On June 28th of this year, the United States Supreme Court, in its Stenberg v. Carhart decision, wrapped the mantle of our nation's constitution around partial-birth abortion. With this decision, the court expanded the right to kill from children in the womb (Roe v. Wade) to children almost fully born.
This misguided decision, which virtually legalizes infanticide, coupled with the recent FDA approval of the so-called abortion pill (RU-486), underscores how much respect for the sacred dignity of human life has been eroded over the past three decades and, consequently, how important it is that we as a Church observe Respect Life Month each October.
Our belief in the sacred dignity of life at every moment from conception to natural death has led us as a people of faith to address a myriad of issues facing us both domestically and internationally, such as capital punishment and euthanasia, welfare and immigration policies, sexism and racism, nuclear weapons and gun control, cloning and health care reform, trade agreements and sweat shops, the buying and selling of women, and genocide, just to mention a few of the critical realities upon which our respect for human life must bear.
Hinge issue
However, I am convinced that the total disregard for the sanctity of human life evident in abortion is the linchpin to resolving these other issues and, thus, is the most radical moral challenge we face.
We as a Church simply cannot remain silent in the face of a public policy which results in 1.2 million abortions annually in the United States.
Abortion violates our moral vision of life. Abortion is a direct attack on innocent human life and a failure to observe the commandment to love the least among us -- the powerless, vulnerable unborn. Thus, protecting innocent human life from direct attack is a fundamental human and moral imperative.
Public issue
We as a faith community are fully aware of the perplexity and moral dilemma that an unwanted child poses for the individual or couple. We are conscious of the fact that many persons of goodwill may have a different perspective on this issue. And we have an outreach to women who are grieving over having had an abortion.
We remain convinced, however, that abortion is not purely a matter of private morality, as might be the case with premarital sex, adultery and birth control; rather, it is a matter of public morality, because a fundamental human right is at stake: a child's right to life.
We must continue to strive, therefore, through the democratic process, to reverse the Supreme Court decision and to create a consensus that will maximize the opportunity for the unborn child to exist.
Society and morality
We do so at a time when our world and society have been coarsened to the value of life in the womb. Such a blurring of the issue is epitomized by a film that played in movie houses across the country earlier this year, "The Cider House Rules."
Adapted for the screen by John Irving, the author of the novel on which it is based, the film underscores a relativistic philosophy which acknowledges no external rule-giver or moral authority. Rather, humankind is regarded as absolutely autonomous and existing in a moral framework entirely of its own making and responsible only to itself.
In criticizing the film, Father Paul McNellis observed: "If Hollywood were to offer us a movie in which a father, guilty of incest with his daughter, was treated as a dignified, even sympathetic character, would anyone be offended? And if this same movie treated abortion as a sacramental rite of passage, akin to confirmation or bar mitzvah, would anyone be taken aback? Apparently not, judging from the reaction to the film."
Indeed, the film received seven Academy Award nominations and won two Oscars. What's more, the national president of Planned Parenthood was delighted with the film. Referring to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Gloria Feldt said, "The timing of this release [in January] couldn't be better." Planned Parenthood conducted "private screenings, fundraisers and discussion groups led by local film critics," all with the goal of "reminding viewers of the threats to reproductive choice."
Message of film
Michael Caine won an Academy Award as the best supporting actor for his portrayal of a drug-addicted doctor in a rural orphanage who alternates between delivering babies and aborting them.
The character prides himself on never interfering with the choices people make. "I do not recommend," he says, "I just give them what they want: an abortion or an orphan."
The message Irving seeks to convey is that rules, especially moral rules that touch upon human relationships, are obstacles to be overcome when faced with the messy business of life. Indeed, according to Irving, any attempt to restrict abortion is seen as a form of fascism, an expression of religious fervor gone amok.
However, in his review of this film, Father McNellis makes it clear that his complaint is not with Mr. Irving; it is with us as a society. Abortion as a noble and maturing experience is a myth our society seems prepared to live by, he notes. "This is what makes the film a cultural watershed, for it could not have been made even 10 years ago. In fact, it took Mr. Irving 14 years and four directors to get from novel to film. He had to wait for his audience to catch up with him. That we have done so is testimony not to his courage or foresight, but to our own corruption."
Changed world
More than a quarter-century of state-sanctioned abortion in our midst has changed us. Today's college seniors have never known a time when abortion was not legal. From their birth to their graduation, they have lived in a society in which legal protection for unborn life has inexorably disappeared. How could they not be affected?
High school freshmen, who require no "parental guidance" to see this film, have probably never heard a cogent argument against abortion. For them, what a movie like this presents as credible serves as a truth claim.
What they are not apt to hear from their teachers (and certainly not from Hollywood) is the stark truth about how terribly convenient abortion has been for irresponsible men. Nor will they hear that "unwanted babies" come from unwanted mothers, abandoned by the men who once claimed they loved them.
This movie can now freely concede what was once an embarrassment even to the pro-choice camp: Is abortion the killing of a child? Of course. So what? In the words of Michael Caine, in his role as Dr. Larch: "I just give them what they want."
Health care
And quite frankly, what many family planning groups and their allies in Hollywood, the mainstream media and government want is to put Catholic health care out of business.
There are a number of bills in legislatures across the nation and requirements of various governmental regulatory agencies which seek to require Catholic and other faith-based health and human service providers to either offer a full range of reproductive services, including abortion and abortion referrals -- in violation of our institutional conscience -- or effectively to get out of our historical mission of providing high quality health care in accord with our religious and ethical directives.
It is an assault on religious liberty and freedom of conscience unparalleled in the history of our nation.
Back to basics
Yes, it's amazing: In less than 30 years, we've gone from abortion being a crime to it becoming virtually criminal to say "we will not condone, aid or abet the taking of unborn human life." What a sad and frightening commentary!
In light of this coarsened and immoral view that Hollywood ballyhoos, that family planning groups and their allies in government promote, and we all too frequently swallow or at least tolerate, it is imperative that we get back to the basics.
The basics are that Scripture teaches that human life comes from God, that God alone is the author and creator of life, and that only God has the authority to take life away. In other words, human life has as its source the one God whose creative power produces the child in the mother's womb and brings it step by step to full life.
Viewed from this scriptural perspective, then, human life should not be directly taken by mere human authority. God alone is the Lord of life and death, and no individual or government has the right to destroy that human life.
Indeed, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament view the child in the womb as a gift from a loving God, who creates humanity in His own image. To bear a child is to be graced by God, to be given a precious gift whose value can be measured only in terms of the value we place on our own life.
Science
This scriptural view is supported by the findings of modern genetics and biology. For example, the Protestant ethicist Paul Ramsey points out: "Micro-genetics and biology seem to have demonstrated what religion never could: that the individual is whoever he or she is going to become from the moment of impregnation. Thereafter, his or her subsequent development may be described as becoming the one he or she already is."
Furthermore, from a biological point of view, the independence of the fetus from the life of the mother also seems to be very well established. Although dependent upon the mother, the fetus leads a separated existence from the very moment of conception. It develops its own separate nervous systems, circulatory systems, and its own skeleton, brain, heart and other vital organs.
Consequently, the frequently heard rationale for abortion, "a woman has a right to control her own body," fails to appreciate what science and common sense both recognize, namely, that in pregnancy there are two bodies and two lives. The fetus is not part of the mother's body; it is an entity with a potential viability and destiny of its own.
May our annual observance of Respect Life Month, then, bid all of us within the Catholic Christian community, along with those of other faith communities that hold a similar view, to reaffirm our conviction about the evil of abortion, and to work tirelessly to rid our society and world of this insidious evil.