By Judie Brown
The Vatican’s Declaration on Human Dignity states: “This dignity of every human being can be understood as ‘infinite’ (dignitas infinita), as Pope St. John Paul II affirmed in a meeting for people living with various limitations or disabilities. He said this to show how human dignity transcends all outward appearances and specific aspects of people’s lives.”
Every human being, no matter where he resides or what her condition may be, has this infinite dignity because he is a created in the image and likeness of God. As one writer explains, “Human dignity is rooted in God’s infinite love for each human person which ‘thereby confers upon them an infinite dignity.’”
In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis pointed to the love of God for each person stating, “No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!”
Today, perhaps more than at any other time in man’s history, those words should inspire us to strive as never before to defend every person, including the youngest of our fellow human beings as they begin their life journey as single-cell individuals.
There are those in positions of power who are spreading the falsehood worldwide that family planning saves lives. Their message is not that every human being’s life is infused with infinite dignity from his or her beginning but rather that an unintended pregnancy must be prevented. The very use of the word unintended tells us all we need to know. In the context of such a deadly philosophy, only those babies whose mothers intended for them to live are welcomed into the world. All others are killed by chemical, surgical, or other forms of abortion.
To such people there is no God, no creator of life, but only perverse doctrine of personal intent divorced from sexual intercourse. If such organizations emphasize the meaning and details of procreation, there would not be wholesale advocacy for the denial of the infinite dignity of the preborn human being.
But as we know all too well, chastity, marital abstinence, and self-sacrifice for the good of another are concepts not readily promoted among those who advocate for contraception, abortion, sterilization, and the like. This is so because God’s plan interferes with anti-life agenda that is part of the world view of sexuality these days.
And yet when the infinite dignity of each individual person is ignored, tragedy occurs. As a recent study made clear, there are higher rates of suicide among those women who aborted their babies.
One expert, Dr. Ingrid Skop, stated, “We must believe these women who tell us directly that their abortion caused them harm. . . . The devastating realization that abortion may lead to a woman’s suicide must motivate the pro-life community to continue to provide resources and support to vulnerable women encountering a crisis pregnancy.”
The relationship between abortion and the suicide of mothers who have aborted their children is regrettable, but even more so is the reason that drives such actions. We live in a nation that suffers from a nearly total lack of understanding that every pregnancy involves two people, each of whom possesses infinite dignity bestowed on them by God, not man.
American media, educators, and countless others market freedom of choice, reproductive rights, and other disingenuous labels. In the process we forget, ignore, or otherwise shun the fact that the infinite dignity of every human being, including the preborn, must be paramount in a civil society.
Until that changes, inconsolable sorrow will sadden far too many of us.