Pro-Lifers
can chew gum and walk at the same
time. Honestly!
The
wonderful men, women, and increasing numbers of teenagers involved in the
Pro-Life movement witness to the sanctity of human life at all its stages in an amazing diversity of
ways.
They
rally together to provide a public witness of solidarity with the unborn.
They
provide educational opportunities to draw attention to the scandal of hundreds
of thousands of unborn children being snuffed out before birth.
They create,
support, and volunteer with crisis pregnancy centers to provide services to
women in difficult situations to bring their unborn child into the world and then
to carry mother and child forward to thrive in our society.
And,
yes, some participate in political campaigns of pro-life candidates (of both
political parties) at the national and state level. Or they may work with organizations to endorse
and support pro-life candidates for elective office. Those who have been in the “political trenches”
of this battle well know the challenges, the difficult calls, and the nuances
involved when anyone, especially people of faith, turn to the democratic process
to promote a particular cause.
Still
others focus on the legislative process, at both the national and the state
level. They draft, debate, and lobby for
legislative initiatives —
* to ensure that those faced with
a difficult situation are informed about the options for bringing an unborn
child to birth and about the development of the child in the womb,
* to reverse the exclusion of
parents from interactions between their pregnant daughters and those affiliated
with abortion clinics and the abortion industry,
* to prevent late-term abortions
(the modern American form of infanticide), or
* to carve out adequate space in our
society for individuals and mediating institutions to uphold their values
without being required to follow conflicting government mandates.
And some Pro-Lifers
advocate in the courts to uphold legislation that protects unborn life and
upholds informed consent. Or they defend
the rights of citizens, churches, and organizations to stand up on behalf of
life and not be forced to subsidize abortion.
From time to time, someone may lose heart and advise that Pro-Lifers involved with the electoral process, with
legislative bodies across the nation, or with the judicial process should surrender that calling and withdraw from the political or the legislative or the legal arena.
But, thank God, that’s not going to happen.
Those directly involved in the Pro-Life
movement well understand that they cannot in good conscience abandon the field the political and legal field
to those who advocate —
* public funding of abortions,
* removal of all restrictions
on even late-term abortions,
* requiring even Catholic medical schools to provide
instruction in performing abortions as a condition of accreditation,
* demanding
that even Catholic hospitals open facilities to performing abortions as a
condition of state or local approval, and
* demanding that religious-based
institutions offer abortion pills through their insurance coverage of
employees.
Some of these frightening proposals are being pursued aggressively right now by "Reproductive Rights" advocates, although Pro-Life lawyers, officials, and activists through tireless efforts hold back the tide (to a greater or lesser extent). Some of these options may seem unlikely, but the abortion industry and its supporters are pressing hard at every turn, laying the foundation for these initiatives, and would gladly fill the policy vacuum if Pro-Lifers deserted their posts.
Importantly, these legal, legislative, or political efforts hardly come at the expense of the Pro-Life movement’s consistent
witness to the culture, educational efforts to respect human life, and
volunteer work with pro-life charitable organizations could have displayed a
rich tapestry of changing hearts and transformed lives. Pro-Lifers can multi-task.
In our
own St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, the “Respect Life Outreach works
to promote respect for human life from conception to natural death, to bring
about a conversion of heart and mind to be open to God’s special gift of
life.” Through this and related programs
in the Catholic community in the Twin Cities, there
is a vibrant Pro-Life effort, reaching out to and involving young people,
especially in the Catholic high schools, who in turn are spending time working
with those in need in crisis pregnancy centers and elsewhere. Public policy advocacy is but a small part
of that overall effort — and none of it involves political election campaigning.
In sum, our colleagues in law schools and the legal profession, our students, our
families, and our friends who give sacrificially of their time, energy,
talents, and money to advance the cause of human life have wonderful and
inspiring stories to tell us of legal obstacles to protection of life being brought down, both hearts and minds being changed, people served with compassion, and unborn lives saved — through the work of every sector of a
multi-dimensional movement.
Those who
have given their hearts to the Pro-Life movement reflect the great
strength and diversity — both in political perspectives and operational mission
— within that movement. Take the time
today to thank someone you know who is working tirelessly in this mission for life.
Friday, January 25, 2013
For most of
us as Catholics, we probably associate “stewardship” with that time of the year
when the priest or parish council ask us to commit to making contributions to the
parish for the coming year.
Stewardship
is not only about giving money away, but about making wise use of the resources
to which we are entrusted. And an
essential part of that stewardship is to preserve resources for use by the next
generation. As a nation, we are failing
that responsibility — and failing miserably.
