For Dear Life
GUEST COLUMN
Proponents of the rights granted by Roe v. Wade speak of abortion as a “choice”; they are “pro-choice.” But to many of us, the word sounds inappropriate in this context: It tends to put on the same level two very different entities, as if it were a matter of mere whim or mood, as in the trivial case of two flavors of ice cream put before us for our selection.
But, in actuality, what is before the “chooser” is the alternative between two totally unequal, imminent conditions of a budding human being: death or life.
Recently, an American surgeon opened a mother’s womb to operate on a prenatal malformation in her fetal child. He reported that the unborn infant, three months or so in development, stretched out its little hand and clutched his finger.
Who has not been moved by that gesture in a newborn, reaching out for something to hold onto — as if our finger were a pole tendered to a drowning person, a lifeline to cling to?
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In modern-day America, human life is destroyed on a massive scale with the cruel, evil, and machine-like efficiency characteristic of the Nazis.
Would any reasonable person think it appropriate to execute a duly tried and convicted pregnant woman before the birth of the baby?
If you favor the cause of orthodoxy or tradition in Catholic faith and morals, you should break the close link that exists between that cause and the cause of the political Right.