A few months ago, on January 22, 2013, we marked the fortieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade—an unconstitutional, immoral, and tragic decision that has unleashed a torrent of murder and misery upon our nation.
On January 22, 1973, seven Supreme Court justices decided that a woman has a right to kill her innocent unborn child for any reason whatsoever. In producing this ruling, the Court misinterpreted the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution, which states, “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This passage, along with most of the Fifth Amendment, was written to protect the rights of persons accused of crimes. When our nation’s Founders authored this text, they meant that no one could be executed or deprived of his freedom or land without first being properly tried and convicted of a crime. But the irresponsible activist Court led by Chief Justice Warren Burger deliberately chose to ignore the intent of the Constitution’s authors and, through some incomprehensible twist of logic, reinterpreted the Fifth Amendment due process clause to justify legalizing the murder of innocent unborn persons—something the Founders would never have approved of in their wildest dreams. Roe v. Wade represented nothing less than an attack on the integrity and meaning of the Constitution of the United States by the very institution that is supposed to protect it, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Not only was Roe v. Wade an unconstitutional decision, it was also an immoral decision. In the Declaration of Independence, we the people of the United States declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights with which God the Creator has endowed all human beings. This right to life is an “unalienable” right, meaning that it cannot be taken away. To deprive an innocent human being of life is a violation of that person’s God-given unalienable right to life. It is also a violation of the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Our nation’s devout Christian Founders took these principles for granted. They could scarcely have imagined that, two hundred years later, the judicial branch of government would somehow justify allowing innocent human beings to be killed in their mothers’ wombs right here in the United States of America. They did warn, however, that the United States would not long endure without what George Washington referred to as the “indispensable supports” of religion and morality. If the people of a nation don’t believe that human rights—especially the right to life—come from God, then those rights will be perceived as coming from the state and the state will claim the authority to give or take away those rights as it sees fit. And if people don’t believe that it is wrong to deprive an innocent person of his or her right to life, then human life will not be respected.
Finally, Roe v. Wade was an immensely tragic decision. During the past forty years, some 55.5 million innocent unborn human beings—an average of 1.38 million a year—have been murdered in their mothers’ wombs through legalized abortion. That is an alarming and staggering figure. That’s more than nine times the number of innocent Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It’s also more than the fifty million people killed in World War II, the deadliest conflict in modern human history. It is difficult to comprehend the full magnitude of this tremendous loss of life or to calculate the full impact of this massacre of the unborn on our nation over the past forty years. Excluding miscarriages, accidents, disease, and other causes of death outside the womb, our country is currently missing some 55 million inhabitants; in addition, many of those aborted in the 1970s and 80s would now be married and raising children of their own, so our country is really missing around 70 million people, and our nation’s population should be around 385 million instead of the 315 million it is now. Think of how much different—and better—things would be in our country if we had all these missing people contributing to our economy and using their God-given talents to serve our nation in a variety of professions and fields. We will never know how different the United States would be in 2013 if nearly all the innocent unborn had been born and were alive today. The absence of 70 million people is an incalculable and irretrievable loss to our nation.
Unfortunately, this unimaginable abortion massacre is still in progress. Between 3,000 and 4,000 abortions continue to take place in the United States each day. Most of the women who are having these abortions are not having them because they want to, but because they feel they have no other choice. The vast majority of them are black or Hispanic single teenage mothers who live in inner cities under the poverty line and cannot afford to raise the child they have conceived. Many of them are pressured into having an abortion by friends or family members. And so, despite their misgivings and their inner awareness of the evil of abortion, they end up going through this awful experience that they will regret for the rest of their lives. Some do not realize what they are doing when they go to have an abortion, but once they have had one, they know that what they did was wrong and they deeply regret it.
There is a huge gap between the rhetoric of abortion proponents and the reality of what takes place in the abortion industry. Abortion “rights” advocates claim that a woman has “the right to choose” to terminate her pregnancy. In practice, however, as noted above, most women who have abortions do so because they perceive that no other options are available to them. For them abortion is a desperate last resort, not a free and willful choice.
Supporters of abortion talk about keeping the procedure “safe,” but there is nothing safe about it. Abortion has traumatized and damaged the health of the tens of millions of women who have gone through it. As a result of their abortions, they have suffered from breast and ovarian cancer, pregnancy complications, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, depression, anxiety, and guilt feelings, and some have even committed suicide.