Each person
in America today — every man, woman, and child — owes more than $30,000 in
national debt. And it will only get
worse, rising above $100,000 per person over the next two decades.
If nothing
is changed — indeed if there is not dramatic change — the next generation will drown
beneath a sea of the debt.
Simply put,
America faces no greater danger today than the crushing national debt. No greater threat to a secure safety net for
all Americans exists than the uncontrolled growth in entitlements, which
eventually will crowd out all other discretionary spending and, in any event,
is itself unsustainable. No greater obstacle
to prosperity for the next generation of Americans is before us than leaving
them with the bill for out-of-control federal spending.
But you
wouldn’t know it from hearing President Obama’s inaugural speech this week. He could barely spare a word for the deficit,
other than to argue against any meaningful spending cuts and apparently
pledging his vociferous opposition to any reform of Social Security, Medicare,
and Medicaid.
And you
wouldn’t know it from President Obama’s concerted actions since the election,
as he has steered away from the balanced approach that he promised during the
campaign. Yes, President Obama
campaigned for higher taxes on higher-income individuals. But he promised to combine tax increases with
spending reductions. When the fiscal
cliff approached, however, President Obama demanded only tax increases while
refusing to agree to any limits on spending.
Immediately
following the election, I was optimistic that President Obama would seize this
opportunity to move toward meaningful reform of entitlements and to arrest
runaway deficits. As I wrote here on
Mirror of Justice, I thought that he would want to be remembered as a President
who got the nation’s fiscal house in order, rather than the President who
bankrupted the country. The President appears determined to prove me wrong.
Commenting
on the inaugural address, Peter Wehner at Commentary writes:
He is fully at peace with running
trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. He not only won’t lift a
finger to avoid America’s coming debt crisis; he will lacerate those who do.
In the end,
though, President Obama’s concern for the less fortunate is at war with his insouciance
about trillion dollar deficits:
* The
greatest opportunity for those of lower-income and the strongest hope for a
secure safety net is a growing national economy. The huge national debt is a constant
downward pressure on the economy, suppressing growth below what it otherwise
would be and leaving more Americans unemployed (and underemployed) and incomes
stagnant. A weaker economy also means
greater demands on social services with fewer resources available to meet those
demands.
* This year,
the United States is projected to spend $224 billion of taxpayer money for
interest on the national debt. With President
Obama’s deficit spending, the interest due will more than double to $524
billion in a decade. That’s more money
than the federal government spends on education, transportation, veterans
affairs, etc. And that’s money not
available to help anyone or strengthen any social welfare program. Think of what we could accomplish today if we
could use that money, instead of transferring it to China and other holders of
American debt beyond our shores.
* The Obama trillion-dollar
deficits are simply not sustainable. Unless
entitlements are reformed, and President Obama has signaled retreat from his
earlier acknowledgment that such reform is essential, we will reach a point in
which the government has no money left to spend on any programs other than
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The current projection is that we’re only about twenty years away from a
situation where all federal revenues are consumed by these three programs, as
they are further extended by Obamacare.
* When the
day of reckoning arrives on the national debt, the poor will be in the most
vulnerable position. When the desperate
scramble comes over the shrinking revenues available for anything other than
entitlements and interest on the national deficit, the poor and disabled and
otherwise disadvantaged are likely to end up on the short end.
President
Obama hopes to be remembered for enhancing social justice and equality. I have no doubt that he is sincere in that
hope. But unless he faces fiscal reality
and becomes an energetic advocate for entitlement reform and deficit reduction,
he instead will be remembered for his out-of-control spending and doubling the
national debt during his time in office.
This period in American history will be held up as an object lesson for
reckless spending and economic delusion, likely followed by an era of severe economic and
fiscal retrenchment that maydepress the American dream for a generation.
There
is still time for President Obama to show leadership and secure his social
justice vision by meaningful entitlement reform and reduction of deficit
spending. Based on the President’s words
and actions since election day, I am no longer sanguine about the prospects.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Requests for contraceptive services apparently are in decline at Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood has decreased its cancer screening services by nearly a third. But public funding for Planned Parenthood continues to go up. As do abortions.
While Planned Parenthood set a record for the last fiscal year in pulling in half-a-billion dollars from the taxpayers -- amounting to nearly half of its funding -- it has been downsizing services other than termination of pregnancies (here). During the past three years alone, the nation's largest abortion provider has snuffed out the lives of a million unborn babies.
The Pro-Life movement may be winning hearts and minds (here). And praise God for His mercy in drawing the young people to Him.
