Right to Life March - Washington D C

This week I was honored to help escort three busloads of Bishop Miege, Bishop Ward and Hayden High School teenagers to Washington DC to participate in the annual “Right to Life” March on January 22, 2008. If was a fun and rewarding trip and we all came home with a great sense of perspective of what is important in life. And we are energized!

For background purposes, in 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. Before the Court’s ruling, a majority of states prohibited abortion, although most allowed an exception when pregnancy threatened the woman’s life. The Court overturned these state prohibitions in Roe v. Wade. The Court ruled that states could restrict abortions only during the final three months of pregnancy, a stage when medical experts considered the fetus capable of “meaningful life” outside the womb. As a result of this immoral decision (remember the Supreme Court also upheld a case called Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the high court affirmed racial segregation) every year pro-lifers from across the country have marched to end abortion.

And the pro-life cause is winning……….

The number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005 -- the lowest level since 1976, according to a new report. But we still have a long way to go. Since 1973 our country has killed nearly 50 million babies, an average of 3,500 per day. In particular, abortion has devastated the black community. African-American women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion. On average, 1,452 black babies are aborted every day in the United States. This incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 10 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated "Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America's Black community would now number 41 million persons. It would be 35 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member." And yet the media never covers this information, nor does it cover the marches. Infanticide is occurring in America and genocide is occurring within our black community because of abortion. Where are the reports in the papers and the editorials? Where are the community leaders?

And the pro-life marches? Estimates of this year’s march total 500,000 people with virtually no counter-protesters. And yet if 100 people march in the streets for gay rights or to end the war it makes front-page news across the nation. Is this fair and impartial? Not by any standard or imagination. Instead we are forced to read agenda-driven reporting. And the agenda is moral relativism.

America if growing tired of the culture of death that exists in our Country. Understand the facts behind abortion. Understand the facts behind Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, and who believed in Eugenics and the extermination of minorities and the medically infirmed. Understand the cause and effect of our immoral decision to kill our young. Americans are better than this. We love the little guy, we protect the unprotected and we live with great faith.

Life is precious. Embrace life from conception until natural death. Until then, we march until Roe is overturned.