Among the famous figures of Wild West history was Phantly Bean, Jr.  Folks in Texas knew him by his middle name Roy, or more formally by his title, Judge Roy Bean.  Bean administered justice from his saloon, where he billed himself as the “law west of the Pecos.”  An enterprising sort, Bean expected customers doubling as jurors to buy drinks during court recesses.  Bean owned only one law book.  He used updates for kindling.  During a trial Bean became concerned that he would be lynched unless he freed a man accused of killing a Chinaman.  Bean ruled that there was a law against killing human beings but not against killing Chinamen. So much for the law.

Orderly civilization didn’t just happen overnight. The rough and tumble of the Wild West has been part of human social development since the cave man, just in different forms.   Civilizations bloomed only after people found ways to surrender the notion of might-makes-right in exchange for something better.  That “something better” became known as the law.  No civilization can last without it, for the law is the cornerstone of ordered liberty.  History still views the Code of Hammurabi, Babylonian law of the 18th century B.C., to be an important advance in the social order.

But just having law, even a whole code of laws, isn’t enough to achieve true liberty.  There must be an appropriate method of governance.  In some societies, power was placed into the hands of a single ruler.  To the Egyptians, Pharaoh governed as a god. That’s a great system for those in Pharaoh’s good graces, but kinda scary for those not.  Of course, the Egyptians were not the only people who centralized power.  The Israelites had their kings.  The Romans had their emperors. In the Middle Ages, vassals answered to lords, who answered to kings.

History has long exposed the dangers of a system based on the rule of men.  It gives a reigning ruler too much authority and discretion.  The “king can do no wrong” is untrue in the best of times.  It is enslaving in the worst.  So history celebrates the Magna Carta Libertatum, the Great Charter of Liberty, issued in 1215.  Under the Magna Carta, the English king was required to proclaim the rights of the common man, institute procedures to protect those rights, and limit has own authority to the bounds of the law.  The Magna Carta heralded the rule of law, the truth that liberty and order can only be guaranteed where men live by an authority greater than themselves.

As a country, we live by the rule of law.  Our Constitution is based on it.  It places power in the hands of separate branches of government.  Checks and balances are included to limit powers.  Congress may enact laws, but only in certain areas.  Powers not given Congress belong to the people. The President had no power to make law.  The President may veto laws, but that veto may be overridden.  Judges may interpret the Constitution and statutes but not rewrite them.  To assure their independence, federal judges receive lifetime appointments.  It’s a great system when it works.

But it has its limits, and founding father John Adams put his finger on the critical one.  “Our Constitution is made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“   Adams realized that the rule of law must be based on a moral authority greater than any person or group of like-minded persons.  It comes from God.   The Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of any system of law worth the paper on which it is printed.  Without Adams’ recognition, liberty is at great risk.  As Thomas Jefferson said: “God Who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that the liberties are a gift of God?”

Today, our rule of law is in trouble.  The trappings are there, but a sickness grows inside.  Judges appointed only to interpret law are often making the law.  They do so at the behest of presidents wanting them to advocate the president’s personal views of the law.  Because these judges have lifetime appointments in the federal system, they become little less than kings.  The rule of law returns to the rule of men.  Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia rightly calls it the “imperial judiciary.”  Judge Roy Bean rules again.

It’s all being played out in the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  She is a friend of pro-abortion President Obama, but more, she is his voting ally on the Court.  From all indications, she will strongly support the continued right to kill today’s Chinamen, the unborn.  She will do so claiming support from the Constitution, as does the President who has nominated her.  But there is none.  The Author of ordered liberty does not permit the killing of Chinamen, no matter how young.

To end legal abortion, we must elect officials who respect the rule of law and will insist on judges who do, too.  And we better do it soon.  In Thomas Jefferson’s words, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”  We should be so fearful.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics.  He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

©Paul V. Esposito 2010.  Culture of Life.  Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments?  Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

Baseball is a team game, and that means picking sides.  In our neighborhood, choosing teammates was a ritual.  The two best players would work their hands to the knob of a bat to determine who picked first.  Talent meant everything.  The system had nowhere to go but down to that last, worst kid.  Truth be told, no one wanted him.  He was sure to strike out with two out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

In third grade, we learned about a selection process tougher than ours.  In the Greek city-state Sparta, the elders inspected all the newborn children.  Those deemed unfit were taken away and left to die.  It was the mark of an uncivilized society, and none of us was unhappy to learn that Sparta fell.  Almost 3000 years after Sparta, we are returning to Sparta’s ways.  We’re more highbrow perhaps, but every bit as barbaric.

We don’t see many Down syndrome children anymore.  The disorder hasn’t been cured.  It is being eliminated another way: abortion.  About 80-90% of all Down syndrome babies are killed before birth.  Eugenics was an unspoken agenda behind Roe v. Wade.  Last summer pro-abortion Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remarked about a concern at the time of Roe over the “growth of populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”   Certainly blacks, aborted at alarmingly disproportionate rates, have felt the cruel reality of those words.  But so have the disabled, and not just those with Down syndrome.  Unborn babies with spina bifida, Tay-Sachs, and even deafness, blindness, dwarfism, cleft palates, and defective limbs are never given a chance.

With improved methods of genetic screening, the eugenics problem is getting worse.  Unborn babies considered as potential carriers of disease or disabilities are being aborted just because they might develop problems later in life.  Doctors afraid of lawsuits by parents for “wrongful birth” or by the children themselves for “wrongful life” push for abortion or leave parents uneducated about the true odds of potential problems.  Fear trumps life.  Sometimes the aborted dead show no signs of problems.

The increased availability of pre-natal screening, coupled with the financial costs of caring for the disabled, has even led to calls for a duty to die.  Women refusing to abort disabled children are accused of being selfish.  “Why should taxpayers foot the bill for a disabled child” is the reaction of others.  The calls for abortion will become louder under our new health care system.  Washington’s medical bureaucrats will encourage, maybe even mandate, pre-natal screening.  When risks are identified, the system will threaten to deny insurance coverage.  Many will succumb to the financial pressures.

