Happy the peacemakers; they shall be called sons of God. (Mt 5:9)
God our Father, you reveal that those who work for peace will be called your sons. Help us to work without ceasing for that justice which brings true and lasting peace.
The days leading up to today have made me more concerned than ever for the rights of the unborn. It is clearer to me that with the new presidential administration and the confirmation of Mrs. Clinton as the Secretary of State, abortion will become more accepted and more ingrained in the political machinery here in the USA and it will be a significant agenda item in foreign policy. The abortion politic may not be so “in your face” as it has been but the architects of our governmental social and foreign policies will slip the matter of abortion into the fray as a human right wherever possible. For example, I can foresee that an African country who has traditionally been against abortion will be pressured to change their laws and health care policies to make abortion available and fully funded. The Clinton crowd has already worked in organizations like the UN and USAID to foster pro-abortion policies. Also dangerous to human life is how it will be introduced in health care reforms through riders to the existing laws, counseling, foreign aid and various other humanitarian projects in our own land. So, it is likely that FOCA will not be the most significant piece of legislation to advocate for abortion rights here in the USA. Planned Parenthood has an elaborate plan to move their agenda ahead. What is the Pro-Life? What is our plan at the local and state levels? Who are our spokespeople, now that Richard Neuhaus is dead?
Let’s reflect on the last pro-life essay written by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus in the January 2009 essay in First Things, “The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s” where he wrote:
“Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left.”
And further Neuhaus wrote: “the pro-choice proponents are the defenders of the status quo. They routinely cite data indicating that a majority of Americans do not want to see Roe overturned. As has often been pointed out, these same Americans believe that Roe created a restrictive abortion policy. In what sociologist James Hunter calls “mass legal illiteracy,” it is widely believed that Roe permits abortion in the first trimester, allows it for serious reasons in the second, and forbids it in the third. But, of course, as Roe and companion decisions make clear, the law as presently imposed by the Supreme Court allows abortion at any time for any reason and up through the fully formed baby emerging halfway out of the birth canal. As Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon has written, it is the most permissive abortion regime in the Western world. When those same Americans are asked about the circumstances in which abortion should be permitted, a great majority says that abortion should not be permitted for the reasons that 90 percent of abortions are procured. It is understandable, however, that pro-choice advocates trumpet popular support for Roe, dependent as they are on the ignorance of “the silent majority.”
Therefore, oursis the work
of “welcoming unborn children into life and protecting them under law,” as Fr Neuhaus once said.