75 years ago, the law in virtually every State in the Union punished abortion as a felony as serious an offense as murder or rape.
51 years ago, the Supreme Court nullified every one of those State laws in its decision in Roe v. Wade.
In the fifty years since, two generations of Americans grew up and grew old being told just one side of the abortion story: “A Woman’s Right To Choose” became a mantra so mandatory that the notion that we could kill the most innocent among us merely because we felt like killing them became not just “settled law,” but a virtually indelible ingredient of our country’s public character. The popular culture dismissed a baby’s “Right to Life” to the fringe realm of the tinfoil hat brigades.
With the Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, however, the constitutional right of states to adjudicate and exercise powers not granted to the Federal Government was restored. Efforts in dozens of states are now in various stages of deliberation regarding how to proceed, and pro-lifers face the challenge of not just educating our fellow citizens about the facts of life, but – and perhaps this is a more difficult task – of deconstructing the inhuman but popular facade of “choice” before we can do any educating at all.
In Mere Christianity, Lewis writes, “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.”
Since Roe v. Wade, the Culture of Death has been careening downhill – sometimes coasting, sometimes even stepping on the gas.
Turning around to a Culture of Life is all uphill, and it’s going to be a long, hard slog.
Here’s how Florida’s Catholic bishops see the challenge in the Sunshine State.
Read here