Those favoring the abortion of the disabled argue that it’s all about quality of life.  Princeton professor Peter Singer once said that when the death of a disabled infant leads to the birth of a healthy infant, there is a net gain. Abortion advocate Joyce Arthur claims that the planned birth of a disabled child is “child abuse” and even that an unborn has “a right not to be born.”   Just think about that one!  But it all begs a question.  If we are God’s greatest creations, did He make a mistake in creating the disabled?

The answer: only if we can’t see beyond our own noses.  Disabled people enjoy life.  They just have conditions affecting certain physical or mental abilities, as do we all.  And they understand that true happiness does not depend on those conditions.  Contrast the joy of a Down syndrome child with the poor attitudes of healthy people so unwilling to find purpose and beauty in life.  Like the rest of us, the disabled simply want to be judged by who they are as people, not by their disabilities.

Truth be told, all that quality-of-life talk is about our quality of life, not theirs. They can’t keep up with us, and we can’t relate to them.  They weigh us down.  Joyce Arthur claims that a woman forced to care for a disabled child loses her own autonomy.  Men have the same thoughts about themselves.  We don’t want the disabled on our team.

That’s a shame because they offer us precious gifts. They give us their disabilities.  Watching the blind negotiate a sidewalk gives us perspective about our own problems. Seeing a brain damaged person struggle to learn gives us a lesson in courage and perseverance. The disabled often inspire us in many ways.  They also give us their neediness.  The disabled teach us that life is about forgetting ourselves in the service of others.  Raising a disabled child can be very difficult. It requires struggle and sacrifice.  But adversity is the very gift God uses to build our trust in His ways.  For those who do, He gives strength and every other necessity.  And He will help all of us see the wondrous people that He packaged in those not-so-perfect frames.

Agnes Marshall’s ten-year old daughter was born with most of her brain missing.  But Agnes only sees the loving way Rachel looks at her.  Agnes “wouldn’t want to change her in any way.  In fact, I’d have 10 of her.”

Just when you think God is sure to strike out, He hits a grand slam.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics.  He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

We associate cigars with men.  And power.  Cigars have been the staple of robber barons and politicians, sport bars and gentlemen’s clubs.  But cigars are not just for men anymore.  Women smoke them, and yes, it’s a power thing.   As one cigar seller claims, “just holding this power prop . . . gives women a certain sense of Freedom, Power & Moxy. . ..”  Of course, that power prop also makes them stink and causes cancer.  It goes to show that women can be exploited just as easily as men.

The desire for power comes with our humanity.  In our culture men have traditionally held the reins of power, but women are increasingly taking hold.  And that desire for power explains why as a group, women are so unwilling to end legal abortion.  They have come to believe that legal abortion is all about power, the power to control their bodies and so control their destiny.

But does legal abortion empower women?   In Kovacs/Adams’ day, Hugh Hefner was building a pornography empire on the backs of women, or more precisely, with women on their backs.  Playboy Enterprises is grounded on Hefner’s philosophy that sex should be free and easy. Hefner claims to have slept with, a.k.a., liberated thousands of women.  Hef recently ended a fling with 22-year old identical twins.  At 84, he is enjoying the power more than the sex.  Hefner helped fund Roe v. Wade and even submitted a brief to the Supreme Court.  Why would a man jump into a case about women?  For Hefner, it was a no-brainer: if sex is to be free and easy, it should not come with a child.  A playboy will gladly pay for an abortion.  The woman pays for its aftermath.

Then there is the politics of abortion.  As evidenced by the health care vote, abortion is the elephant in the closet of American politics.  Sadly, the post-Roe Democratic Party has made legal abortion its sacred elephant.  The Democrats draw power through voting blocs, and the women’s vote is a huge bloc.  So politicians, male and female, have passed around the kool-aid that a woman’s “right” to kill her child is in her best interests.  Many women drink.  It’s a case of been-down-so-long, looks-like-up-to-me-now.  While women continue to suffer, politicians tighten their grip on power to further their own agendas.   As do those who vote for them.

Does abortion empower women?  It can’t.  Abortion is a sin, and sin spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically enslaves its victims.  It strips women of dignity and self-respect for having surrendered their birthright.   That’s why the original feminists were ardent opponents of abortion.  Alice Paul, author of the first proposed equal rights amendment, said it best: “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”

Abortion doesn’t give power, but there really are power women.  They come in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, colors, and creeds, hold all sorts of outside jobs or none at all.  A common thread binds them: the willingness to say yes to God’s gift of life.  They are the mothers of the world.   Mothers have a unique role in Creation.  God, the Author of life, has made them life’s cradle.  Their birthright is to bear the next generation.  The honor comes with a price.  Mothers must often shelve other plans, sometimes even forever.  They must put themselves in last place, their needs falling well behind those of their children.  Motherhood is the polar opposite of abortion, and not just physically.  For abortion is about self.  Motherhood is about the other.

Mothers have the incredible power to shape the next generation, for they are the world’s best teachers.  It is through her mother that a child learns about God and begins to grow in faith.  A mother teaches her children about sacrifice, patience, perseverance, firmness, flexibility, decency, thrift, compassion, and forgiveness, virtues she lives every day.  Any child who has taken her first step, said her first word, overcome the smallest obstacle, or given the simplest gift has learned from her mother the meaning of unbridled joy.   A child learns from her mother how to parent.  She learns from her mother how to love.

That lifetime of giving creates a lifelong bond between mother and child.  Hurt children will run to their mothers for comfort.  Dying soldiers call to their mothers for safety.  A mother’s love is cherished, and the thought of disappointing her can be dreadful.  When we’re tempted to do wrong, we will stay on the straight-and-narrow just by remembering that our mothers might hear what we did.  That’s power.

Our Church dedicates the month of May to our Blessed Mother, the model of all mothers and the patroness of life. The poor young girl who said “yes” to God’s gift of life raised a Savior and now sits on a throne next to Him.   She didn’t seek power.  Mothers never do.   But mothers are all about power.