In the meantime, we must not forget the grim reality that daily "terminates" innocent lives in abortion clinics around this country -- nearly a thousand littles ones destroyed each day in Planned Parenthood clinics, as that organization draws in hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds with the support of its primary patron in the White House. The Obama years are proving to be the most lucrative for the abortion industry.
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
We may lose some political battles, such as the re-election to the White House of the most pro-abortion candidate ever nominated by a major party, but the pro-life cause is winning the war by changing the hearts and minds of our young people.
In this Time issue, Emily Buchanan writes:
Not only does this young generation of pro-life women shun the notion
that abortion somehow liberates women; it views abortion as the civil-
and human-rights cause of our day.
For more on this very important issue of Time, from a pro-life perspective, see here.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Trying to climb this
mountain of wickedness is like trying to climb a glass wall with your bare
hands. What happened there is pure evil, and evil, unlike common badness,
gives an ordinary mind no foothold.
Megan McArdle, Daily Beast (Dec. 17, 2012).
Now that a decent interval has been observed since the atrocity in Connecticut, the members of our Mirror of Justice family — as people of faith and well-educated legal scholars — are asking
“what do we do now?”
Many have proposed new gun-control laws
or increased funding for mental health care as the answer. I am willing to support every reasonable
proposal in that regard — and likely would refrain from objecting to quite a few less-than-reasonable proposals. I do
fear, however, that too many are deluding themselves if they really believe that a
truly effective and comprehensive political or legal solution is feasible. What happened in Connecticut — and elsewhere — may or may not represent a failure of law and politics. But such atrocities surely do reflect a failure
of character and culture.
Encouraging moral deliberation in our society and
being committed to changing the American culture of death is much more difficult work than passing a new set of
laws or initiating or expanding government spending programs. Our mission cannot be quantified by a check-list; it is more painstaking and demands more of us personally than a political campaign or legislative agenda; it insists that we be patient, perhaps never knowing in this life how the seeds we plant will grow.
Fortunately,
that harder — and more important — work connects directly to our particular vocation as people
of faith teaching future problem-solvers, policy advocates, legislators and judges, and community leaders and, for most of us, doing so in an environment where faith and moral reasoning are valued and lived out each day.
With respect to the immediate political or legal proposals, Professor James Alan Fox writes in the Chronicle of
Higher Education this week:
Sensible gun laws,
affordable mental-health care, and reasonable security measures are all
worthwhile, and would enhance the well being of millions of Americans. We
shouldn’t, however, expect such efforts to take a big bite out of mass murder.
Of course, a nibble or two would be reason enough.
Continue reading
Monday, December 17, 2012
During this time of Advent in 2012, so many of us as faithful Christians are finding it painfully difficult to experience the Joy of the Season, when others are lost in such grief. While we prepare to celebrate the birth of a child, we are heart-broken by the loss of so many children.
Yet, it was the same at the beginning of our Christian faith, two millennia ago. The Nativity of our Lord, which we celebrate on December 25, is closely followed in the liturgical calendar by the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which we commemorate on December 28.
Having been deceived by the Magi as to where and when the Messiah would be born, King Herod in a desperate and wicked attempt to remove any rival to his throne ordered that all the male infants in Bethlehem should be killed. Matthew 2:16. This horrific event had been prefigured by the similar massacre of the innocents at the birth of Moses. Exodus 1:15-17.
The words of the Gospel of Matthew, recalling the prophecy of Jeremiah, are especially poignant today:
A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and
loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be
consoled, since they were no more.
Yet, even in the midst of such sadness, hope prevailed. As the evil of sin and the wages of a depraved culture were revealed by this unspeakable wrong committed against the innocents, the Christ child shows us another way of love. As the Gospel of John writes of the coming of the Christ: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
And so I echo the thoughtful words of
Kevin Lee in the post below, "tomorrow, perhaps, we can return to
educating [our children] in our faith,
our morals, and the best of our traditions."
In an earlier version of the Roman ritual, this prayer is offered for the Feast of the Holy Innocents:
Let us pray. O Lord, Jesus Christ, Who didst embrace and lay thy
hands upon the little children when they came to thee, and didst say to
them: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for
the kingdom of heaven is theirs, and their angels always see the face of
my Father," — look with a Father's eye upon the innocence of these
children and their parents' devotion, and bless them this day through
our ministry. By thy grace and goodness let them make progress in
desiring thee, loving thee, fearing thee, obeying thy commandments —
thus coming to their destined home, through thee, Saviour of the world,
Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, God,
forever and ever. Amen.
