Pro-Life or Pro-Wordplay?

Pro-life voters are desperately seeking candidates who unequivocally support the right to life of all innocent human beings without exception. Unfortunately, in many contests, neither the Democrat nor the Republican is interested in abolishing abortion. The underlying difficulty is that established pro-life organizations often endorse those who favor some abortions. Examples of such confusion abound.

In a number of congressional and gubernatorial elections, for instance, the Democrat supports child-killing on demand, while the Republican supports only limited restrictions on abortion (e.g., regulating partial-birth abortion and/or permitting abortion in cases of rape, incest or purported threat to the mother's life). The Republican who supports a lesser degree of abortion often earns the National Right to Life stamp of approval and is touted as “pro-life.”

In my humble opinion, a politician who merely wishes to regulate abortion is not pro-life, whether he is Democrat, Republican, third party or independent. Such a candidate does not deserve to be called “pro-life,” and such a candidate does not deserve an iota of support from any pro-life voter. The law can never legitimately tolerate the direct killing of innocent human beings, born or pre-born. If a politician is unwilling to honor this most fundamental duty of law, he is unworthy of even one pro-life endorsement, regardless of his party affiliation.

While National Right to Life Committee and others maintain that it is critical to support the more restrictive pro-abortion candidate in order to chip away at the culture of death, history contradicts that proposition. If there is one lesson we have learned from the last 30 years, it's that compromise of fundamental principle enables the death peddlers to chip away at us while continuing to slaughter our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.

It's time to put to rest the flawed concept of voting for the lesser of two evils. There's no such thing when dealing with acts of murder. Abortion is intrinsically evil. No one should admit to the admissibility of even one act of abortion. To do so is to contradict what is clearly an absolute value: the personhood of the human being. Pursuing the so-called lesser-evil option is not acceptable.

Pro-life Americans must insist that political candidates, in order to claim the pro-life mantel, must honor their moral obligation as legislators to defend and protect all innocent human beings from the moment of conception. Organizations that purport to represent pro-life philosophy must stop settling for politicians whose support for a little abortion violates the most fundamental purpose of civil law. The alternative is to squander another 30, 50 or 100 years to sanctioned child killing.

Judie Brown

Stafford, Virginia

The writer is president of the American Life League (www.all.org).

Editor's note:A “catechism for voters” appears on our back page.

Palestinians and Prosperity

Father Guido Gockel and the Catholic Near East Welfare Association are to be commended for their important humanitarian work in Jerusalem (“Caught in the Middle in the Holy Land,” Oct. 13-19). Both Palestinians and Israelis are suffering horribly, and creating jobs is important in restoring human dignity that all persons created in the image of God deserve.

Father Gockel should be more careful in his politics and historical statements, however. Ariel Sharon never talked of or advocated “transfer” of non-Jewish people out of Israel. The position of every Israeli prime minister since Yitzchak Rabin—including Sharon—is for territorial compromise and a two-state solution to the conflict. Sharon has said frequently that he advocates a Palestinian state that is consistent with Israel's legitimate security needs.

“Transfer” is the idea of a small extreme group in Israel that has never determined Israeli policy. Israeli governmental policy is pragmatic and open to concessions—unlike Palestinian policy, which rejected a peaceful solution at Camp David and to this day is determined by extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that practice terror and refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist.

When Palestinian policy becomes pragmatic and substitutes realistic compromise for terror and violence, Palestinians will be on the road to restoring the human dignity and prosperity that all deserve.

Dr. Eugene Korn

New York City

The writer is director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.

No More War

By way of introduction, I'm a U.S. veteran who loves this country very much.

At the time of the Gulf War, the Defense Department estimated that 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Now we are contemplating another war in that same country. Many more people will be killed, not only Iraqis but also Americans.

We say we abhor violence and tell our children to settle conflicts peacefully while at the same time applauding wars that cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings and that maim many more.

Following two world wars and 100 million deaths, many (including army generals like Eisenhower and MacArthur) became convinced that war is obsolete. Yet, how many millions more have been killed since 1945? How many more millions will be killed? How many more wars will we start? How many more children will lose a father, mother, son, daughter, wife or husband?

When will we start viewing the concept of the “just war” in light of the fact that, in the history of mankind, the “greatest inhumanities have been perpetrated in the name of‘humanity,'‘civilization,'‘progress,'‘freedom,'‘my country' and, of course,‘God'” (Thomas Merton)?

When will we come to grips with the fact that every one of us is violent whenever we make the other different and declare ourselves the norm and center of human behavior? When will we put a stop to this cycle of violence and revenge, this culture of war? When will we start singing with Schiller and Beethoven (Ninth Symphony), May all people become brothers and sisters, all people sisters and brothers?

Joseph G. Vandenheuvel

Albuquerque, New Mexico

God Bless Parish Schools

I was glad to see Lynn Bete's letter “To Each His Own School” (Oct. 13-19) in response to Daria Sockey's article “Musings of a Home-Schooling Mom” (Sept. 22-28). Mrs. Bete articulated many of the things I felt after reading Mrs. Sockey's article.

After much prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, my husband and I discerned that God was calling us to send our kindergarten-age daughter to our parish's school this year. This was not an easy decision. In fact, it terrified me because I do so fear the influence of the world and the peer pressure that exists even in a parish school as good as our own. Yet with all my soul I have felt that God is asking this of us and calling us to trust him with our most precious treasure, our children. And yet, when I explain my decision to home-schooling moms, I often get the sense that they don't totally believe me. The impression is given that obviously we haven't prayed hard enough about it or are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to home school.

I love the idea of home schooling and I support my friends 100% in their decisions. And I am glad they feel so confident that this is the path God has chosen for them. But God is not boxed, and home schooling may not be what he has chosen for every single Catholic child.

I very much appreciate and support the National Catholic Register's many articles in support of home schooling and do not wish in any way for the Register to scale them back. But it would be helpful to see articles by parents of children in parochial and/or public schools who share their experience and wisdom in raising their children to live in the world, but not be of the world.

May God bless all of our children and our efforts to keep them safe, pure and holy.

Jenny Boudreaux

Fishers, Indiana