The power of love. 

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics.  He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2010.  Culture of Life.  Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments?  Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

To me, The Passion is a work of art. Gibson gives us far more than his spin on Jesus’ final hours. Gibson gives us the ultimate moral story, the pitched battle between Jesus and Satan over a humanity held captive by sin. There is much to be learned from The Passion, for we are locked in a battle of our own over the many held captive by abortion.

Satan’s abject hatred for all mankind oozes out of Gibson’s powerful depiction of the deaths of two sinners. The first was Judas, who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed Jesus. Satan could have rewarded Judas. After all, Judas did Satan’s bidding. Instead, Satan destroyed him. We see the guilt-ridden Judas wiping his lips, the lips that betrayed with a kiss, on a stone wall until they were raw. Satan’s minions, disguised as children, haunted and chased Judas. They drove him to the sight of death, a rotting donkey still tied to a rope. They drove him to a sense of shame that, for Judas, only a rope could relieve. The other sinner was Gestas, the bad thief. Whatever his crime, it had to be horrible to warrant a death sentence. And with only minutes left to his life, Gestas spent them mocking the suffering Savior. Satan could not have asked for more. The reward? Appearing as a raven, Satan perched on Gestas’ cross and poked one of his eyes.

But two other sinners did not meet the same fate. One was Dismas, the good thief. His crime was probably no less serious than that of Gestas. Yet Jesus promised that Dismas would be with Him in Paradise that very day. The other sinner was Mary Magdalene. Gibson portrays Mary as the adulteress whom Jesus saved from stoning. There’s probably no Biblical support for that casting, but Bible scholars do believe that Mary was the woman from St. Luke’s Gospel haunted by seven demons. And they believe that she was the one who anointed Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair. She remained with Jesus, all the way to Calvary, all the way to the end. Unharmed.

What accounts for the difference? Dismas and Mary came to understand that they were sinners and that Jesus could set them free, really free. They sought His mercy, and Jesus gave it. Judas and Gestas, stuck in their pride and shame and unable to seek forgiveness, became stuck in their sin. And in sin they died.

We have been locked in the battle against Satan since Adam and Eve lost the Garden. But perhaps the battle has never been as dirty and ugly as it is today. Satan has used human desires and fears to turn mothers and fathers against their own children. In our country the death toll of the unborn is 52 million and rising. That means millions of parents are being held captive by the sin of abortion. Like Judas and Gestas, many have been chewed up and spit out. They live in grief and shame and regret they cannot shake. Abortion has left them spiritually, emotionally, and physically wrecked.

All too often, we do not help. Our pro-choice culture refuses to recognize abortion for what it is, a sin, which makes it difficult to find forgiveness. Women particularly become locked in a battle over whether to condemn their own actions or defend them. It’s just where Satan wants them-all the better to mess with their heads. For some women, abortion has become a way of life. Each year 100,000 women have their fourth abortion. Imagine the demons that will haunt them. Abortion mills are more than willing to kill babies for profit, but how many provide post-abortion counseling or even believe in the need for it? Even within some parishes, abortion is an unspoken word. Our silence prevents suffering people from hearing a call to healing.

Yet all is not lost so long as we remember that our Church is centered on Christ crucified. He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins. If we really believe that, we come to realize that The Passion wasn’t bloody enough. He willingly carried our sins, and that includes abortion. It was His gift of true love.

Along the Way of the Cross, Jesus met his mother. What He said to her remains a secret for now, but Gibson suggests the words: I am making all things new. Christ’s death destroyed Satan’s stranglehold over us. By Him was the chastisement that makes us whole; by His stripes we were healed. Our job is to continue the battle that others held captive may be freed. Quite likely, we all know someone who has been wounded by abortion. That person may be close to you. That person may be you. There is help and healing. The sacrament of Penance provides forgiveness for all, even for those who think they cannot be forgiven. Support groups like Rachel’s Vineyard have helped thousands of women and men of all faiths find the healing they so desperately need. Through the power of the Cross, the wounded experience God’s mercy.

The Passion does not end with the Crucifixion. We see the risen Christ, His hands marked but His body healed, walk out of the tomb victorious. All things new. With our prayers and help, may those wounded by abortion come to know His healing.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2010. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

Our family vacation last year brought us to Jackson, Wyoming, nestled at the foot of the Tetons. Ranked among the nation’s best vacation spots, Jackson has something for everyone: beautiful scenery, outdoor activities galore, a Wild West themed downtown complete with saloon and nightly gun fight, stores selling everything from trinkets to art worth thousands. Perhaps that’s what made Turning Point so surprising to see. Just off the main street of that vacation-happy town was this crisis pregnancy center.

Places like Turning Point have become increasingly prevalent. Recent estimates put the number at over 2200 nationwide. They exist because the need is so great; many people have come to that life-changing bend in the road. It isn’t just the crisis of an unplanned pregnancy. It is the beatings they receive from a culture more than willing to take their babies, their dignity, relationships, even their lives.

We know nothing about the victim in Jesus’ parable. We do know about his route. The road to Jericho was notoriously dangerous. Maybe that’s why the priest and Levite were unwilling to stop. Or maybe they made judgments about the type of person who would that road. Those ministering in crisis pregnancy centers put such judgments behind them. They work with young and old, rich and poor, women and men. They tend to the needy of any faith or no faith. It doesn’t matter that the girl is white and the boy black, or that she’s only thirteen, or that she’s 40 and on her third unwed pregnancy, or even that she’s already had the abortion. They see the wounds and understand the need to act quickly before they become worse.

