Building a Bridge over Troubled Waters
By Rev. John J. Raphael, SSJ
(Article: Page 3 of 5)
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There is, however, a new development which must also be added to this discussion. Until recently, the pro-life/pro-choice battles have centered around Supreme Court Cases such as
Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and their relationship to various state initiatives to place some restrictions on access to abortion, particularly in reference to parental consent for minors and late-term or "partial birth" abortion. The new element introduced is the
Freedom of Choice Act (S. 1173/H.R. 1964). As U.S. Senator from Illinois, President-Elect Obama was a sponsor of this bill. As a candidate, he made a promise to the vigorously "pro-choice" Planned Parenthood that he would make the signing of FOCA a top and early priority of his administration.
Hear Candidate Obama
make the promise himself.
As a federal law, FOCA would immediately strike down all state laws restricting access to abortion immediately. FOCA is to Roe v. Wade and Casey what the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voter Rights Act are to Brown v. The Board of Education! As federal legislation, this would now shift responsibility for the manner in which abortion is regulated and the degree to which it is allowed from the judiciary to the legislature, which means both our representatives and we, the people who elect them, become more directly responsible, morally complicit and thus culpable.
 In his commitment to FOCA, Candidate Obama took one of the most aggressive positions of abortion advocacy ever taken by an American presidential contender. On his official transition website,
Change.gov, under the agenda category "Women," Mr. Obama commits his administration to continued support for Roe vs. Wade, to embryonic stem cell research, and to "end[ing] insurance discrimination against contraception [emphasis added]." This latter implies a willingness to coerce health and insurance institutions (including Catholic health care providers) to provide services they judge to be immoral.
In his selection of Roman Catholics for key positions in his administration, especially his Vice-President and Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has made these persons responsible for executing and administering this legislation should it pass. The Catholic Bishops of the United States have a moral responsibility to respond and so do all Catholics and persons of good will. Why? Because abortion is the fundamental, inalienable human right, upon which all others rest. This point was made very clear in a recent intervention by an African-American Bishop. In a November 4 letter addressed to then Senator, now Vice-President-Elect, Joseph Biden regarding his assistance at Mass in the diocese, Bishop John Ricard, SSJ, of Pensacola-Tallahassee stated,
While grateful for the effective collaboration you and your office have offered on so many worthy projects and concerns, I also observe, by your support for laws that fail to protect the unborn, a profound disconnection from your human and personal obligation to protect the weakest and most innocent among us: the child in the womb.
The Church's consistent ethic of life does not mean that abortion is simply one issue among a smorgasbord of other moral/ethical issues from which one may choose a pet project. The Church's ethic of life embraces the continuum of life from conception to natural death, hence it recognizes that all other moral/ethical issues pertaining to justice and equity all presuppose the fundamental right to live, to exist, to be! They are related to the fundamental right to life as in a tree leaves are to branches, branches to trunk, trunk to root-the right to life is the root!
Aborted babies don't vote, can't get a good education, have no access to decent housing, can't earn a just wage, do not benefit from a clean and green environment, cannot emigrate legally or illegally, and have already received the death penalty and been executed by the state before they were even capable of committing a crime. They cannot support or protest any policy, practice, or person whom they feel to be guilty of an infringement upon their rights. They simply die. There only hope is the Infinite Mercy of our Eternal Father and, thank God, that is a blessed hope! But His mercy does not remove our responsibility to make sure that each of them has their God-given right to live protected by our government and our laws.
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