Next week, hundreds of thousands of Americans will travel to our nation’s capital to witness a great historic moment — President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration as our nation’s first African American president.
Two days after this proud celebration, hundreds of thousands more will also travel to Washington to mark a day of national shame — the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
That 1973 Supreme Court decision did far more than legalize abortion. It set our nation on a downward constitutional and moral spiral that has led to the legalization of doctor-assisted suicide, experimentation on human embryos and the radical redefinitions of human sexuality and the family.
As I said in my last column, as a nation we face many large issues in this new year. But we cannot lose our vigilance on the issues of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person. We are called by our faith, and the demands of justice, to build a culture of life in our country.
And every day, it seems, we have evidence of a growing disregard for these fundamental values. Before Christmas, I read a disturbing article in The New York Times about the fate of human embryos that are “left over” from in vitro fertilization procedures. These embryos — human beings — are frozen and stored in fertility clinics.
Currently, there are some 400,000 human embryos in cold storage like this around the country. And that number is growing every day. To put it into perspective: the total U.S. population of frozen human embryos would make up the 45th largest city in the nation — roughly the same size as the populations of Oakland, Calif., and Miami, Fla.
This staggers the imagination. In our very midst, we have a vast city-sized “orphanage” of unwanted children. The options for these human beings in embryonic state are grim. They are either destroyed outright, given to scientists for experimentation, such as embryonic stem cell research, or forgotten about altogether by their “parents.”
This is the sad new world that the right to abortion has led us into. It is a world where the embryo, the unborn child, is treated not as human person, but as “property” to be disposed of as its “owners” see fit.
And we have entered an era where this mentality has given risen to talk of human cloning, genetic engineering and euthanasia for the terminally ill and the handicapped.
Many of these issues are taken up in a new instruction by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of a Person). I hope this document on biological questions becomes “must reading” among our health care professionals, scientific researchers and teachers.
The document speaks of “the urgent need to mobilize consciences in favor of life.” And this is certainly right. Catholics must lead the way in defending human dignity from its conception to its natural end.
As Pope Benedict XVI has said: “God’s love does not differentiate between the newly conceived infant still in his or her mother’s womb and the child or young person, or the adult and the elderly person. God does not distinguish between them because he sees an impression of his own image and likeness in each one.”
Our new president unfortunately does not share our values on abortion and other life issues. In fact, it is widely expected that among his first acts in office next week will be to issue executive orders permitting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund embryonic cell research and to promote abortion overseas. Also, he made a campaign promise to enact the Freedom of Choice Act, which would eliminate any restriction on abortion, even laws banning “partial-birth” abortions.
Such policies are clearly at odds with the will of the people. In fact, a survey commissioned by the U.S. bishops recently found that 82 percent of Americans think abortion should be either illegal or sharply limited. Of the small minority (9 percent) who feel abortions should be legal, 35 percent nonetheless support some restrictions and limits on this “right.”
This is a great sign of hope.
And Mr. Obama’s election to the highest office of a land where once slavery was legal, is a reminder of our country’s great capacity for repentance and conversion. I am confident that one day abortion, euthanasia and other assaults on the right to life, will be consigned to the dustbin of history, right alongside slavery.
During this historic week, let us pray for that day. Let us pray for the conversion of our neighbors’ hearts and minds, and dedicate ourselves once more to building a culture of life.