Those coming to the centers may be afraid, angry, confused, doubtful, even depressed. Some do not know whether they are pregnant. Others come feeling that abortion is the only way out. All find themselves at a turning point. Whatever the circumstances, trained caregivers provide the facts. They offer free pregnancy testing. They give women the chance to tell their stories, perhaps for the first time. Using videos, models of developing babies, and even ultrasound, caregivers educate women about developing new life. They offer the testimonies of others women who have been there, done that. The centers assist women in obtaining insurance, financial assistance, clothing, and shelter. They make referrals to supportive medical providers. They explain adoption alternatives. They counsel women on the risks of abortion. The centers seek to reach women at their spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional levels. Through Godly and compassionate care, caregivers help women make life-affirming choices. They give them reason to hope.

Some accuse centers of being more interested pro-life ideology than in women. They claim that once the babies are born, centers drop women like hot potatoes. But crisis caregivers understand that a risk to a baby is a risk to a mother. Physically, abortion may lead to serious injury, inability to carry other babies to term, even death. Emotionally, abortion often scars women far worse than any abortionist’s tools. In the hearts of caregivers, both baby and mother are sacred. And caregivers help women (and men) long after birth, even long after an abortion. True, a pregnancy center does not care for the woman and child for the rest of their lives, but then, neither did the Samaritan provide lifetime care for that Jericho Road victim. Even still, Jesus made that Samaritan the textbook example of a neighbor. It is enough that crisis caregivers help those needy they pass on the road of life, and then hand them off to others to do the same.

Crisis pregnancy centers work, and work well, which is why pro-abortion forces can’t stand them. To the culture of death, the crisis isn’t another pregnancy. The crisis is another baby. Pregnancy centers are competing to save lives that organizations like Planned Parenthood are trying to end. So abortion supporters are working to close the centers. They promote laws requiring centers to advise women about abortion alternatives. That’s like requiring a cop to tell a person threatening murder where he can buy a gun. And it’s terribly ironic given that groups like Planned Parenthood have routinely opposed informed consent and parental notice laws and have regularly tried to stop centers from showing ultrasound images to expectant women.

Why the opposition? Here’s a big reason: an abortion costs between $200 and $2000. One conservative estimate is that in 2005 alone, Planned Parenthood collected about $98.5 million from abortions. And, of course, the abortion industry has a friend in the Obama Administration. The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget gives Planned Parenthood $327,356,000 ⎯ a $10 million increase. Crisis pregnancy centers will get nothing. After all, they promote life, and for free.

But the lack of federal funding won’t stop them. Crisis caregivers will continue to compete for the lives of mother and baby. Good Samaritans always find ways to help, whatever the need. Wherever the road may turn.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2010. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

Every so often Fr. Tom mentioned his friend Irv. Although the two shared a friendship, they did not share a faith. Irv was a committed non-believer, a devoted atheist. “When they plant you, Tommy Baby, it’s all over,” was Irv’s response to things religious. With that comment, Fr. Tom would lean thisclose to the microphone, and with a twinkle in his eyes and smile on his face softly say, “Won’t he be surprised!”

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, then-Senator Barack Obama touched on things religious. He said that in our pluralistic democracy, religious-minded people must translate their beliefs into universal values. “If I want others to listen to me [on abortion], then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” Apparently, now-President Obama sees abortion as a religious issue only, one driven by the religious right. As his policies demonstrate, he has been unable, maybe even unwilling, to find the connection to the universal. But it’s there.

Just ask the Irvs of the world. Many atheists and agnostics firmly hold to the pro-life belief that human life has inherent dignity from the moment of conception. They are willing to see what science now allows us all to see. Medical technology has given us breathtaking views of the developing human baby. It puts to rest the error of calling a developing baby just a mass of cells or a blob of tissue. Frankly, if that description fits them, it fits us, too.

But many atheists and agnostics see beyond the science. They hold that there is inherent value to human life. For them, killing a human at any stage is immoral. Yes, immoral. Atheists and agnostics live under a moral code. They believe in the natural law written on every human heart since the beginning of time. They just don’t believe that it comes from God (won’t they be surprised!). Regardless, they remind us of something very important. Abortion isn’t wrong because the Church says so. Abortion was wrong long before the Church existed, even long before God gave Moses the Commandments. It is wrong because it violates the universally held right to life.

Unfortunately, some in our Church have lost their way on the issue of abortion. Frances Kissling, head of the abortion rights group Catholics for a Free Choice, claims that the moral status of the unborn is linked to the infusion of a soul. Based on musings of Sts. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine that infusion happens after conception, she claims that Catholics may form their own moral views on abortion. Notre Dame theology professor Rev. Richard McBrien writes that an unborn’s rights strengthen as pregnancy advances. According to McBrien, that’s why the Church so strongly opposes partial birth abortion. He claims that in considering the morality of abortion, valid distinctions exist between a fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, fetus, and a baby.

Both are wrong. The Church’s view on abortion is not based on the infusion of a soul. In its 1974 declaration, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that the differing historical opinions on the subject “did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that since the first century the Church has affirmed the evil of abortion: “This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.” (No. 2271). And there is no basis for a sliding scale of protection based on an unborn’s physical development. “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.” (No. 2270).

Of course, all of that is Church-talk, apparently unconvincing to the President and others. But even atheists and agnostics would fully agree with it. The reason is simple: when we put conditions on the value of life, then we create opportunities to devalue life. Think that it won’t happen? It already has. Years ago, Dred Scott wanted freedom. That doesn’t seem like asking for so much. But our own Supreme Court disagreed. Scott had these conditions: he was black, and a slave to boot. That made him no more than property controlled by his master’s wishes, not his own. More recently there was a group of people bearing names like Horowitz and Goldstein. They, too, suffered from a condition. Adolph Hitler and his followers couldn’t see their inherent value, and they devised a plan to solve that problem. We know what happened.

And, of course, the devaluation of life is happening today. No soul? No value. Too young? Too bad! And so far, over 52 million have been killed in our country alone. They had this condition, you see. They weren’t like us; they were unborn. It won’t stop there. As we race to ration medical care, more value judgments will be made. Babies born with defects will be denied care ⎯ too expensive. The elderly will meet the same fate. Their value is behind them. Think it won’t happen? Just watch.

