As I write this blog post, it is January 22nd. For decades this was the anniversary date of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which allowed abortions to be performed legally in the United States for the first time. The year was 1973. The Supreme Court decision was overturned on June 24, 2022. Over 50 years later. In the same year of the original decision, in May, I would be ordained to the priesthood and assigned for service in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia where I have served ever since. I was named Pastor Emeritus of Saint Anthony of Padua parish in Ambler, PA on June 17, 2023. For 50 years, there was this shadow reality that coincided with my priestly ministry.
For many years, I attended the March for Life in Washington, going down from Philly to DC by train or bus or car. Personally, I am not drawn to parades, either to watch or to participate. I am not exactly sure why that is. But the March For Life was always different. I could never understand how the Roe decision erupted out of the turmoil of the late 1960s with the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in 1968, the explosion of violence that these acts of violence triggered throughout our nation. So many wanted to stand up for and be counted alongside of those who had been denied freedom and even life. Racial animosity was being challenged and the downtrodden were being uplifted and supported. This care for those who had been so mistreated and kept from developing to their full potential was a movement that captured my heart. And especially the embrace of non-violence as a means to achieve a truly moral goal.
The violence of the assassinations served to send a different signal, that the way of non-violent protest would never work. No, the thinking now was, only violence can overcome violence. It made a powerful argument as violence always does. It just does not work. Never has. But with the embrace of violence as a means to procure political rights and opportunities there was a transfer from the world of civil rights into the area of personal rights.
This happened in the area of human sexuality too. In the mid-1960s with the breakthrough of various kinds of artificial means of controlling the conception of a child, was born in the popular mind a new right not often named up until then. The right to personal privacy. In all the areas of life. Including the area of procreation. Until that time, the child in the womb was held to be sacrosanct and in need of the most extensive protections. But in that moment, with the right to personal, bodily privacy now on the rise, a very different turn took place. The right of the woman to have control over what took place in her own body and her control over it was enshrined into law. This decree superseded any rights of the child growing within the mother.
Up until this time, in the 200 years of our nation, every major challenge to the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was interpreted in an expansive manner. Negro slaves were citizens with the right to vote. Women were given suffrage too. Always it was widening and broadening the understanding of who was included in life and liberty. Until that is, the decision known as Roe v. Wade. The right to life did not extend into the womb of the mother. Her right to life was affirmed. The right to life of the unborn was not upheld. What that meant in practical terms was that for purposes of law and interpretation, the little ones were not to be considered persons. Only after birth.
Many rejoiced at the implications of this decision because it placed firmly into the hands of the woman, the mother-to-be, control of her situation, circumstances, destiny. But many were also heart-broken and deeply saddened. There would be no defense in law for the life of the most vulnerable among us—the child in the womb. Glossed over was that abortion ends the life of the fetus in dramatic and drastic fashion. It introduces into the womb of the mother an act of deadly violence. None of this was written in the decision handed down. Not addressed was the implication for our entire nation and the culture of our country, the impact of violence being introduced into the womb of literally millions of women each year and every year. The enshrining of violence as an appropriate solution in the area of resolving a difficult issue was not addressed. Let us turn to violence to do away with the “problem,” was the prevailing thinking. And once enshrined into law, who could challenge it? It is lawful, is it not?
The overturning of this Supreme Court decision has not resolved this problem. It has returned it to the people in each state to debate and propose and decide. The overturning of Roe has only changed the playing field. Now is not the time to rest for “a job well done.” It still remains true that there are more than a million abortions taking place in our country each year. Violence in the womb still happens. The convenient elimination of the most vulnerable among us goes on. It must end. The right of all to life must be affirmed. That is the truth of the Gospel message of Jesus of Nazareth. He is not the Lord of abortion. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. The Lord of Life. We all come from Him, and we will all face Him one day at the end of our days. We will be asked to give an accounting of ourselves. “Lord when did we see You hungry and feed you, thirsty and give You drink, when did we see You a stranger and welcome you, when did we see naked and clothe you, when did we see you sick and cared for you, in prison and visited You? And the King will say, As often as you did it for one of these little ones, you did it for me.”
I am in my late seventies now. But it is not true to say—I have lived my life, now is the time to pass the baton. No. Now is the time to step up once again and raise the questions that we all must face and propose the solution which the Lord provides. There really is no other way. And if the Good Lord is not going to be able to rely on us, His loyal followers, then upon whom can He rely? Lord when did we see You….?
May the Lord bless you today and give you His peace.
