By Judie Brown
Our current culture is deadly for people of all ages, and yet we persist in our efforts to defend, protect, and nurture human persons. Christ’s words inspire us: “I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have hardship, but be courageous: I have conquered the world.”
If this were not so, we would surely lose hope, but that is not what we are about. Headlines come and go, yet the facts are still relevant: Every human being, from his beginning, is precious and worthy of our blood, sweat, and tears. These snapshots from recent headlines confirm why we move forward.
Planned Parenthood claims that abortions are at an all-time high and that their funding from our tax dollars is increasing. While we might ask how this could be in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the truth is that it has been so for more than 60 years, and Planned Parenthood persists in selling more and more abortions.
As the Charlotte Lozier Institute states, “In 2022-23, 96.9% of the time, women seeking help related to their pregnancy at Planned Parenthood were sold an abortion rather than given prenatal care, provided care for a miscarriage, or helped to make an adoption plan. Prenatal services, miscarriage care, and adoption referrals accounted for only 1.7%.”
And yet, as the death merchants appear to be gaining strength, we learn that many women are seeking alternatives to birth control, including Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means.
Means is not gung ho about prescribing birth control to women, saying that it is disrespectful of life. She holds other positions that make her a threat to the drug cartels in our nation, but then again, she is talking about topics that give those with hidden agendas something to worry about. Means was an advisor to Robert Kennedy, but we can neither confirm nor deny whether she is committed to pro-life principles, though her position on birth control does give us hope.
Meanwhile, in New York, the state legislature is contemplating decriminalizing physician-assisted suicide. Dr. L.S. Dugdale finds this repugnant, writing,
The art of dying well cannot be severed from the art of living well, and that includes caring for one another, especially when it is hard, inconvenient or costly. It is not enough to offer the dying control. We must offer them dignity—not by affirming their despair but by affirming their worth. Even when they are suffering. Even when they are vulnerable. Even when they are, in worldly terms, a burden.
In such cases the world wants easy solutions, but the Lord wants us to be faithful to truth, striving always to serve our fellow human beings with love, not a needle, a surgical knife, or a prescription for chemicals that kill.
Where we witness suffering, we provide solace, prayer, and when possible, comfort.
Where we witness rejection of God’s gift of fertility, we reach out with hearts open to those who have not yet understood the gifts that accompany pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing, and familial grief when a preborn child is lost.
In other words, while the world seeks relief at any cost, people of life and love discover hearts big enough to accept whatever comes our way. We cherish the words of Saint John Paul II, who wrote of the meaning of suffering, “It is supernatural because it is rooted in the divine mystery of the Redemption of the world, and it is likewise deeply human, because in it the person discovers himself, his own humanity, his own dignity, his own mission.”
Truly, the world needs more selfless love if it is ever to come bowing and on bended knee to Christ, the Divine Physician.