Whether black, Jew, old, young, even unborn, we all have something in common. Life. That is the universal value, the universal truth. It starts at conception, and it is worth protecting to the max. How can anyone be surprised about that?

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2010. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

And John Buford. A cavalry scout, Buford stood atop a ridge from where he saw thousands of Confederate soldiers headed towards Gettysburg. He knew that thousands more would be close behind. With his unit greatly outnumbered, Buford could have fled. Instead he and his men held the ridge, Buford himself wounded, until reinforcements arrived. He changed the course of the battle. Quite likely, our country survived because Buford understood the value of high ground.

There is a term that’s rarely used anymore to describe the Church on earth: Church Militant. It sounds of war, of the need to be constantly prepared for battle against an enemy. That’s precisely what it’s all about. We the living are the Church Militant, called to battle Satan, the prince of evil and greatest enemy of our Church, for the hearts and souls of all. We don’t hear much of him anymore either. In our desire for peace at all costs, we have dropped our guard. And Satan has advanced on all sides. He, too, understands the value of high ground.

Within days we will mark the 39th anniversary of legalized abortion. This year we will mourn the 50 millionth intentionally killed unborn baby. These were babies sent by God Himself, killed before ever seeing the light of day. It has happen on our watch, the watch of a divinely instituted Church called to be militant. If we are to stop the slaughter, we had better be honest enough to admit our problem.

At every level of our Church in the U.S., we have lost our nerve. Sad to say, our bishops’ leadership has been weak and inconsistent. They are occasionally heard but rarely seen in the fight. A shepherd is called to stand in front of the flock. Through messages like Faithful Citizenship, they have offered a confusing smorgasbord of views that have allowed Catholics to vote in ways that are not faithful. The bishops have been getting stronger of late, but many souls and much ground has been lost.

By no means is our problem limited to them. Theologians wax about the difference between a fetus and a person, as if either term means a hill of beans to God. Catholic institutions of higher education have surrendered their Catholic identity. Notre Dame invited the most pro-abortion president in history to be honored on campus. It arrested Catholics who set foot on campus to protest. Want to feel heartsick? Watch the arrest at Notre Dame of an 80-year old priest carrying a cross.

We ourselves can be weak where the unborn are concerned. Clergy and laity alike refer to the fighters for the unborn as “anti-abortionists,” not pro-lifers. It’s ironic given that the pro-life movement grew out of the defense of the unborn. It’s misguided given that abortion supporters coined the “anti” term to negatively spin the defense of unborn life. In one parish, a pastor recently announced the creation of a respect-life committee. Not wanting to overemphasize the “issue” of abortion, he listed poverty, injustice, war, capital punishment, racism, sexism, inclusiveness, immigration, violence, and human dignity as others. Abortion didn’t make the cut. But the unborn are not an “issue.” They are God’s greatest creations. And their lives touch every issue he listed.

Particularly in the last election cycle, we have heard Catholics say that we should accept the legality of abortion and just work to change hearts to prevent further abortions. Would any of us have told black slaves that we wouldn’t work to free them but would try to encourage others not to buy slaves? But then, none of us has ever listened to an unborn baby beg for life. When racial segregation was legal, many Catholics worked the political fields to stop it. But today many Catholics reject that approach as to abortion.

Why do we think and act as we do when it comes to abortion? Why do we say that we are personally opposed to abortion, “but”? It’s because if we really allowed ourselves to feel the plight of the unborn, we would feel compelled to act on their behalf. And that requires personal risk and sacrifice, things we are often afraid to do. Yet the Christ Who came to rescue us from the same Satan we are now fighting was all about risk and sacrifice. The peace He came to bring could only come through conflict. In the fight against evil there was no other way. Nor is there another way for us. A soldier cannot retake lost ground without exposing himself to great personal risk. So when we pray for an end to abortion, do we pray for our own courage to fight it?

After listening to renowned preacher Dr. Phineas Gurley, Abraham Lincoln said that his sermon lacked the most important part: a call to greatness. That is our call. We are called to become Christ-like in defense of the unborn. That doesn’t mean we just try to get along, confusing our sense of peace with His. It means that we sacrifice ourselves for them. We stand up and speak up. And in this election year, it means we vote for the unborn. For some, breaking ranks with their voting history is plenty risky and comes at great personal sacrifice. But our defense of the unborn demands nothing less.

We, the Church Militant, stand on the high ground. We are called to greatness: to end legal abortion. We have the power. One question remains. Do we have the nerve?

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they are raising their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2010. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

If good things come in small packages, best things don’t come in packages at all. In Charles Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge learned that lesson the hard way.  It was the best of his life.  It could be of ours, too.

Scrooge was a wealthy man, a wealth he and deceased partner Jacob Marley amassed by draining every last shilling from poor folk forced to beg for loans.  Scrooge was as cold as stone.  A snowflake wouldn’t melt on his tongue. But more than cold, he was bitter.  Scrooge preferred that the poor just die and reduce the surplus population. Giving clerk Bob Cratchit a day off for Christmas was like having his pocket picked. For Scrooge, Christmas was a lot of humbug.  Bah, humbug!

At least it was until a very unsettling Christmas Eve visit from none other than Marley’s ghost.  Covered with chains and the baggage of his life, Marley’s ghost was condemned to a tormented walk of eternal remorse.  It warned Scrooge that his fate would be the same unless he changed.  And that would require visits from perhaps the three most famous spirits in all literature.

God’s gift of memory is a most bittersweet gift.  For Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Past was just that.  Scrooge felt the joy of recounting familiar times, people, and places.  He sobbed to remember times of neglect and mistreatment.  But most difficult of all for Scrooge was reliving a love lost, a love grown cold because Scrooge had created a false god for himself.  He could not bear the thought of his foolishness.

