To the editor:
In 1983, on the 10th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion-on-demand in this country, President Ronald Reagan wrote an article for the magazine Human Life Review titled “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.” I would like to share the last paragraph of this fine article on this the 38th anniversary of Roe and Bolton.
“Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide . . . there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.”
Unfortunately, our current occupant in the White House, President Barack Obama, does not share that same conviction with his repeal of the Mexico City Policy, lifting the federal ban on human embryonic stem cell research, and his passage of Obamacare. Though the pro-life cause made some gains in the 2010 elections, we are still far from reaching our goal that all life should be protected by law from conception until natural death.
In 2001, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus gave an address at Fordham University that was published the following year in the Human Life Review, titled “Together — for Life.” Father Neuhaus was showing how Jews and Christians can work together for the cause of human life and how it was important not to grow “weary” in this great movement.
“We dare never give in to what sometimes seem to be the overwhelming indications that the cause is futile. We dare never give in to despair . . . It is a grand thing, it is among the grandest things in life, to know that your life has been claimed by a cause ever so much greater than yourself, ever so much greater than yourselves.”
We just celebrated Christmas, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God the Son enters the world after spending nine months in the womb of his mother Mary. All human life from conception until natural death is special because we are all created in the image of God.
As Scripture reminds us, “Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).
What better way to love our God and love our neighbor than by participating in the pro-life movement. Both the above articles from the Human Life Review, along with 27 other articles, can be found in the Human Life Review The Debate Since Roe: Making the Case Against Abortion 1975 – 2010.
Patrick Hardyman, Blanchardville