By Judie Brown
“Abortion is a lie” is a statement that was made in 1981 during a pro-life political action speech that my husband Paul was giving in Washington, DC. He was explaining how easily abortion had been mainstreamed into our society because of the language of “choice” and the idea of personal reproductive freedom, both of which he said fed on the lies surrounding abortion.
He noted, as have many of us, that our foes, or should I say the babies’ foes, never use the word baby. Their playbook does not permit any language that might humanize the “product of conception.” Such people are so blinded by their rhetoric that they fail to see the obvious.
I bring this to your attention today in 2026 because the lie has grown larger, bolder, and far deadlier than anyone could have imagined. This is underscored by the fact that the new USCCB president, Archbishop Coakley, once had to stipulate that “no taxpayer funding [should] go to abortion.”
Vice President Vance made an even stronger statement recently, telling attendees of the March for Life that our struggle “is about whether we will remain a civilization under God, or whether we ultimately return to the paganism that dominated the past.”
This is the crux of the matter.
And while the vice president and Archbishop Coakley might appear to be rock solid in their posturing on abortion, something is amiss beneath the veneer.
Pro-life advocates representing Americans United for Life and Family Policy Alliance have collected signatures for a letter asking President Trump to restrict access to abortion pills. This admirable effort is overshadowed by the fact that the abortion pill per se is not the problem! Abortion is the problem, no matter how it is imposed, whether by pill, surgical instrument, reproductive technologists, or over-the-counter methods of birth control, which we know are abortifacient.
Every abortion is deadly, so we ask ourselves: Has the pro-life movement forgotten what we are all about in these days of political posturing and headline grabbing?
As some strive to put a dent in a certain type of abortion, we see contradictory messages by Catholic leadership. A new Notre Dame associate professor once wrote, “Abortion access also prioritizes and values women’s freedom from experiencing violence, sexual abuse and trauma through forced pregnancy and childbirth. When the state supports forced pregnancy and childbirth, it is complicit in this violence. When we stand by as it does so, we are complicit as well.”
In other words, respect for the lives of the innocent has become subject to the rhetoric of educators, even in places that define their existence as Catholic. If there ever was an example of a contradiction, this is it.
It would be wise for us to take note of what Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, “To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer.” These few words summarize not only what it means to live our faith, but more importantly to be the preachers who teach truth even when it is denied.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error. By injuring man’s relation to truth and to his neighbor, a lie offends against the fundamental relation of man and of his word to the Lord.”
Abortion is cruel, deadly, destructive of the family, a scourge to society, and a blight on the body politic. Abortion must be exposed, contradicted, and rejected at every turn.
Abortion offends against the fundamental relationship of man and of his word to the Lord, as it silently murders the innocent.
Abortion is a lie.