Hey, if you've managed to make it through all of this novena (and a lot of you have), congratulations. If you're reading one of these posts for the first time its never too late to pray. You can find the last day of the novena HERE.
I was in the third grade when the Roe v. Wade was issued. I will never forget sitting in church hearing for the first time that it was no longer illegal for mothers to kill the babies inside of them. I remember how offended I was and shocked that this could be happening. At the time no one believed it would last. I remember thinking that if abortion was still going on when I grew up I would work to make it stop. I don't know if the last 9 days qualifies as a heroic effort, but prayer is a powerful thing and I remind myself daily that we need to keep storming heaven's door for divine intervention in this tragic horror.
In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that a person has an inherent right to privacy, a right which had never been recognized before. The Court argued that whether a woman bore a child was a private decision. I agree. A woman has the right to choose whether she engages in intercourse that might result in pregnancy. For a victim of rape or incest that right to choose has been violated at the time she was not allowed to choose to have intercourse. Once the private choice (or violation of choice) has been made and a human life comes into being, that human also has inherent rights. Namely, the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." There are no other rights if a person does not have the right to life and frankly, the right to life surpasses all other rights.
Since the time of Roe v. Wade, science has definitively established that life begins at conception. We have seen photographs of a baby developing over nine months in the womb. We have advanced instrumentation that allows us to see and hear a baby's heartbeat at 6-8 weeks. We have advanced far enough in medicine to save babies born prematurely who live a full life. Yet we have an archaic decision from 1973 that assumed a fetus had no rights because it was not a life in being. Because a fetus is not a life in being, the argument goes, it has no rights, much less rights which can trump a mother's right to privacy. Today, we know better but we can still legally take away a child's right to continue living from the moment of conception up to the point it is born.
This is simply not right or morally acceptable for a "civilized" country. We are better than that. It degrades us as Americans; more fundamentally it degrades us as a species. For anyone with a conscience to know that abortion ends a human life, there is simply no "right" which justifies it. This isn't a Catholic issue or even a Christian issue. It's a matter of human decency.
Thanks for reading. I promise to return to a less militant tone. This blog is not just about being pro-life; it's about being comfortably Catholic. To me, being Catholic means being pro-life so this won't be the last time I write on the topic. However, in order to regain a better sense of peace, I must step back from being the "defender of the faith" so I can rest in the arms of the Lord.
Peace
CC
I was in the third grade when the Roe v. Wade was issued. I will never forget sitting in church hearing for the first time that it was no longer illegal for mothers to kill the babies inside of them. I remember how offended I was and shocked that this could be happening. At the time no one believed it would last. I remember thinking that if abortion was still going on when I grew up I would work to make it stop. I don't know if the last 9 days qualifies as a heroic effort, but prayer is a powerful thing and I remind myself daily that we need to keep storming heaven's door for divine intervention in this tragic horror.
In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that a person has an inherent right to privacy, a right which had never been recognized before. The Court argued that whether a woman bore a child was a private decision. I agree. A woman has the right to choose whether she engages in intercourse that might result in pregnancy. For a victim of rape or incest that right to choose has been violated at the time she was not allowed to choose to have intercourse. Once the private choice (or violation of choice) has been made and a human life comes into being, that human also has inherent rights. Namely, the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." There are no other rights if a person does not have the right to life and frankly, the right to life surpasses all other rights.
Since the time of Roe v. Wade, science has definitively established that life begins at conception. We have seen photographs of a baby developing over nine months in the womb. We have advanced instrumentation that allows us to see and hear a baby's heartbeat at 6-8 weeks. We have advanced far enough in medicine to save babies born prematurely who live a full life. Yet we have an archaic decision from 1973 that assumed a fetus had no rights because it was not a life in being. Because a fetus is not a life in being, the argument goes, it has no rights, much less rights which can trump a mother's right to privacy. Today, we know better but we can still legally take away a child's right to continue living from the moment of conception up to the point it is born.
This is simply not right or morally acceptable for a "civilized" country. We are better than that. It degrades us as Americans; more fundamentally it degrades us as a species. For anyone with a conscience to know that abortion ends a human life, there is simply no "right" which justifies it. This isn't a Catholic issue or even a Christian issue. It's a matter of human decency.
Thanks for reading. I promise to return to a less militant tone. This blog is not just about being pro-life; it's about being comfortably Catholic. To me, being Catholic means being pro-life so this won't be the last time I write on the topic. However, in order to regain a better sense of peace, I must step back from being the "defender of the faith" so I can rest in the arms of the Lord.
Peace
CC
No comments:
Post a Comment