On Monday, January 24th, Human Life International will join over 300,000 (if recent history is any indication) of our pro-life friends in marching for life in our nation's capital. In doing so, we recall the day that forever should be remembered with ignominy when the Supreme Court decided in 1973 to remove the right to life of the unborn. We do not yet see the first lights of the dawn in this struggle, but our commitment to abolish all forms of abortion should not slacken. Nobody knows how many years we will have to fight to abolish abortion. Hopefully the social conversion that is needed to abolish this monstrous form of injustice will happen within our lifetime, but if we do not see it in the here and now, we are still certain that it will happen, because that is the will of the Lord. History shows that sometimes the fight for justice takes centuries, but eventually liberation is achieved and the oppressors are overturned, as we see as far back as the Old Testament.
Abortion is not a "right" as some persons would like to believe, it is just murder. It is a constant and systematic social war against the poorest and weakest of the inhabitants of the nation. Here we should remember what General Sun-Tzu states, in The Art of War: "There has never been a state that has benefited from an extended war."
How can America benefit from this extended warfare? Most certainly it can not. First, this is a war against God, who is the giver and sustainer of life. His justice might be delayed from a human perspective, but we know that it will come. We usually don't understand the Lord's timing, because we suffer from impatience that is a consequence of our limited perspectives and lives. Certainly, however, one day His justice will be made manifest and will cleanse the land of all its iniquities. Second, abortion is an exercise in hatred that, left unchecked, will eventually devour the whole of society.
When we uphold the right of the unborn to live, we are also upholding the right to life of the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled. Any doctor that is ready to kill the unborn will be ready to kill others, as soon as the courts give him the green light to commit additional atrocities and financially profit from them. Some doctors, with the help of activist judges, even campaign to change the law, trying to avoid well deserved punishment for the crimes they commit as "mercy killings." Indeed, we are already far along this slippery slope. Three states, Oregon, Montana, and Washington, have legalized "assisted suicide," and will keep descending into the destruction of thousands upon thousands of fellow citizens who are considered less desirable for a growing number of reasons. This descent is already far advanced in several European countries as well.
We have to look squarely at those confused reasons that lead to abortion and euthanasia and confront them with intelligent answers. First, we see a twisted view of freedom that makes a travesty of liberty. This view of freedom confuses true human freedom, that is, the freedom to do what is good and right, with a self-destructive view of freedom that leads man to think that he is at liberty to indulge in whatever whim comes to his mind. An unbridled view of liberty transforms these whims into "rights," confusing the uninformed into endorsing sin. For example, a woman does not have a right to choose to bring her baby to term or to kill him. A man does not have the right to decide when the time has come to conclude his life and seek assisted suicide or euthanasia.
We are all children of the Lord, and life is a gift. In the same way that the woman is not the owner of her baby, no one owns his life to the extent that he may decide when to put an end to it. As a consequence, we do not have the right to allow "medical professionals" to kill children, or worse, to give government the power to force its citizens to finance this killing. No society has the right to legalize abortion, assisted suicide or euthanasia, much less to use public funds for that evil purpose.
The financial resources of the members of society should be used for the common good not for the common evil. To tax the citizens to pay for murder is adding insult to injury: when citizens of a nation are to pay for evil deeds, it is time that we stand up for life and for justice. It is criminal that the abortion giant of Planned Parenthood should receive hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of government grants and contracts to kill babies. Let us hope that the newly elected representatives will cut out of the Federal budget all the funds that encourage those evils.
But we do not only hope - we must act. Please join me on Monday, January 24th in the March for Life, whether in Washington, DC, or in your own city, publicly witnessing to our love for life and praying that abortion and all assaults on human life will be totally banned in our land.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Monsignor Barreiro Signature
Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula
Interim President, Human Life International