Next came the Ghost of Christmas Present, a short-lived spirit who showed Scrooge the delicious sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas.  Scrooge witnessed in everyday people a richness he had never possessed.  Even sickly and crippled Tiny Tim Cratchit found reason to ask God’s blessings on all.  But the Ghost was not all sweetness and light.  At the end of its time, the Ghost revealed two children to Scrooge.  Their appearance was hideous.  “They are Man’s,” the Ghost said, and they foretold doom unless things changed.  Scared as he was, Scrooge knew that he had to see more.
A faceless hooded Phantom, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, showed him.  Scrooge saw in his future a legacy of disgrace and an eternity of regret.  But in his horror, Scrooge asked the right question: what if he changed his ways?  And in Dickens’ delightful ending, he gives us the answer.

A Christmas Carol is a beloved Christmas story.  But first, it is an Advent story.  Scrooge was given the best gift of his life: a one-night Advent.  It was Scrooge’s chance to honestly see his life and to change.  It is the same gift given to us every year as we hear St. John the Baptist, the voice in the desert, heralding our need to change.  If we are to succeed we, too, must enter the stories of our lives.

Looking back, we can see our wrong turn.  Like Scrooge, we created a false idol, the god of self.  Whether about fame, money, power or whatever, life became a whole lot about self-fulfillment, self-promotion, and self-absorption.  In 1973, we even legalized the killing of the unborn as a cultural sacrifice to our false god.

It is a mistake that haunts us to this day.  Dickens reminds us that the joy of Christmas is for everyone.  So is the joy of life.  In God’s Creation, there are no unwanted children.  But Dickens also reminded us of a grave social illness.  Those two children whom the Christmas Spirit revealed to Scrooge were not just poor.  Dickens described them as looking like monsters “pulled into shreds.”  For the readers of Dickens’ day, that description was figurative.  For us, it is literal.  Almost 50 million unborn have been shredded.  Discarded body parts are often sold for profit, even used in cosmetics.  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said that abortion has deformed our nation.  With all his skills, Dickens could not have said it better.

Where are we headed?  We just need to fast-forward our lives and imagine how God will view our ungodliness.  Can we look at what we have done to the unborn and not know what will happen?   Can we pretend that we will stand before God and somehow explain it all away?  Can we feel the weight of Marley’s chains?  We must never forget that our God is a God of justice.

Yet there is good news, too.  Long ago, two people filled with self took a sinful turn.  We’ve been doing the same thing ever since.  But an incredibly loving God gave them, and us, a second chance.  It was a chance proclaimed in the wilderness by St. John, a chance born to us as a child.  A Child Who will return in glory and judgment.

With his second chance, Scrooge changed his life and saved his soul.  With our chance, may we as Church and culture do likewise.  Blessed Advent, Merry Christmas!  God bless us every one!

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics.  He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they are raising their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2009.  Culture of Life.  Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted.  Comments?  Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

Then there’s the ostrich, the largest and heaviest living bird. For whatever reason, God didn’t want it to fly. He sure did want it to run. Able to cover sixteen feet in a single stride, an ostrich can cruise at 31 mph and hit speeds of 43 mph. If cornered, the ostrich is one tough old bird. It has a four-inch claw on each foot and can kick a lion to death. But one bit of ostrich fact is not fact at all: an ostrich does not bury its head in the sand. Too bad we can’t say the same about ourselves.

The human body is perhaps God’s greatest work of art, an amazing combination of bones, muscles, joints, tissues, organs, nerves, vessels, and fluids all functioning as one. With proper diet, exercise, and balanced work and rest, our bodies can run for decades. But abuse our bodies and we get into trouble. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

Of course, even if we keep ourselves in the best shape, we’re all subject to disease. And for years, the disease taking center stage has been breast cancer. There’s a good reason for it. Breast cancer is the greatest cancer killer among women between ages 20 and 59. In 2005, approximately 186,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer; over 41,000 women died from it. The incidence of breast cancer increases dramatically as women age. Before age 30, one in every 2,525 women is diagnosed with it. By age 45, it’s one in every 94 women.

Over the last 30+ years, there has been about a 40% rise in the incidence of breast cancer here. For the last 36 years, abortion has been readily available. Other countries have also reported significant increases following the legalization of abortion. Coincidence? Scientists have been researching a possible link between abortion and breast cancer. A 1957 study found that women having abortions were nearly three times more likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not.

The medical studies have identified two risk factors. The first is known as the “independent risk.” A woman’s breasts enlarge during pregnancy. Her hormones estrogen and progesterone increase the number of her lobules (a duct and milk glands). As lobules develop, she is at increased risk of breast cancer. But as her pregnancy moves to full term, her baby’s hormones help mature her breasts into cancer-resistant tissue. By full term, 85% of her breast tissue is cancer resistant. Abortion interrupts this process, leaving more places for cancer to start. An early miscarriage does not create the same risk because a woman’s hormone levels are usually too low. And because abortion often causes premature delivery in later pregnancies, the woman remains at increased risk.

A second risk factor flows from the delay in childbearing. It is universally recognized that a married woman decreases her risk of breast cancer by not postponing her first full-term pregnancy. One study reports a 3.5% increase in risk for each year of delay. The ready availability of abortion causes women to delay pregnancy until later years, a decision that increases the risk of breast cancer.

How solid is the science? About 70 studies have been conducted on the link between breast cancer and abortion. Approximately 80% of them have reported that abortion is a risk factor for breast cancer. Just this year, a U.S.-Turkish hospital study reported a 66% increased risk of breast cancer among Turkish women who had abortions. Natural miscarriage did not increase the risk.

Unfortunately, the strong evidence of an abortion-breast cancer link is not being shared with women. Back in 1994, renowned researcher Dr. Janet Daling found a 50% increased risk caused by abortion. Her work was criticized even after she told the world that she was pro-choice. In 2003, the National Cancer Institute declared that there was no link at all. Groups like Planned Parenthood and Susan G. Komen for the Cure deny any link. President Obama recently authorized millions of taxpayer dollars to kill human embryos but so far has not authorized a penny to research the link. Why the silence?