Abortion advocates also deny that racism or eugenics play any role in the abortion industry. However, according to research carried out by Protecting Black Life and the Life Issues Institute, a whopping 79 percent of abortion clinics in the United States are situated in or near black and Hispanic neighborhoods. These organizations observe that Planned Parenthood is still following the eugenics philosophy of its foundress Margaret Sanger, who regarded blacks and poor Americans as “unfit” to reproduce and who dedicated her life to controlling the population of these “undesirables” through the promotion of contraception and sterilization in their neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood is now using abortion to further this eugenics agenda. For many years the rates of black and Hispanic abortions have far exceeded the rate of white abortions. According to the National Vital Statistics Report issued by the U.S. government, African-American women on average have five times the number of abortions that white women have, and Hispanic women have 2.3 times that number. In fact, abortion is the leading cause of death among African-Americans, exceeding all other causes put together. (Ironically, the political party generally favored by these minority ethnic groups—the party that claims to represent their interests—is the party that obsessively promotes the murder of the unborn.)
Back in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States and elsewhere, abortion was widely viewed as beneficial to women and to society. Today, however, after forty years of legalized abortion, the research clearly shows that the opposite is true. Without exception, abortion has been a profoundly negative experience for every single woman who has had one. The collateral damage to women and society from abortion is immense. It has left 55.5 million women deeply wounded mentally, emotionally and physically and has deprived our society of tens of millions of members. This is the legacy of Roe v. Wade, the most catastrophic Supreme Court decision in American history.
The good news is that, as the disastrous effects of abortion have become more clearly evident and widely known over time, they have helped to fuel a growing pro-life movement throughout the United States. Today this popular movement is massive and strong and includes many young people as well as women who have had abortions. More Americans now identify themselves as pro-life than at any time since Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, the number of voter-supported state restrictions on abortion continues to grow; 38 such restrictions were enacted in 2012 alone. Of the approximately 400,000 individuals who took part in the 2011 March for Life in Washington, D.C., a majority were young people born since Roe v. Wade. In addition, the “40 Days for Life” campaigns of prayer, fasting, community outreach and silent vigil in front of abortion clinics in the United States and other countries have resulted to date in 6,749 lives saved from abortion, 75 abortion workers quitting their jobs, and 25 abortion facilities closing their doors.
Furthermore, in recent years we are seeing a positive national trend toward fewer and fewer abortions. U.S. abortion rates have been steadily going down since the early 1990s and are now at their lowest levels since the early 1970s, when abortion first became legal. The number of abortion providers has also decreased substantially since the early 1980s, with fewer doctors now willing to perform abortions. Additionally, the number of operating Planned Parenthood clinics in the U.S. has declined from a peak of 938 in 1995 to 785 in 2011 and is continuing to trend downward.
Due to the gradual but steady decrease in public demand for abortions, the industry that provides them has been shrinking. However, abortion remains a big moneymaker for the doctors and institutions involved in it. According to the watchdog agency Stop Planned Parenthood (STOPP), in 2010 abortions accounted for 51.5 percent, or about $500 million, of Planned Parenthood’s total income. Planned Parenthood performed 329,445 abortions that year, so it made an average of about $1,500 per abortion. For those involved in this lucrative enterprise, the prospect of ultimately going out of business is unacceptable. To prevent this from happening, the sinking abortion industry has turned to the U.S. government and the Obama administration for a helping hand.
As a result, a significant challenge to ending legalized abortion in the United States now looms. Paradoxically, at a time when more Americans are pro-life than ever before, their federal government is controlled by a radically anti-life, anti-religious and immoral administration that is determined not only to keep abortion legal, but to increase the number of abortions. On January 20, 2012, with Congressional authorization through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a directive forcing nearly all businesses, charitable organizations and religious entities in the country to provide health insurance coverage that includes contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections to the provision of these “preventive services for women.” This insidious, coercive anti-life policy is designed to revitalize the abortion industry under the guise of health care; while performing fewer surgical abortions in clinics, Planned Parenthood can now sell abortifacient drugs by the tens of millions to American businesses, charitable organizations and religious institutions that are required by law to purchase them. We Americans must vigorously oppose this outrageous government policy. We cannot allow such an immoral and unjust law as the HHS mandate to stand. It must be repealed. We must demand that our government protect life and stop promoting the murder of the innocent unborn.
Unfortunately, while a majority of Americans describe themselves as pro-life, slightly over half of American voters chose to re-elect President Obama, the most radically pro-abortion president in American history. This is a serious, if temporary, setback for the pro-life movement at the federal level, where we can expect to make little progress toward ending legalized abortion over the next four years. President Obama is likely to appoint one or two new Supreme Court justices who will favor keeping Roe v. Wade in place. Hopefully, in 2016 American voters will have the sense to elect a pro-life president who will take vigorous action to end legalized abortion. Pro-life Americans must stand united and translate their beliefs into consistent political action if the pro-life movement is to achieve its goal of ending the legal slaughter of the innocent unborn.
