Catholic Culture This Week: Efforts to Protect Innocent Life

This week contains much history.  It contains both commemorations of important events from the past and current events that will, one day, be mentioned as some of the most momentous events of this era.  We celebrate the life and work of a man who fought until his death for the equal treatment of people of every race; we welcome the first days of the first black president in our nation's history; and we recall the single most heinous judicial ruling of America's Supreme Court.  Moreover, this is a week during which America's faithful, orthodox Catholic population can offer prayers and blessings for the months and years ahead, as well as penance for a culture's destruction of human life.

Earlier today, every American received a new chief executive officer when Barack Obama was sworn in as the forty-fourth President of the United States.  Without a doubt, many barriers were shattered today that lasted for many previous generations.  Without a doubt, a man and an entire segment of the American population overcame decades, even centuries, of prejudices.  Without a doubt, historians (like yours truly) will list this day as one of the most important of the twenty-first century, and as a pinnacle of the Civil Rights Movement.  However, the awe of the first black president and his family in the White House should last little longer.  At this point, we should look beyond his skin color (as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted); we should begin to focus on the "content of his character."

In another area, a large portion of Americans will remember this coming Thursday, January 22 as the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court case that made abortion a legal act in our country.  After thirty-six years, it is clear that this is the single most deadly action that any branch of our government has ever taken.  Upwards of 50 million babies have never been allowed to experience life because five judges felt that women had the right to choose to take an innocent human life.

Not only has Roe cost more lives than any other government action, it is also one of the most illogical Court opinions in history.  The right to an abortion was found in the "penumbra," or "shadows," of the Constitution.  Really, our Constitution has shadows?  Are those the same "shadows" that justified slavery for nearly a century after it was written?  Are those the same "shadows" that allowed business owners to deny employees a just wage until the first quarter of the twentieth century?  In reality, the liberal, activist justices who formed the majority for that case were nothing less than ideologues who desired to further the agenda of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and they needed not to have logical evidence to substantiate their claims.  In effect, they were the pawns of Satan in that particular instance.

Further, this coming Thursday (the same anniversary of the Roe decision) could mark the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.  FOCA, as it is commonly known, would extend Roe to its furthest and ugliest extremes; and it would be the single greatest offense of the dignity of human life ever known to the human race.  By such an law, abortions would be allowed anywhere, any time, for any reason, without consideration of the natural law and the rights of the baby (in Latin, fetus).  In short, FOCA would violate every shred of decency and dignity that remains in our culture.

Why should such strong language be used in retort to a law that has not yet been passed by Congress?  The reasons are multiple.  First, the Catholic Church leaves no doubt as to Her stance on the subject: "Formal cooperation in an abortion [such as a law allowing it for any reason]  constitutes a grave offense" (CCC 2272; emphasis added).  Second, the "inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation" (CCC 2273).  That means that our society and our laws rest squarely on each and every individual's right to exist.  Without such a right, our social and cultural structures will collapse under the tyranny of personal license.  Finally, our newly-inaugurated president, Barack Obama, has promised to sign such a bill into law, which leaves no doubt that he fails to believe in the necessary protection of every human life.

In the same way that our nation has a dark history of oppressing African slaves and, later, free blacks; in the same way that our government has, in the past, failed to protect the dignity of laborers, our nation is teetering on the edge of its most grievous historical crime.  To allow unlimited access to the evil of abortion would surely mean that we have turned our backs on the guiding light provided by our nation's founding documents and basic human decency.  Thus, FOCA must be opposed, as well as any politician (president, representative, senator, or otherwise) who supports it.

Indeed, we are living in the midst of history.  However, we must recognize that the entire history of this age has not been written; it is still to be decided.  There are two possibilities when a nation and culture faces the positive and negative trends that we see today.  The first possibility is the least desirable: that we see every condition among these times as positive and "progressive."  The second is the way of truth: that we must discern and affirm the trends and circumstances that are good, while we discern and decry the trends and circumstances that are evil.

That monumental "color barriers" have been overcome is a good trend, and it should be affirmed.  That black Americans feel as much a part of our nations political culture as ever before must be lauded.  However, decent people must also recognize that our new president and a host of American legislators seek (even if unintentionally) to destroy the foundational fibers of society and the basest tenets of the natural law.  Such a trend must be vehemently opposed, defeated at all cost.

In the coming days, it is well that faithful Catholics, as well as other Christians, people of good will, and those who respect the natural law, begin to pray and work for the defeat of FOCA in the near future, and any similar future legislation.  Only by prayer, sacrifice, and trust that the Almighty has won the final victory will we overcome such evil in our world.