By Judie Brown
As Americans devoted to defending the innocent continue to reel from the election results, there are a few things that bear consideration as we move forward. The first is that the course we set must not be based on despair or fear, but rather on hope and confidence. Though it may sound trite, given the sheer magnitude of what Obama might accomplish, it is nonetheless true that nobody beats God, and that should be our rallying point.
The second point is that the pro-life movement must get back to the basic reason why there is a pro-life movement, and that is quite simply that we know that every abortion results in the death of an innocent baby. So, our efforts are not about regulating the murder or hedging it in; they are about personhood. And yes, you will hear a lot about that from me. The reason is obvious.
Few in our movement have spoken about it in recent years. Yet, if you make an honest assessment of what could happen if Obama gets his way, then you will soon see that personhood is the only goal worth pursuing. It is, in essence, at the heart of the pro-life struggle.
The most critical civil rights question before us is the right to life! The most crucial human rights question of the day is whether or not it should be legal to murder innocent human beings because of where they live. The most urgent question before us is whether or not we are willing to expend our energies in pursuit of their total and absolute protection as persons who deserve equal protection under the law.
And the only reasonable way to get from point "a," where the mayhem, madness and meanness begin, to point "b," where the truth will set us free to do what is right, is to impress on each elected official the obligation to promote and support the Federal Personhood Amendment, as well as state personhood initiatives that are based on the FPA language.
Recently, in Colorado, as you know, the media assisted organizations such as Planned Parenthood in confusing the public by using innuendo and half-truths to accomplish their goal of defeating the personhood amendment. As attorney and noted pro-life expert John Archibold commented in the Colorado Steamboat Pilot & Today newspaper,
The first paragraph of your news story re Amendment 48 states that fertilized eggs won't be given the same rights as human beings – this implies that there are two distinct categories – fertilized eggs and human beings. But there are not two categories since fertilized eggs are a subcategory of human beings just as are zygotes, embryos, fetuses, infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults are. The Colorado Supreme Court, prior to the legalization of abortion in 1967, said that a child includes the unborn from the moment of conception. Amendment 48 merely wanted to return to that protection. Amendment 48 said nothing about unborn children having to have passport, get drivers' licenses, being able to vote, and the myriad of other "issues" of like kind that opponents threw up to muddy the waters.
Clearly, members of the media writing about the proposed amendment undermined the public's understanding of the personhood principle by their lack of clarity in describing it. My guess is that such mayhem, madness and meanness will continue. After all, abortion is big business and the head of the business, or at least perceived head, is now going to occupy the White House.
The average American, particularly the American Catholic, is utterly confused on this point because of the disinformation spread by the "mainstream" media. If these people were not totally divorced from reality, 54 percent of Catholics would not have voted for Obama!
The average American Catholic voter has not honored his obligation to make the preborn child's fate his primary concern. He has chosen not to listen to the voices of reason, but rather has chosen, as did most Americans, to heed false prophets and promises, fearing a downtrend in the economy more than a disastrous decline in morality.
We must turn this around, and we can only hope to do so by keeping our focus on personhood. Nothing less will do at a time when far too many are focused on themselves, with no regard for the preborn child's right to life.
Bishop Samuel Aquila summarized the entire challenge now facing us in the most eloquent terms I have ever read, so I leave you with his thoughts:
My sisters and brothers, you and I are not created in the image and likeness of Obama or McCain or a political party. We are created in the image and likeness of God. We must, as our forefathers did, place the God-given inalienable rights first, beginning with the right to life from the moment of conception until natural death. As bad as the economy is, as bad as the war is, the destruction of innocent human life, especially in the womb, is a greater evil, and correction of this grave evil must take place. Each of us has a role in making this correction in our duties as citizens. To say that "the battle is lost" is to condone an intrinsic evil that will only lead to further evils.
A hundred years from now, this election will just be a moment in history. A hundred years from now all of us, or certainly most of us, will be dead. But I assure you, a hundred years from now, if we continue as a society on the course that we are on, embracing a culture of death, our society will no longer exist, because tyranny will have its way, as will atheism.
When there is no recognition of the primacy of God and human beings decide what is good and what is evil, anything can be justified. All we have to do is look at history and the atheism of China, the atheism of Russia, the atheism of Cambodia, and the atheism of Nazi Germany. Countries that embrace atheism reveal the truth – that is, if we do not embrace, as our forefathers did, the laws of nature and nature's God, we will eventually collapse as a society.
Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
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