It’s because big-abortion has placed ideology, political power, and profit ahead of women’s health. Immorality aside, abortion is an act against nature, an act of war on a woman’s body. Ironically, a medical procedure that treats an unborn baby as a cancer increases the risk of that mother’s cancer. Yet for 30+ years abortion rights advocates and politicians have wrongly sold women on the “safety” of abortion. For the sake of their own interests, they remain quiet. For the sake of the women, we must speak.

On the sixth day God also made us, His greatest creations. And though we’re a whole lot different from the ostrich, we do share one thing in common. We were not created to stick our heads in the sand either.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2009. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

Snakes are among the most feared of all creatures. Their reputation was earned in Biblical times. There was that snake in the Garden, the one that deceived Adam and Eve. During the Exodus, snakes killed many who complained about God’s ways. Jesus was well aware of the dangers of the snakes, once calling the Pharisees “vipers.” And making a point about prayer, he asked a question about what father would give his child a snake if he asked for a fish. It’s a great question, one that we must ask ourselves as we try to protect our kids from the snake pit of our abortion culture.

God could have populated our planet in many different ways. We could have blossomed out of flowers or sprung forth from particles of angel dust. And we could have been reared much differently. He could have brought us to full wisdom and maturity without anyone’s help, or arranged for us to be raised by wolves. But His love was so great that He made men and women in His own image and likeness and provided that we would be born and raised through them. In a real sense, we are the products of God’s love passed through the generations.

We raise children as our own, but the truth is that they are not ours to keep. They are God’s children, loaned to us to help prepare them for roles that God has assigned before the beginning of time. It is our responsibility to raise our kids as God wants. If we’re to succeed, we must constantly take stock of how we’re doing. By some measures, we’re doing well. Our children are the best fed, clothed, housed, and educated children ever. They have been provided opportunities galore. But no one can study our culture without knowing that something has gone dreadfully wrong.

So, it’s back to Jesus’ question: what do our young want and need? They want acceptance and recognition from friends. They want the rights of adulthood now, for they feel they are ready. They want adventure, for see themselves as invincible. But they also want security, for the future can be awfully scary looking. Tragically, they seek to meet their wants in a sex-drenched, sex-driven culture. It’s a culture that we have built and maintained. The result was inevitable: an epidemic of teenage pregnancies.

Our culture has often responded to the problem by handing out contraceptives. Schools make them available to eleven year olds without parental consent. Teens are given Plan B morning-after pills, often without parental knowledge. The result is more, not less, sex. Why, because it sends a wrong message that sex without consequence is possible. That allows boys to put tremendous pressure on girls to have sex. Teens think they are invincible, and how much more so with contraceptives. But contraceptives have huge failure rates. One study suggests that the morning-after pill (which itself can be an abortifacient) fails more than 25% of the time. Russian roulette gives better odds.

And although our culture claims that women have control over their own bodies, teens are often pressured into the quick-fix of abortion. Studies in Britain, Scotland, and Sweden reveal that abortions have risen significantly despite the ready availability of Plan B drugs. Scotland reports a 21% increase in abortions among fourteen year olds from 2006-07. Washington State reports a 16% increase in abortions during that same period despite the giving of free contraceptives to low-income women.

The Obama administration is making matters worse. It recently refused to appeal a federal district court ruling making Plan B pills available without prescription to seventeen year olds. And in the current health care package, federal money will be used to provide school-based health care clinics run by private ventures, including Planned Parenthood. Talk about handing a child a snake! In three states, Planned Parenthood has been accused of covering up allegations of statutory rape so that under-age teens could get abortions without parental consent. You can imagine the pressure kids will feel.

How does the snake bite of abortion leave our kids? Log onto Silent No More and read the testimonies of women pressured into teen abortions. Mary has been married three times but cannot make love because of the distress from her abortion 31 years earlier. Melissa wanted to commit suicide. Emmanuella had two late-term abortions as a teen and has now suffered nine miscarriages. Have you ever heard of any abortion provider offering post-abortion grief counseling? Didn’t think so.

Recently, a California school board authorized students to leave school for medical reasons, including abortion, without parental knowledge. Following an avalanche of protests, the board reversed course. Our kids need our constant love, guidance, and protection if they are going to faithfully answer God’s call.

They don’t need to be thrown head first into a snake pit.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2009. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Visit us at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

The search for common ground, for true harmony among people, is noble indeed. “Blessed are the peacemakers” are the very words of Jesus. But the search for common ground often fails. Real peace can be most elusive. In 1820, our country was struggling with the possible expansion of slavery. Missouri statehood was at issue. Would it be a slave or a free state? A compromise was reached. Missouri would be a slave state, but a line was drawn to separate future slave and free areas. Some saw it as common ground over slavery; Thomas Jefferson saw it as the “knell of the Union.” The compromise held for about 30 years; another compromise was needed. Eleven years later, our country nearly tore itself apart. And only 70 years ago, a France and England desperate to avoid European war made a deal with someone claiming that he, too, wanted peace. They surrendered Czechoslovakia to Hitler. England’s Neville Chamberlain declared “peace in our time.” One year later, all hell broke loose.

Why did these efforts at common ground fail? They failed because not all parties were seeking the objective moral good. Legal slavery and Hitler’s maniacal quest for racial superiority were moral evils seeking to expand into new areas. Evil treats common ground as feeding ground. Good must resist the evil or be devoured by it. Compromise becomes unacceptable, even in the name of common ground. Or put another way, how many black slaves would be acceptable for harmony sake? How many dead Jews and Christians were tolerable to achieve “peace in our time”?

Our country is now debating the issue of nationalized health case. The debate is growing louder by the minute, understandable given what’s at stake. A major bone of contention is the hot-button issue of taxpayer financed abortion coverage. Those pushing the Obama plan are trying their best to keep quiet about the coverage. They know it can sink the whole plan. Two in Congress have now proposed a bill claimed to create common ground. The Ryan-DeLauro bill, H.B. 1312, would provide support for contraception, establish a national program to teach parents how to talk to kids abut sex, provide public education about adoption, home nurse visits for low-income mothers, and expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage. But is it common ground?

