Respect for Life Sunday (October 3, 2010)

Anecdotes # 1: A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five- and six-year olds. After explaining the commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother," she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?” Without missing a beat, one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill." This is the main message for “Respect for Life Sunday.”

#2: Two dark days in American history: March 6, 1857, was a very dark day in American history. By a 7-2 vote, the United States Supreme Court declared that Afro-Americans were not legal persons. Rather, they were property. They could be used, sold, beaten, and even killed. Slavery was upheld. Fortunately, in 1868 the 14th Amendment to the Constitution secured the rights of blacks to full personhood. Slavery was overturned, and the equality of all people before the law was upheld. Notice, the law did not GIVE blacks this equality. They always had it! God made them equal. What happened in the 14th Amendment was that the law recognized the rights the slaves had from God; human law was brought into line with God's law. But another dark day came on January 22, 1973. By another 7-2 vote, the United States Supreme Court said that this 14th Amendment DOES NOT APPLY to children in the first nine months of life, that is, the nine months they live in their mother's wombs. Therefore, during this time - that is, during ALL the nine months of pregnancy - the court said that a mother might end the life of her child by abortion. By this "Roe vs. Wade" decision, abortion was made legal in all 50 states.

Facts: a) Abortion: The number of unborn children slaughtered in the wombs of their mothers in the last 25 years is 1200 million in the world and 37 million in the U.S.A. (4400 per day in the U.S.).

b) Euthanasia: Hundreds of old or terminally ill people are killed in advanced countries, under the names “mercy killing” or euthanasia.

c) Suicides and Physician-Assisted Suicides: Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all U.S. men. It took the lives of 30,622 people in U.S.A. in 2001. It is the third leading cause of death for 15-19 year old youngsters (19 adolescents each day) and only 5% of suicides are attributed to mental illness. d) Homicides

e) Embryo destruction for scientific experiments.

Why should we respect life?

1) The Bible teaches that life is a gift of God and hence we have to respect it from womb to tomb. Based on the word of God, the Church teaches that an unborn child from the moment of its conception in its mother’s womb is precious because it carries an immortal soul. (a) Psalm 139: 13-16: You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.). (b) Jeremiah 1: 5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

2) It is God’s commandment that we shall not kill. (Exodus 20: 13: “You shall not kill.”). The circumstances of HOW the baby was conceived do not change the evil of abortion: it is still a baby who is killed. Any tiny embryo can grow into a child and modern medical technology enables it to survive outside its mother’s womb after five and a half months. The embryo’s heart starts beating from the 25th day and its brain starts functioning on the 40th day.

3) International Law forbids the killing of innocent, defenseless people. Abortion is the killing of a defenseless child in its safest abode by its own mother, mostly for selfish motives.

4) Abortion harms women physically, emotionally, psychologically, socially and spiritually.

5) Advocates of pro-choice follow a dangerous principle of far-reaching consequences in the society. If it is justifiable to kill unwanted children by abortion, then the old, the sick, the handicapped, the mentally ill, and the retarded can also be killed.

Messages

1) We need to respect and protect all forms of human life from conception to natural death; we need to work and pray vigorously to end the culture of death.

2) We need to speak and act against abortion in private and public forums. Protecting human life is no more a sectarian creed than the Declaration of Independence is a sectarian document. Because all rights depend on life, the right to life is the most fundamental issue of all; if that is eliminated, the rest will follow.

3) We need to work to have the government enact anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and anti-Physician-assisted suicide laws; these killings violate justice, and therefore the command of God to love one another.

4) We need to give real care, support and assistance to mothers with unwanted pregnancies, contemplating abortion. Helping a woman choose life affirms and empowers her.

5) We need to teach the Church’s doctrines on abortion. The Church cares about the women who have had abortions, forgives them, heals them, brings them peace with God, with their lost children and with themselves. The Church promises any woman who has had an abortion that if she truly repents of her sin, she will find welcome and forgiveness. However, she has to understand the fact that abortion is a mortal sin, and it brings an automatic excommunication upon those who procure it, perform it, or cooperate in it.

(“Script. Homilies” supplement to O. T. XXVII Sunday Homily. Fr. Tony)