Pastor’s Page
By Fr. George Welzbacher May 6, 2007
In a recent ruling (April 17) the U. S. Supreme Court found (5 to 4) that the federal law that was passed in 2003 with bipartisan support to criminalize partial-birth abortion is in no way at odds with the Constitution. The ruling has evoked a storm of rage and derision from the media’s grand high panjandrums and from politicians waxing wroth at even the slightest limitation of a woman’s right to kill. Senator Barack Obama lost no time at all in voicing his disapproval: "I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women." Safeguarding the health of the child, however, seems to be of precious little concern. Following much the same script, Hillary Rodham Clinton scored the ruling as "a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman’s right to choose and recognized the importance of women’s health." Same pronouncement, same comment. Pro-abortion cartoonists had a field day. To cite a local example, on the editorial page of the Star Tribune a cartoon from the hand of syndicated satirist Tony Auth mocked the Catholic faith of the five distinguished jurists who formed the majority for this ruling. The cartoon’s appearance in the Star Tribune prompted me to send the Star Tribune a letter of my own, which, to its credit, the paper printed the following day. May I reprint the letter here as germane to the issue at hand.
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Partial-Birth Abortion – A Hideous Procedure April 25, 2007
Anyone who gives even a moment’s thought to what takes place during the "procedure" described quite accurately as partial-birth abortion-namely the extraction of almost the entire body of the infant from the birth canal, leaving only the baby’s head still inside, at which point the baby’s head is stabbed with a sharp instrument to allow the insertion of a tube through which the baby’s brain can then be sucked out-and can applaud it as a victory for human rights is as monstrous as the procedure itself.
In Tony Auth’s viciously anti-Catholic editorial page cartoon (Star Tribune, April 21), the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who declared the federal ban on this procedure to be consonant with the Constitution are depicted as stupidly grinning, mitre-capped minions of the Roman Catholic faith.
In fact it is those five justices who are the authentic humanists-the defenders of a helpless baby’s human rights.
The Rev. George Welzbacher
Thank You Father Welzbacher, for your Pro-Life courage against those who want to destroy the unborn! You have given us a good example of what we must do, write and call to voice our Pro-Life opinion!