Catholics may support measures designed to reduce abortion. In his encyclical Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II recognized that abortion will not likely be ended in one fell swoop. The process will be gradual. So Catholics may support compromise legislation designed to further reduce abortion. The problem with Ryan-DeLauro is that it does no such thing. It would require that the state medical assistance programs mandate “family planning” services. Federal courts nationwide have ruled that “family planning” services must include abortion unless a law contains a specific exclusion of it. The Ryan-DeLauro bill doesn’t. This means that taxpayer money will be used to fund abortions, and unwilling doctors and nurses will be forced to provide them. The Democrats for Life are so disgusted with Ryan, the so-called pro-lifer in this compromise, that they have dumped him from their national advisory board.

The desire for health care reform is strong among members of the Church in the U.S., from cardinals on down. And certainly, a case can be made for it. But everything has its price. Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world with all their power and glory. All Jesus needed to do was give Satan homage. Jesus’ answer was firm: no deal. He understood that when desire comes with a price tag of doing evil, the desire is actually a temptation. And this applies to the Ryan-DeLauro bill. Or put another way, how many dead babies, how many guilt-ridden mothers, how many shattered families, are acceptable common ground for health care reform?

As Church we must resist the temptation to support any health care reform that includes abortion coverage. As Christians our response must be loud and get louder. Each of us must tell our congressmen to oppose “common ground” measures that require abortion coverage. That is an expansion, not a contraction, of evil. If the final bill includes abortion coverage, tell them to oppose that, too. Tell President Obama about your opposition. Finally, tell them all what they are most afraid to hear: if the health care bill passes with abortion in it, you will actively work against their re-election. We need not worry that health care reform will elude us. God’s generosity is overflowing to those who are faithful. A better plan will come.

Another Congressman recently made the news. Anh Cao, a Vietnamese Catholic, plans to oppose any bill that includes abortion coverage. As Cao says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? The very words of Jesus. Cao understands the difference between common ground and a devil’s bargain.

Do we?

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2009. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Comments? Go to http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/

We had a wonderful neighborhood. Everyone got along. Oh, there’d be those occasional scraps and scrapes; boys will be boys. But we made up quickly. We weren’t what you’d call chivalrous, but we did live by an unwritten rule. No one, but no one, put a hand on a girl. Only bullies did that, and we weren’t bullies.

For some, the sexual revolution of the 60’s marked the start of a new era of women’s rights. Women’s bodies were to be their own. Legal abortion, the crown jewel of the movement, would make it so. No longer would unplanned pregnancies shackle women to marriage or motherhood. Legal abortion would give women full “reproductive rights,” allowing them to control their own destinies.

Or so they said. In actual fact, legal abortion has made many women the victims of coercion, brutality, and even murder. Consider these few examples:

• In Maine, parents kidnapped their 19-year old at gunpoint and drove her to New York for an abortion;
• A Pennsylvania man spiked his girlfriend’s soft drink with a drug causing miscarriages in cows;
• A New York physician forced his girlfriend to the ground and stabbed her with a drug-filled syringe. “I’m giving you an abortion!”
• A Kentucky man was charged with chasing his wife into a barn where he put his hand into her womb and detached the baby from the uterus.
• An Arkansas man was charged with hiring hit men to kill his girlfriend’s unborn baby. “Your baby is dying tonight” was their response to the woman’s pleas;
• After his girlfriend refused an abortion, a man killed her and her daughter with a pipe bomb.

A leading cause of death in pregnant women is homicide. Where violence is not involved, coercion often is. A husband explodes, “Have an abortion or I’ll leave you.” A nurse snaps, “This is not the time for questions.” A physician performing a coerced abortion shouts at his patient, “Shut up and quit that yelling!” Reports abound of women being bullied into unwanted abortions.

So in an era of “reproductive rights” and “choice,” why are coerced and forced abortion prevalent? For one, our culture of death rejects the truth that life is sacred. A growing baby is a mere “product of conception,” a “mass of tissue,” a zygote, embryo, or fetus. We lose sight of a baby as a gift of God, a living sign of His continuing love for us. And when we cheapen life, we cheapen the women carry it. A woman’s womb no longer is a sacred space where God performs His greatest miracle. It has become a Petri dish to be scraped, a box of junk to be dumped.

What’s more, the very notion of “choice” has been turned against women. For if a baby is nothing more than a woman’s “choice”, then what about the rights of choice of others? Husbands, boyfriends, parents, even school counselors and social workers who either had a part in pregnancies or must deal with their aftermath want their choices. They can be strong enough, and mean enough, to get it.

Why does it all end so violently for many women? It’s because abortion is an act of violence, not an act of choice. The goal is certain death. Babies are ripped apart limb by limb, their skins scalded, their brains literally sucked from their heads. No weapon goes unused in the effort to kill the baby. So if a woman’s life gets in the way, it’s just too bad for her. Tragically, that’s often the case.

And the problem of forced abortion is going from bad to worse. The Obama administration has reversed the longstanding Mexico City policy, which barred the use of U.S. tax dollars to fund organizations promoting abortion. Congress has authorized $50 million for the U.N. Family Planning Fund, an organization that has helped Chinese officials implement a coercive one-child family planning policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told Congress that the administration considers access to abortion to be an important part of family planning and women’s reproductive health. It all means that your tax dollars will be hard at work exposing women throughout the world to coercion and violence, all in the name of “free choice.” Abortion is becoming one of our leading exports.

God calls us to be one big family living together in one big neighborhood. But there’s a real menace out there. It’s abortion, and it’s no kid’s game. We are allowing it to victimize the unborn and women alike. If we truly define ourselves by how we treat the weakest around us, we better realize something before it’s too late.

We are becoming a nation of bullies.

Paul V. Esposito is a Catholic lawyer who writes on a variety of pro-life topics. He and his wife Kathy live in Elmhurst, Illinois, where they raise their six kids.

© Paul V. Esposito 2009. Culture of Life. Permission to copy and distribute for pro-life purposes is granted. Visit us on the web at http://www.the-culture-of-life.com/