Right to Life - Fr. Louis Bulletin Letter - January 22, 2006
On this day, our thoughts return to 1973 when the Supreme Court legalized abortion for all nine months of pregnancy in its Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. In the intervening years nearly 46 million abortions have been performed in our nation. While visiting our country in October 1995, Pope John Paul II spoke to us as citizens of the United States of America. "Democracy cannot be sustained without a shared commitment to certain moral truths about the human person and human community. The basic question before a democratic society is: 'How ought we to live together?' In seeking an answer to this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the biblical wisdom, which played such a formative part in the very founding of your country, be excluded from that debate? Would not doing so mean that America's founding documents no longer have any defining content, but are only the formal dressing of changing opinion? Would not doing so mean that tens of millions of Americans could no longer offer the contribution of their deepest convictions to the formation of public policy? Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like but in having the right to do what we ought" (8 October 1995).
Also, during that same pilgrimage to our country, Pope John Paul II reminded us citizens of the United States of America that "to a great extent, the story of America has been the story of long and difficult struggles to overcome the prejudices which excluded certain categories of people from a full share in the country's life; first the struggle against religious intolerance, then the struggle against racial discrimination and in favor of civil rights for everyone. Sadly, today a new class of people is being excluded. When the unborn child - the 'stranger in the womb' - is declared to be beyond the protection of society, not only are America's deepest traditions radically undermined and endangered, but a moral blight is brought upon society. I am also thinking of threats to the elderly, the severely handicapped and those who do not seem to have any social usefulness. When innocent human beings are declared inconvenient or burdensome, and thus unworthy of legal and social protection, grievous damage is done to the moral foundations of the democratic community. The right to life is the first of all rights. It is the foundation of democratic liberties and the keystone of the edifice of civil society. Both as Americans and as followers of Christ, American Catholics must be committed to the defense of life in all its stages and in every condition" (5 October 1995).
Saint Peter, pray for us! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!