Tag: roe v wade

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Destroyers of peace: Connection between abortion and other kinds of violence

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child — a direct killing of the innocent child — murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

The world was shocked to learn that hundreds of people — many of them women and children — were killed in Syria on August 21 reportedly by the use of sarin gas. In the past two years, it has been reported that over 70,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war — and that might be an underestimate.

Millions of babies aborted

However, in comparison, there have been over 56 million unborn babies killed in the United States by induced abortions since 1973, when the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in this country.

So far in 2013, there have been over 828,000 abortions performed in the U.S., including almost 44,000 after 16 weeks of gestation (www.numberofabortions.com). According to the Guttmacher Institute’s report as of July 2013, about four in 10 pregnancies have been terminated by abortion in our country.

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Patrick Hardyman

Concerned about powers of the U.S. Supreme Court

To the editor:

Thomas Jefferson had some very grave concerns about the powers of the United States Supreme Court. In a letter he wrote in 1820 he voiced his concerns: “You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges . . . and their power [are] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”

In 1962 the Supreme Court removed state-sponsored prayer from public schools (Engel v. Vitale). In 1965 it tossed a law preventing married couples from buying contraceptives by creating a “right to privacy” (Griswold v. Connecticut).

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Sr. Rosalia Bauer

Mourning and celebrating the life of Nellie Gray

To the editor:

My heroine, Nellie Gray, founder of the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.,  died August 13, 2012.  I mourn and celebrate her death.

Mourn, because of her death after being a beacon of inspiration to all who respect human life, from conception to natural death. Celebrate, because Nellie has come to her Heavenly reward where she can sing, dance, and praise God forever.

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Mary C. Uhler, Catholic Herald Staff

Defending life: It’s something people of many faith traditions are doing together

In the 40 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, many people in the Catholic Church have been in the forefront of the pro-life movement to counteract the court’s decision.

Over the years, however, it’s been obvious that people of many different faith traditions have also been involved in defending the right to life. I can remember Lutherans, Baptists, evangelical Christians, and others who attended the annual Respect Life march at our state Capitol in January in past years, followed by an ecumenical prayer service at St. Raphael Cathedral in Madison.

This might have been the first time some people of other faiths had entered a Catholic church! We Catholics also had the opportunity to see how other denominations prayed and sang.

People of many different faiths have also been active in pro-life outreach efforts such as CareNet Pregnancy Center, Elizabeth House, Pregnancy Helpline, the Women’s Care Center, and Vigil for Life in the Madison area. I have been impressed by the commitment of so many people to these efforts to assist parents in choosing life for their unborn babies and to help those in need after the babies are born.

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Patrick Hardyman

Consider ‘intrinsic evil’ of abortion in voting

To the editor:

In June 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, wrote a letter to eight white clergymen explaining why he was in Birmingham, Ala., fighting racial discrimination. Dr. King wrote this letter from his jail cell, thus it has been famously known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In the letter Dr. King talked about just and unjust laws. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law . . . an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

Since 1973, almost 55 million surgical abortions have taken place in this country because seven unelected men serving for life decided they were above God’s eternal law. Of course, I am speaking of the seven men on the nine-member body of the United States Supreme Court who voted to strike down the abortion laws in all 50 states with its 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

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Patrick Hardyman

Consider ‘intrinsic evil’ of abortion in voting

To the editor:

In June 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, wrote a letter to eight white clergymen explaining why he was in Birmingham, Ala., fighting racial discrimination. Dr. King wrote this letter from his jail cell, thus it has been famously known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In the letter Dr. King talked about just and unjust laws. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law . . . an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

Since 1973, almost 55 million surgical abortions have taken place in this country because seven unelected men serving for life decided they were above God’s eternal law. Of course, I am speaking of the seven men on the nine-member body of the United States Supreme Court who voted to strike down the abortion laws in all 50 states with its 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

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On
Patrick Hardyman

Consider ‘intrinsic evil’ of abortion in voting

To the editor:

In June 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, wrote a letter to eight white clergymen explaining why he was in Birmingham, Ala., fighting racial discrimination. Dr. King wrote this letter from his jail cell, thus it has been famously known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

In the letter Dr. King talked about just and unjust laws. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law . . . an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

Since 1973, almost 55 million surgical abortions have taken place in this country because seven unelected men serving for life decided they were above God’s eternal law. Of course, I am speaking of the seven men on the nine-member body of the United States Supreme Court who voted to strike down the abortion laws in all 50 states with its 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

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Timothy Rookey

Election will decide future

To the editor:

The election of 2012 will decide what kind of future our children and grandchildren will have: one based on Christian moral principles or one based on the wholesale discarding of them. The Obama Administration champions no limit on abortions up to nine months of gestation, gay marriage, and limitations on our religious freedom.

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Michelle Nilsson

An opportunity to live our faith: a pilgrimage for life

Year of Faith column logo

I will never forget the events surrounding the first time I attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Six months earlier I had taken a position as the director of religious education in a small rural community just outside of Canton, Ohio. I was armed with a new master’s degree in theology and all the hope in the world that all Catholics could fall deeply in love with God and the Church.

Early one morning I received a call from a friend, a professor at the college down the road and the moderator for the campus pro-life group. He called begging me to drive a group of college students to the March for Life in D.C. My immediate response was, “Are you crazy?” In Ohio, it is only a six-hour drive to our nation’s capital, but I wasn’t prepared to go to march for so many reasons.

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