With the full support of our Catholic president, the Catholic Speaker of the House, and scores of Catholic representatives, the Women’s Health Protection Act was passed in the House of Representatives last week.
Chances are the bill will not pass in the Senate, but regardless of its outcome, it is the most radical pro-abortion bill ever considered in our history.
The bill would forbid states from subjecting abortion to ultrasound requirements, mandatory waiting periods, informed-consent requirements, and other health and safety rules.
It would seek to remove conscience protection for health care workers who would not want to be complicit in an abortion.
The bill essentially would codify complete unrestricted access to abortion up to fetal viability in federal law.
Respecting life
As we begin October which is Respect Life Month, the Church calls our attention to the dignity, beauty, and inviolability of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God.
Every person is sacred from the moment of conception to natural death, deserving of respect, welcome, nurture, and love.
The Catholic Church is the greatest provider of health care, education, social services, and assistance to the poor throughout the world because She sees Herself as the servant of the human person.
God wants every person to flourish in this life, tasting the abundance of His love and grace, and to be happy with Him forever in the glory of heaven.
Despite recent assertions to the contrary, the conviction that life begins at conception is not a matter of faith but a truth known by science.
In a recent article in First Things, George Weigel made this point clear. We know that human life, indeed in its most nascent form, begins at the moment of conception and that the union of the two cells of the father and mother already contains the entire genetic code of this emerging new human being.
To say that human life begins at conception is equivalent to asserting that the world is round, the law of gravity prevails, and that 1+1=2.
It is not a religious belief. Follow the science.
Becoming involved
I became very involved in the pro-life movement as a young priest because I listened to many suffering women and men who had been deeply wounded by the profound evil of abortion.
They were haunted by what they had done, finding no solace in society’s mantra that they had done nothing wrong.
Through counseling, the sacraments, and much prayer, they were able to find healing, believe in the mercy of God, and ultimately forgive themselves.
Our country experiences the tragedy of one million abortions a year, and many of our government leaders want the killing to continue unimpeded.
A slim majority of the House voted for the aforementioned bill last week. And many of them claim Catholicism as their religious belief.
The Church cannot remain silent or indifferent before such a continuing tragedy of violence, consistently condemning abortion and infanticide from the earliest days of Christianity.
Indeed, the Second Vatican Council calls it “an abominable crime.” I will not remain silent about the deaths of millions of precious, fragile, unborn lives and the subsequent spiritual, emotional, and psychological damage inflicted on the parents, family, and friends affected by this profound violence.
I pray daily for the conversion of our political leaders on this fundamental issue, as we remember that the first duty of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens.
Stand up for life
Sadly, the violation of the human person takes many forms: Human trafficking, poverty, racism, economic exploitation of workers, hunger and malnutrition, drug abuse, mass shootings, domestic abuse, and war, just to name some.
The Church, believers of other churches and faiths, and all people of goodwill seek to remedy these afflictions which negatively impact millions of persons around the globe.
During this Respect Life Month, we lift up all of our suffering brothers and sisters in prayer and seek to do something about the situations of injustice and indifference that surround us.
We cannot justify abortion, however, by asserting that the government does so many other good things and this is just one issue.
Abortion is one issue in a world of many problems, but it is the fundamental one, directly and intentionally, destroying the human being at the most fragile and vulnerable stage of development.
If the measure of how we stand with God is how we treat the most vulnerable and marginal in our midst, our culture is in need of radical spiritual reform.
In his homily on the National Mall in 1979, St. John Paul II proclaimed, “We will stand up every time human life is threatened. When the sacredness of life before birth is attacked, we will stand up and proclaim that no one ever has the authority to destroy unborn human life.”
How disturbing that many adherents of Catholicism who serve in our government today have closed their hearts and consciences to these prophetic words.