Catholic Diocese of Arlington
Encourage and teach with patience

Although President Barack Obama’s statement on the 36^th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and his Executive Order removing restrictions to the federal funding of abortion in developing countries had been predicted by many who had analyzed his previous voting record and campaign addresses, I remain profoundly distressed by the President’s words and actions. 

Advanced technology now plainly demonstrates that life is present in the womb, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy: it is not a mass of tissue which one day will become a child, but is a human being here and now.  So, the intentional and deliberative choice to terminate a pregnancy is the unjust taking of the life of an innocent, defenseless, preborn human being.  How can this action be a legitimate and morally right exercise of a woman’s right to choice? 

            The following incident was relayed to me. The mother of a one-year-old child had become pregnant and was consulting her doctor. She told him that there was no way that she could cope with two children; she could only care for one. The doctor looked at her and then pointed to the one-year-old sitting next to her and said, “Well, kill that one, and then you will have only one.”

            She was aghast and said, “No, I can’t do that! He is a living child!” 

            “Yes,” replied the doctor, “And so is the child within your womb. The only difference is that you see this one and not the one within you. But both are human beings.”

            What will it take for people to see the objective evil of abortion on demand? Abortion is an injustice, not only because of religious beliefs, but because of the natural law intrinsically etched into every human person.  We must do much more than reduce abortions. We must eliminate the evil of abortion as we have striven to eliminate the evil of racism which, in previous generations, would have unjustly prevented an African American from being elected President of the United States.