What does it mean to be pro-life?

To the editor:

What does it mean to be pro-life? Father Doug Hennessy, a Catholic priest who was raised in Bloomington, Illinois, and who served congregations in Bloomington, Peoria, Macomb, Urbana and Danville, recently posed that question. Because his thoughts so closely parallel my own, I would like to share them with Lincoln Daily News readers.

Being pro-life, Father Hennessy says, means being opposed to abortion. However, it has many more dimensions. It involves concern for the mother’s health, access to health care, immigrant rights, and resisting the death penalty.
 

Every abortion is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for the new life developing in its mother’s womb. It is a tragedy for the mother and the father. But opposition to abortion is only a part of being pro-life. Being pro-life demands much more.

Who is the pro-life candidate in the coming election? President Trump has nominated several conservative justices who may eventually repeal the Roe v. Wade decision. This makes Mr. Trump the pro-life candidate, or so we are told. Yet his record is not very pro-life. He has yet to provide an alternative model for health care, though Catholic social teaching regards healthcare as a human right. He has restored the death penalty, which the church teaches is an inadmissible penalty. He has separated children from their parents at the border and then housed them in cages. He has resisted the notion of climate change and removed us from the Paris Climate Accord. And there is much more in President Trump's policies that does not seems to help life flourish.

Then there is Joe Biden. Vice President Biden says he is opposed to abortion but that he does not want to impose his conscience on others. Too often Democrats have refused to take seriously anyone who dares to speak for the rights of unborn children. But on the other hand, Democrats seem more likely to provide help to poor families and children, to insure health care is available to all, to be responsive to the cries of black and immigrant populations who have been mistreated and discriminated against, to be more willing to take climate change seriously, and to be more willing to listen to knowledgeable people in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Father Hennessy says that all this means that we have the freedom, the responsibility and the burden to listen to our conscience when we vote. He argues that simply reversing the Roe v. Wade decision is not the best idea for those who are pro-life. If Roe v. Wade were to be reversed, the legality of abortion would be settled by state laws alone. Abortion would remain legal in many states, including Illinois. In states that chose to make abortion illegal, those who wanted an abortion would simply travel to a state where the procedure was legal and safe. By contrast, poor women would be subject to often deadly, back alley abortions.

Abortions, however sad, will continue until we convince everyone of the rights of the unborn AND their mothers. Even more important, we must provide the means and support to help everyone who is pregnant. Only then will they be able to bring a healthy child into the world and to provide for it and to raise it with dignity. In the meantime we would be wise to make abortions safe, legal and increasingly rare. It is something for us all to think about.

Gary Davis

[Posted October 27, 2020]