….A few initial take-aways from this news:
- The need for Catholics to pray and fast for the overturning of Roe has only intensified. No doubt the demonic forces that prop up the abortion industry will work overtime to ensure this draft never becomes reality.
- If Roe truly is overturned, the number of innocent babies saved from death will be incalculable. No matter the lies the Left has told for over a generation about “millions of back-alley abortions” in pre-Roe days, the reality is that, like legalized divorce, making abortion legal made it much more practiced as well.
- This opinion would not make abortion illegal in the United States, but would instead throw the abortion issue back to the individual states. This is a huge improvement over our current legal landscape, but pro-lifers would need to battle in their own states to make abortion illegal locally.
- A leak of this magnitude is unprecedented, and likely indicates an attempt to undermine the direction of the Court. Perhaps it is an attempt to change the outcome of the decision before it is released, or to prepare blue states to enact legislation to ensure access to legalized abortion, or perhaps even to begin the process of packing the Court.
Also at this time we should not forget the many pro-life heroes who have been battling abortion for almost 50 years—longtime warriors like Joan Andrews Bell, Joe Scheidler, Jack Willke, Randall Terry, and Monica Miller, as well as the newer wave of pro-life activists like Lila Rose, David Daleiden, and Abby Johnson. And of course we should remember the countless and nameless soldiers who have prayed and counseled in front of abortion clinics across the country for years. Their work—our work—is not over, but we should be grateful for all those who worked to stop child-killing and soften the hearts of a hardened country to the evil of abortion.
We should also not expect the abortion-crazed Left to take this quietly. Abortion is the chief sacrament of their demonic cause, and they will stop at nothing—nothing—to keep it legalized. If Roe and Casey are truly overturned in June, we should expect civil unrest in the summer of 2022 that will make the summer of 2020 look like a picnic. Expect attacks against the institution of the Supreme Court, and perhaps even against individual justices. While Catholics should rejoice at the news of the toppling of Roe, we should also prepare ourselves both spiritually and physically for the pro-abortion response.
Finally, it’s quite possible that the overturning of Roe will be the final nail in the coffin of the American experiment. Our country was founded upon life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but in 1973 we attached the “pursuit of happiness” with an attack on life. Such a Faustian bargain cannot hold, and the unravelling of the abortion regime might very well lead to the unravelling of a nation. Such a result should be lamented, of course, but at the same time no nation that wants to kill its own babies deserves to survive.
The above comes from a May 3 posting by Eric Sammons, editor of Crisis Magazine.
Thy will be done. And deliver us from evil.
What if his will is not to deliver us from evil? Catch-22.
I have found that there are points along the spectrum in terms of just about every political debate. There are those who are primarily in the middle, willing to hear the other side, find the common ground, and find a way for all to be able to get along. Then one need only go out a bit from that center, and now you have those who are rather vocal about their side of the subject, and are willing to abide by the adage of compromise not being a negative word, but one of most people not necessarily getting what they absolutely want, but most of what they need. Then there are those on the fringe ends, who pontificate about the absolute surety of their cause, how their view is the ONLY view, whether based on religious or secular grounds, and will absolutely not seek, hear or otherwise acknowledge the other side, save to denigrate, make wild predictions of doom, etc. On the question of abortion, both ends are evidence of this. Once Roe v Wade is overturned, indeed there will be sanctuary states where it will be legal, and others where neighbors and family will feel obligated to turn in women who quietly go to those states to have the procedure. My high school students are having very open discussions on this (Your readers will be glad to note that some of the Catholic students do indeed defend the pro-life side), and I simply keep the discussion civil, respectful, and as much as possible, without name calling or strong emotion or characterizing by either side. One quipped, “I’m waiting for that day, once RVW is overruled, that a highly placed politician (she named the party, but I’ll leave that for you to guess), who was vociferously for this ruling, will have their daughter or granddaughter caught on a plane to get an abortion, and thus showing an elitist the-rules-dont-apply-to-me attitude”. Another suggested that this ruling was a good thing, not because is will save babies, but because since most of the children born will be of color, that will mean that the majority of voters in a few generations will be POC, and thus make some rulings that some whites will not find pleasing”. For many of the readers of this site, it’s an absolute, non-negotiable on the abortion question. I get the dogmatic adherence to canon law, and the supreme belief that life begins at conception, but again, it’s a religious view, not one that can be simply imposed on everyone, especially those who are not part of the your congregation. the bottom point of any real change in bringing in religious views into politics is this: whose religion gets to be the state religion?
How racist to suggest that non-whites can’t think for themselves to vote Republican and must toe the line to vote Democrat or that only white people vote Republican. Support for Democrats among Latinos and blacks is evaporating.
