By Cardinal Justin F. Rigali

   The effort to restore legal protection for unborn children faces new challenges, as we deal with a new Administration and Congress that support “abortion rights.” Many are asking: Where do we go from here?

    We begin with the dignity of each human person … This intrinsic God-given human dignity is the basis for all inalienable human rights – beginning with the most basic right, the right to life. It is most basic because it is the condition for all the others. First we must live, then we can talk about living well. The right to life is the core element of other rights. All other earthly rights involve something more than life itself – but without life, they are nothing.

    In defending the right to life, our first duty is to oppose the direct taking of innocent human life – any human life, at any stage. As Pope John Paul II confirmed in his encyclical on The Gospel of Life, “the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral” (EV 57). Abortion and euthanasia are preeminent concerns of the church for reasons that are intrinsic to these issues, as well as reasons that are situational.

  Intrinsically, these acts always constitute the direct taking of a human life when it is most innocent and defenseless. And they are willed and carried out by those most called to defend human life – members of the healing professions, and of one’s own family. To undermine these two havens of life is to make a culture of life impossible.

   Situationally, these issues are the places where those committed to a conditional and selective vision of human rights have planted their flag in our time. They want to draw lines between the important and unimportant members of society, between persons and “nonpersons.” In a different time or place the forcing issue might be slavery, racism or anti-Semitism – today abortion and related issues force us to decide whether we mean what we say in speaking of inalienable human rights, inherent in simply being human.

    In particular, the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has made abortion the battleground over our tradition of inherent human rights, and has polarized our society as nothing else has. Later efforts to use law as a weapon against other innocent human lives – against newborn children with disabilities, for example, or against the sick and elderly through a “right” to assisted suicide – have cited Roe as their inspiration and precedent.

    Thus in promoting a culture of life, we must give priority to defending innocent unborn boys and girls from direct attack. We must also make it clear how this effort stands for the dignity and well-being of everyone, before and after birth. Opportunities are available to do exactly this through our advocacy in Washington, D.C. – .to defend the unborn, and to show how this effort upholds all who are vulnerable.

   In defending conscience rights in health care, for example, we stand with the unborn child, and also with the women and men of our healing professions whose freedom of conscience is at risk – and with women who will lose access to basic life-affirming health care if those who truly care about them and their children are forced out of medicine. And the “Pregnant Women Support Act” will provide a wide range of assistance so women can bring their children to live birth and receive a helping hand as they parent the child or make an adoption plan.

    Of course, helping those in need is not only the task of government. The dedicated efforts of Catholics at pro-life pregnancy centers, maternity homes, hospitals, retirement homes, and parish-based support networks for pregnant women and children, as well as prayer and assistance efforts outside of abortion facilities, are needed now more than ever.
Our task is to change hearts and minds, including our own. All our good works in the areas of public policy, education and pastoral care must be undergirded by our prayers and sacrifices offered up to the Lord of Life. Through his saving power, and with the prayerful intercession of our Blessed Mother, we can build a culture of life.

   Cardinal Justin F. Rigali is Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and former Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities. For more information on Roe v. Wade and abortion, see www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/abortion/index/shtml.

Abortion facts
you should know

“Roe effectively legalized abortion throughout pregnancy for virtually any reason, or none at all. It is responsible for the grief of millions of women and men, and the killing of millions of unborn children in the past quarter century.” - USCCB, Living the Gospel of Life, 1998
*January 22, 2010 will begin the 37th year of legalized abortion in the US since the Roe v. Wade decision.
*There are now about 1.2 million abortions every year in the U.S.¹
*Since 1973, approximately 50 million unborn babies have been lost to abortion in the U.S.²
*22 percent of pregnancies in the U.S end in abortion.¹
*Every day, over 3,300 babies are aborted in the U.S. … 137 each hour all day.²
*50 percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25; teens obtain 17 percent and women 20-24 obtain 33 percent of all abortions.4
*In South Dakota, 28,713 babies have been aborted since 1973; this is equal to the population of Harding, Perkins, Corson, Dewey, Ziebach, Haakon, Stanley, Campbell, Jones, and Lyman counties in western SD.6
*Worldwide, about 41.6 million abortions are performed each year.¹
*Planned Parenthood is the largest promoter and provider of abortion, performing 305,310 abortions in the U.S. in fiscal year 2007-2008.² PP received $349.6 million of taxpayer money and had a net profit of $85 million that year.³
*PP of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota had a record profit in 2008, with revenue from government funds increasing 21 percent. Their 2008 annual report shows 4,792 abortions performed.5