox is complete. Lifeless matter and unorganized energy from obscure reaches of the universe have collaborated in the most unimaginably complex ways through endless epochs to deliver man to the very threshhold of birth - only to have his advent annulled because the last ingredient in his eternal prescription could not be filled. That last ingredient, seemingly the easiest, was not entrusted to the powerful universe, but to man, who, being free, can choose to negate even the being upon whose soul Time has placed a cosmic seal. Thus, man's free denial, his act of not loving, can bring to nought a lineage which began with the very dawn of creation.

The plan of the universe is not complete until it is accepted through the generosity of human love. The human foetus who awaits his birth or extinction, through affirming love or negating power, had his right to be born purchased for him at a cosmic price that extends over eternity.

Man's basic strength is his power of love. Inversely, his radical weakness is his love of power. The power of love, through affirmation, accepts the rightful course of the universe; the love of power, through negation, seeks to destroy it. The French existentialist Gabriel Marcel has remarked that all temptation may be a temptation towards power — the immoral power to control another.

'Love and power are extreme polarities in man's psychological, moral, and religious nature. They are necessarily incompatible. Love for another requires renunciation of power over him; power over another requires renunciation of love. "Where love rules," wrote Carl Jung, "there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."

When man turns his power against other men, he regresses, reversing the course of the universe. This is what happens in abortion. Physical power is exerted over another for the purpose of "progress"; but true progress can take place only through love.

Man's faith in love and his preference for power are sharply contrasted in the abortion debate. The foetus is the most powerless of human beings and therefore the one most in need of human love. At the same time, because he is relatively undeveloped and hidden from view, he is difficult to love and easy to overpower. To condone the willful killing of an unborn human being is to accept as dogma the superiority of power over love. But if man loves, his love is the renunciation of the will to power and the affirmation of eternity."

I just received an email from Mr. Warawa's office which he sent to his supporters. He ended it with this:
"...I would like to close with the words Member of Parliament William Wilberforce sent to his supporters after his first bill was defeated in his eighteen-year campaign to abolish the slave trade through Britain’s Parliament: “I wish you… to consider yourselves not as having concluded, but as only beginning your work: it is on the general impression and feeling of the nation we must rely, rather than on the political conscience of the House of Commons. So let the flame be fanned continually, and may it please God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, to bless our endeavors."

Amen, amen I say to you...