Forty years ago, on Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many Americans when it announced its 7-2 decision striking down the nation’s anti-abortion laws in its Roe v. Wade decision.
The American bishops have since individually and collectively condemned the decision. In 2002, for example, on the 30th anniversary of Roe, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called abortion "a violation of human rights incomparable in magnitude and an atrocity for the whole human family." On the international level, the Second Vatican Council referred to abortion as an "unspeakable crime."
For the 40th anniversary, four Catholic pro-life advocates — one whose activism pre-dates Roe, one who got involved a few years after the court ruling, a third who became active 20 years ago and a professor at an Ivy League university — offer their reflections on the decision and share about the valuable work they are doing on behalf of life.
Judie Brown of the American Life League (ALL) was living in Washington state in the late 1960s when she and her husband, Paul, heard a priest urge the congregation to fight Referendum 28, which would ease the state’s anti-abortion laws. With "primitive" pro-life brochures in hand, the couple went door-to-door in their community asking people to vote "No" on 28. They lost the vote by a single percentage point, but it began a long and distinguished pro-life advocacy career for Brown.
The cause could be going better, said Brown. "Many of us on the pro-life side have done a lousy job educating the public about what happens when an abortion occurs. Abortion is not merely a political issue. It is the act of killing an unborn child."
Brown said she was stunned when Roe was announced. The thought of the Supreme Court striking down the nation’s anti-abortion laws "never entered our consciousness," she said. "We were horrified. Nobody believed it. It boggled the mind."
Brown went on to work for the National Right to Life Committee, but she opted to found ALL in 1979 because she believed it was important to publicly stress the evil of contraception. Contraception leads to abortion, she said, noting that Roe was preceded by the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision by the court, which overturned a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives. (Estelle Griswold was executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. She opened a birth-control clinic in the state in an effort to challenge the generally unenforced law, which dated back to 1879.)
ALL is based in Virginia and is a public-education organization that employs 35 and produces a quarterly magazine. Brown said ALL has done "stellar" work; its mission is "to protect every human being from creation to death."
Brown said her Catholic faith is the key to motivating her commitment to the pro-life cause. She is a daily communicant and remarked, "I couldn’t do it if I weren’t close to Christ and the Blessed Sacrament."
Brown believes that there isn’t a political solution to abortion, but that progress will come when the public demands a change to the law. Regarding the Health and Human Services’ mandate, which includes co-pay-free access to contraceptives and early abortion drugs, she said: "Our bishops have got to flagrantly defy the Obama administration."
Chris Slattery is founder and director of EMC (Expectant Mother Care) Frontline Pregnancy Centers in New York City (EMCFrontline.org). The organization operates a dozen centers, has served 125,000 and persuaded an estimated 40,000 women not to have abortions.
Slattery first became involved in the pro-life movement in the late 1970s, after a "reversion" to Catholicism. He was working in the advertising industry at the time, but, by 1990, he became a full-time pro-life activist. As he said, "Doing our type of pro-life work will bring you opposition. The abortion industry is fighting us all the time. They know we’re stealing away their clients."
Slattery calls New York City the "Abortion Capital of the Western World," having more abortions performed there than in any other Western city (83,000 per year, according to the latest statistics available): "New York City is a hard place in which to do pro-life work. Hearts are hardened, and the political environment is extremely left-wing. … They’ve done everything they can to crush our movement. It’s a hellishly anti-life environment."
Yet, despite the harsh political and religious climate, Slattery’s clinics save one baby every 75 minutes. EMC Frontline advertises using "neutral image advertising," not disclosing that they’re pro-life. Women seeking abortions come to the clinic and then have the opportunity to see an ultrasound image of their babies and receive counseling on alternatives to abortion. The staff is able to dissuade about 50% of the women they see from having abortions.
As Slattery put it, "Our movement is at a stage where local action is the name of the game. On the federal or state level, we’ve accomplished little; this is a city-by-city fight."
The most powerful initiative in the pro-life movement in recent years, he said, is 40 Days for Life (40DaysforLife.com), in which demonstrators pray and fast to close abortion businesses.
His centers are in constant need of financing as well as young people willing to devote their time to the pro-life cause (ProLifeInterns.com).
"On this anniversary of Roe, each of us must reflect on whether we’re doing enough for this critically important cause," he said. "Are we doing enough to reach out to young mothers in our communities?"
Bryan Kemper got involved in the pro-life movement 20 years ago and is currently youth outreach director for Priests for Life. He grew up in Southern California in a non-Christian home and nearly died of a drug overdose in 1987. While recovering in the hospital, a doctor "shared the hope of Christ" with him, and Kemper became a Christian. Two years ago, he became Catholic. "I came to see that there were not 40,000 truths or Christian denominations, but one truth," he explained. "I needed the fullness of the truth, and it was a no-brainer for me to become Catholic."