The beginning of life is not a religious matter. It’s a scientific matter. Follow the science: a completely new organism, a new life, begins at the moment of conception. The law doesn’t treat murder as a religiously-based crime. Connect the dots: baby in womb = separate life = innocent life = killing it is murder, just as killing innocent life outside the womb is murder. Simple.
I pity your students.
Michael – I could nod my head in agreement with your appraisal of the abortion issue if I were sitting in a thatched croft in medieval England with my swine and chickens all about me. No, I am present here, in my office, computer lit up like a Roman candle, with images before me of a 3-4 week discernable human embryo in utero. The images are undeniable. Scientific. Biological. Empirical. This evidence has been revealed to us through science and technology. If we take your argument that religion should not bear weight on the abortion issue, then I agree with you, if I were not just a religious person. You see, I am also a thinking person. I see the science and the science sees into the womb and shows me what I already knew all along: that life begins at conception and, for all of us who are believers, God is the author of that life. I would urge you to take sides in your classroom: the side of science and the side of religion. I think your students would benefit from the truth.
TLDR
It’s not a religious view — it’s biology.
A male sperm and female ovum = human life
Life begins at conception
Abortion takes a human life
Taking a human life is murder.
We have a religious law against murder: The 6th Commandment
We have civil laws against murder.
Where is the compromise?
Believe it or not, I truly appreciate the replies I’ve received: they were cogent, not filled with accusative or denigrating terms towards me personally, which belies a path where we can find the common ground and find a way that meets our needs. That said, the “science” fact that life begins at conception seems to be the point of contention. Is a fertilized human ovum actually life or simply the start toward a living organism ? Therein lies the rub. For me, if the fetus cannot survive beyond the womb environment (i.e. does not have functioning organs that will sustain its life functions without intervention). For most scientists, that point is at about twelve weeks in most cases, about the time the “quickening” can be felt by the mother. A percentage of pregnant woman cannot even tell that they may be pregnant into past the latest six weeks dictum. This quickening is also mentioned in the 1232 AD treatise which Justice Alito mentioned in his opinion. Science has various ways to accurately determine how old a fetus is. So our argument comes down to a definition of human life, whether secularly (at quickening) or Canon law (at conception), with various states trying to impose a 6 week limit. Some of my students have suggested that both ends of the argument should try to discover a method wherein a pregnant mother can have her pre-born fetus transplanted to a willing, prepared woman willing to take on the remaining gestation, birth and raising of the child. Further, since most women who have abortions do so in order to avoid the rigors of gestation and birth, and then having to raise an unplanned child, which this method might alleviate. The child survives, the original mother does not have to be pregnant without her consent, and a mother who might otherwise not have a child can. But for now, a fetus below 24 weeks will not, even with extreme intervention, survive on its own (https://www.verywellfamily.com/premature-birth-and-viability-2371529). I understand that in the perfect world, there would be no abortions except in the most extreme of circumstances (ectopic, case of rape or incest), and that by and large, most readers here want the zero limit. It should be noted that we cannot, however resplendid with traditions and Old Testament one’s religion is presented, truly regulate a person’s sexual activity – that is a decision by the individual (I’m not in any way counting rape as voluntary). I’ve a friend who rather naively quipped, “If only everyone were part of our church and obeyed its precepts, then everyone would remain chaste until marriage and then engage in relations to make more children for God”. Nice thought, but not all sex is about making babies – some are to cement the emotional and physical bond of the two consenting adults. Sometimes those two adults decide not to have children, or any further children, and decide to try birth control. How many Catholics quietly employ methods more stable and effective than rhythm, like men having vasectomies, or women using the pill. Nice to think it would be a beautiful world if everyone thought the same, but this is not a viable hope to be honest.
A reader here will not read any statement by me that any of my writings or observations are undeniable, yet so many on the opposing view have done exactly that, and with a vehemence meaning that they believe in their absolute correctness Great for your steadfast belief, but not one that might hold up in a court, except perhaps a Canon law court which consists of like minded pro-life judges. But as the saying goes, I will defend (and I have) your right to speak your view and position, but not the right to impose your view, however justified to you by religious holy writ, on anyone else who does not hold that view. You’ve every right to make the abortion question your single point of whether to vote for a candidate, but given our citizenry’s diversity and individual needs, a candidate who meets all people’s needs probably does not exist. But as for me, I might WANT a candidate to be pro-Life as a single point of decision, but not if they had other points that were abhorrent to my view (like multiple divorces, history of misogyny, etc.), and certainly not going to vote for them. For the record, I am pro-choice, but I hope the choice is for life. As an adoptee, I was fortunate, but I will not impose sanctum on a women so that my views are upheld. If a women of faith or not decides to continue their pregnancy, to keep or give up for adoption, I applaud their decision.