On this day in 1973, I was just over 5 months along in my mother's womb. The picture on the left is what I looked like. On this day in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that I was not a person - not yet anyways.
But, like most mothers, my mom didn't need a Supreme Court Decision to understand that I was more than a blob of tissue. I was her baby, and there was no way she would be told otherwise.
No authority on this Earth has the right to "define" what a human being is, any more than it could "define" the stars or the sky. Whether we call her a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, or blob of tissue, a person begins to exist at the moment she is concieved. To anyone who would say that this is merely a religious point of view, I say that my opinion would be the same whether I was Roman Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, or atheist. The Church only affirms the truth when she teaches that life begins at conception, and must be protected until its natural end.
When a nation creates laws that allow one group of people (in this case pregnant women) to deny the fundamental rights of another group of people (in this case the right of unborn children to live), what will become of it? Hasn't this occured before in history? What has become of our nation over the past 34 years? Are things really better now for women and children than they were then? Can we honestly work towards the "common good" when we fail to recognize the fundamental rights of any group of people - especially those who cannot speak for themselves?
Prayer for Life
O Mary,
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life.
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies not allowed to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.
From Evangelium Vitae, by John Paul II.
