A Decision That Deformed A Great Nation

Details: 22 January 2010

Thirty-seven years ago today, the United States Supreme Court rocked our nation by declaring the killing of unborn children through abortion to be a fundamental Constitutional right. The aftermath is nothing short of catastrophic.

Since Jan. 22, 1973, well more than 50 million unborn babies have been killed by abortion in the U.S (more than 170,000 in Nebraska). Millions of mothers have been wounded psychologically, relationally, spiritually and physically. Millions more—fathers, grandparents, siblings, friends—have been wounded and our collective conscience as a society has been numbed by this unparalleled destruction and dehumanization of innocent human life.

In a February 1994 brief to the Supreme Court, Mother Teresa said “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men.

“It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts-a child-as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered domination over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.

“And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.”

In 1995, Pope John Paul II also addressed the serious and unique challenge of abortion in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. He explained that among the myriad of attacks against human life throughout history, abortion represents “another category of attacks affecting life” and presents “new characteristics with respect to the past and which raise questions of extraordinary seriousness.”

“It is not only that in generalized opinion these attacks tend no longer to be considered as ‘crimes,’” John Paul said, “paradoxically they assume the nature of ‘rights’ to the point that the state is called upon to give them legal recognition and to make them available through the free services of health-care personnel.

“Such attacks strike human life at the time of its greatest frailty, when it lacks any means of self-defense. Even more serious is that fact that, most often those attacks are carried out in the very heart of and with the complicity of the family…which by its nature is called to be the ‘sanctuary of life.’” (EV #11)

On this anniversary of Roe, it is important to remember that reversing Roe is not the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement. In fact, making abortion illegal is not our ultimate goal. Making abortion unthinkable is our ultimate goal.

To reach this goal, we certainly must address the injustices and behaviors that result in the killing of unborn children. This includes promoting adoption, ensuring that mothers who choose to parent a child have the resources they need, insisting that employers and educational institutions don’t force mothers to choose between children and socio-economic development.

And, as John Paul said in Evangelium Vitae (#97): “It is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not help the young to accept and experience sexuality and love and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection… The trivialization of sexuality is among the principal factors which have led to contempt for new life. Only a true love is able to protect life.”

To make abortion unthinkable we must address all of these matters. But even if doing so would eliminate the incidence of abortion, justice would still demand that unborn human beings be recognized and protected as full persons in our laws. For this to happen, Roe must go.