Kemper believes that the 40th anniversary of Roe is especially significant: "In the Bible, 40 years is a full generation. Now, one generation of Americans has lived under the shadow of Roe v. Wade, and now we’re entering the second generation."
The biggest change in the pro-life movement, Kemper believes, is that it is being increasingly embraced by younger people. When he went to his first March for Life rally in Washington in 1994, 70% of participants were older people. Today, 70% are youth. His website, StandTrue.com, proudly proclaims, "This is the generation that will abolish abortion."
As Kemper explained, "As one of the t-shirts we sell proclaims, ‘I survived Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade will not survive me.’"
The Priests for Life youth outreach will be active at the 2013 March for Life events in Washington on Jan. 24 and 25. Youth will pray at an abortion business and join a rally on Jan. 24; there will be a prayer service on Jan. 25 (PriestsforLife.org/marchforlife).
Kemper said he has had much success in persuading youth about the pro-life position because "science, including 3-D and 4-D technology, is on our side." He continued, "The other side is admitting that the unborn child is a human being; they just say abortion is a ‘woman’s right’ or that it’s about a ‘war on women.’"
Also weaved into his talks to teens is the importance of the virtue of chastity as well as the harm of contraception (particularly contraceptives that cause abortions).
Kemper is disappointed but not distressed about the re-election of a president committed to legal abortion: "Barack Obama may be sitting in the White House, but our heavenly Father is on the throne in heaven and Jesus Christ at his right-hand side. We have to have confidence in the One who is sitting on the throne."
Robert George, a constitutional scholar from Princeton University who has championed the pro-life cause, believes that Roe v. Wade can be overturned, but "it will entirely depend on the election of a Republican president in 2016. President Obama’s appointees, present and future, will vote to uphold Roe."
George, who is Catholic, added, "[Roe] is widely regarded, even among liberal academics, as poorly reasoned — at best."
He believes that the pro-life position has been gaining ground among all age groups, particularly the young, and that it should be presented as "a matter of justice and fundamental human rights."
As he explained, "Like slavery, it is a matter of natural justice. To uphold that principle and insist on it in our political practice is not to ‘impose religious dogma.’ It is to fulfill our basic moral obligations as a society dedicated to ‘liberty and justice for all.’"
Jim Graves writes from
Newport Beach, California.
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Robert George is a great advocate & a pretty good banjo player, too.
Thank you, Judie and all the rest. It has been a pleasure working beside you. For what it is worth, I was the Founder of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis in 1963 and I first testified against the legalization of abortion at the MO legislature in 1967. Nothing in the past that we have done counts as much as we do today and what we have a chance to do tomorrow. Praise God and thank God for our gifts and talents as we use them to protect and preserve life from beginning until true death (Latin, mors vera).
I’ve been writing about abortion for almost four decades and one major problem is that the USCCB members have not been clear on abortion, in fact they’ve added to the confusion, and in some cases, they’ve been complicit by their support of high profile politicians, usually “Catholic” Democrats, who were overtly pro-choice and a constant source of confusion for the laity.
I believe Pope John Paul’s “be not afraid” message of October 7, 1979 at the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C., was a direct appeal to our American Bishops to be more proactive on abortion. He was hoping that they would “act” heroically; he knew the world would be watching the American Catholic Church and the American media. Pope John Paul said, “If a person’s right to life is violated at the moment in which he (or she) is first conceived in the mother’s womb, an indirect blow is struck also at the whole of the moral order, which serves to ensure the inviolable goods of man. Among those goods, life occupies the first place.”
This last June Archbishop William Lori said that religious liberty was the pre-eminent social-justice issue of our time. My reaction was to disagree strongly. The pre-eminent social-injustice of all time is abortion-on-demand, and it has been for four long decades. Millions of our preborn American citizens have suffered the worst kind of social injustice, not only the loss of religious liberty, but the loss of life itself.
Regrettably, our religious leaders did not get Pope John Paul’s message. They did not recognize the magnitude and severity of this greatest of evils which has made us a nation of barbarians. If they had, the majority of Catholics would not have voted for a radically pro-abortion president. And just maybe abortion would not be the leading cause of death in America.Charles N. Marrelli, Writers for Life, prolifedigest.com
“pre-eminent social-justice issue of our time. My reaction was to disagree strongly. The pre-eminent social-injustice of all time is abortion-on-demand,...”
Charles, “our time” and “all time”. How abound slavery for an all time candidate.
The imediate threat is religious liberty. Without that, the opposition has eliminated an organized historic opposition.
The taking of any life is an abomination to humanity. Whether it is by abortion, abuse, capital punishment, war, or euthanasia, we do not have the right to try to kill the Divine in others. This is not just a religious war against sin, it is a cry to all to respect the dignity of others and their right to be here.
Richard of the Desert, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Your kind of thinking only guarantees more innocent people will be murdered which includes those in the womb.