What can we do—as individuals, as communities, and as a nation—to end the terrible scourge of abortion? Here are ten recommendations.
1. Reach out to women in crisis pregnancies. We must open more crisis pregnancy centers in our cities where abortion clinics are located. There should be one such center for every abortion clinic. We need more volunteers to reach out to more women in crisis pregnancies and offer them the help, counseling, support and encouragement they need to choose life for their unborn babies.
2. Stay informed and take action. Contact your elected representatives in Washington, D.C. by letter, email, phone and fax and demand that they rescind the anti-life HHS mandate immediately. When your state legislature proposes a pro-life bill, contact your representatives and urge them to support it. Conversely, when your legislature proposes a pro-abortion bill, contact your representatives and urge them to oppose it. You can sign up with various pro-life organizations and Catholic advocacy groups to receive email alerts when pro-life issues come up in your state. Also, you can write letters to the editors of your local newspapers in which you express and defend your pro-life convictions.
3. Vote pro-life. As American citizens and as Catholics, we have a duty to elect representatives to public office who will defend the right to life of the innocent unborn in their mother’s wombs.
4. March for life. Publicly demonstrate your support for unborn human life by participating in pro-life marches and rallies. These events send a clear message to our elected representatives that the American people are strongly in favor of ending legalized abortion. History shows that mounting public pressure over a long period of time is ultimately successful in achieving political change. The civil rights movement is a good example of this.
5. Join the 40 Days for Life campaigns. As noted above, these campaigns have proven effective in saving lives from abortion, causing abortion workers to quit their jobs, and leading to the closure of abortion clinics. Visit 40daysforlife.com to find out how to sign up for one of these campaigns, which are held in cities all across America several times a year.
6. Donate to pro-life organizations. The American Life League, Americans United for Life, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, and Priests for Life are just a few of the organizations that are doing excellent work in the pro-life movement. They are not-for-profit organizations that depend on donations to sustain their work.
7. Support and promote pro-life films. The battle against abortion is not only a political battle, it is also a cultural battle—a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. The cinema exerts a major influence on American culture. When a beautiful pro-life film such as Bella or October Baby comes out in theaters, we should watch it and tell other people about it.
8. Demand the de-funding of Planned Parenthood. In recent years America’s largest abortion provider has become increasingly reliant on public funds. In 2010 Planned Parenthood received a total of $487.4 million in U.S. government funding, which accounted for 46.5 percent of its revenue that year. Thus, cutting off government funding for Planned Parenthood would severely cripple the organization and lead to a dramatic decrease in the annual number of U.S. abortions. We must urge our elected representatives to de-fund Planned Parenthood.
9. Demand the reversal of Roe v. Wade. This will end legalized abortion in the United States. It may be unlikely to happen in the near future, but we must not allow ourselves to become discouraged. Justice and morality demand that the right to life of every unborn American be protected by law. This should motivate us to remain steadfastly committed to getting
Roe v. Wade reversed.
10. Pray and fast for the end of abortion. These are the most important and effective things we can do to end the killing of the unborn. The pro-life battle we are fighting is not just a political or legal or cultural battle; it is fundamentally a moral and spiritual battle of good against evil. God is on our side, so we know that we will ultimately be victorious.
Pope John Paul II once said, “The condition for the survival of America is to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.” The appalling mass murder of the unborn in our nation has gone on for too long and must be brought to an end.
Roe v. Wade must be overturned so that the unalienable, God-given right to life of every innocent unborn human being in the United States is once again protected by our Constitution and guaranteed by our laws. We must not rest until we achieve that goal.
Copyright © 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.
ENDNOTES
1.
Steven Ertelt, “79% of Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinics Target Blacks, Hispanics,” LifeNews.com, 10/16/12. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/10/16/79-of-planned-parenthood-abortion-clinics-target-blacks-hispanics/
2. Ibid.
3. National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 60, No. 7, June 20, 2012, p. 6, Figure 7. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_07.pdf
4. Ertelt, "79%".
5. “AUL’s 2013 Life List: Mapping the Momentum Toward a Pro-Life America,” Americans United for Life. http://www.aul.org/auls-life-list-2013/
6. “Youth Turnout Strong at US March for Life,” ZENIT, Jan. 25, 2011. http://www.zenit.org/article-31557?l=english
7. 40 Days for Life. http://40daysforlife.com
8. Steven Ertelt, “Planned Parenthood: 51% of Its Clinic Revenue Comes From Abortions,” LifeNews.com, 1/5/12. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/01/05/planned-parenthood-51-of-its-income-comes-from-abortions/
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
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