The reason abortion remains the law of the land is because of one organization which protects and defends it politically. That organization is the Democrat Party. And the only reason that organization has the power to keep abortion legal is the single, largest voting block they continue to have - Catholics who give their name identity and support to that organization. No other reason exist for abortion remaining legal than that. And for that we have no one other than the bishops to blame who have contributed to causing spiritual confusion within the Church over the issue called “pro-life,” a word coined to counter the pro-aborts calling themselves “pro-choice.” The bishops injected politics into what was and is a major spiritual issue by adding so-called “social justice” issues to the definition of pro-life, which only meant “anti-abortion.” They did so to “keep the pro-life movement from falling completely under the control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors.” (pages 243, 244 in “Cardinal Bernardin - Easing conflicts - and battling for the soul of American Catholicism” a biography authored by Eugene Kennedy, a long time friend of Cardinal Bernardin, published 1989 a number of years before the Cardinal died. This quote was never challenged nor denied by the Cardinal.
And if you don’t think the bishops were and are playing politics with pro-life, what was the explanation for them not sending a letter to Democrat Presidential nominee, Barack Obama, in 2008 after he told Pastor Rick Warren that knowing when a baby should be given human rights, said, “The answer to that question is above my pay grade.” How does the USCCB not write a letter requesting a clarification of Democrat Barack Obama’s answer when he was a highly touted Harvard Constitutional lawyer who was editor of Harvard Law Review? The bishops had no problem criticizing Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposed budget legislation, nor hesitancy in sending a letter of support to the government unions in Wisconsin battling Governor Walker’s legislation affecting those unions’ control of the Wisconsin state budget.
Stilbelieve, I thought I recognized you the BISHOP BASHER from the email. Still at it. Do you ever actually have a purpose?
Howard, the disbeliever rises again. Aren’t you satisfied enough that the worst person ever to be elected President was re-elected again by Catholics? For your information, truth is not “bashing.” But truth makes no difference to so many Catholics. That is why they better heed what it says in Hebrews 3:7-19 from the First Reading in the Mass on 1-10-13.
Stilbelieve,
.
I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else. I support our Bishops and their efforts to save the Church in America. Write your book about history, but now they need unity and support, not constant bashing.
Seventy-five percent of Catholics have become apostate and no longer believe in the True Presence, the definitive doctrine of our faith. It was not that way when I converted to the Catholic Church in 1949. The renewal Pope John XXIII envisioned has been shanghaied by dissidents in the disastrous wake of VCII. How can we ever recover the peak evangelization of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen? Pope Paul VI was right. Satan was indeed allowed in the sanctuary. Until we solve this problem, there is no chance that apostate “Catholic” Democrats will ever vote against abortion.How sad that is.
Howard:
“I support our Bishops and their efforts to save the Church in America.”
What efforts, changing the historical definition of the word “pro-life” in 1984 to include so-called “social justice” issues to “keep the pro-life movement from falling completely under the control of the right wing conservatives who were becoming its dominant sponsors?” (“Cardinal Bernardin - Easing conflicts - and battling for the soul of the American Catholicism,” by a Eugene Kennedy, a 30 year-long friend of the Cardinal. Quote from pages 243,244) Or the efforts that led to the bishops not declaring it a sin for joining an organization that defends and supports the legal murder of unborn children, while continuing to teach in 1995 that it is a serious sin to join an organization that promotes religious or racial discrimination such as the Nazi Party or the KKK? Or perhaps it was the bishops’ brilliant letter asking Democrat Presidential nominee, and highly touted Harvard Constitutional lawyer and Editor of the Harvard Law Review, Barack Obama, to explain why he was unwilling to tell Pastor Rick Warren in a TV interview when a baby should be given human rights? Opps, my mistake; the bishops never did write such a letter, nor ever ask him to explain how a Constitutional Lawyer from Harvard, running for President of the United States, doesn’t know when a baby receives his or her human rights, not when he or she should.
I’m sorry, Howard, I see where the bishops have succeeded in saving the despicable pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, pro-covet they neighbors’ goods Democrat Party; but I don’t see any success in what you are talking about. I see success in the evangelical churches who were slow to join the bishops in opposition to abortion back in 1973, but now is past election, 79% of evangelicals voted against Obama and for the pro-life party; up 6% from four years ago; while Catholics who attend Mass weekly supported the pro-abortion, pro-infanticide Obama by 45%, down from 50% four years ago. Total Catholic votes for Obama were 50% this election, down from 55% for him four years ago. That sure is some unity the bishops have succeeded in obtaining.
Oh, by the way, the sin for harboring or joining an organization like the Nazi Party or the KKK is a sin against the Fifth Commandment - Thou shall not murder. Odd, don’t you think, the bishops give a pass to the organization so many of them and the clergy joined, and remain members today, as well as 10s of millions of other Catholics, which is the sole reason the murder of unborn children remains legal - Catholic Democrats or should I say Democrat Catholics because being Democrat is more important than to be a Catholic who’s word is good.
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