Every Human Life Matters!
3 Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A
January 22, 2017
On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court issued the infamous decision on Roe Vs. Wade which legalized abortion in the United States. I want to make just three points today about the beauty and sanctity of human life. Number 1: It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. This is not a faith claim. It is a scientific claim. “Every modern embryology textbook states that once fertilization has occurred, a new human life exists, a separate and distinct individual, with its own unique DNA.” (Women, Sex, and The Church p. 38)
This past fall I read the autobiography of Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Dr. Nathanson was born in 1926 in New York City. He grew up a Jewish family but eventually abandoned his faith and became an atheist. By the early 1950’s he was the director of the largest abortion clinic in the world which was in NYC. Looking back on his life, he surmises that he oversaw 60,000 abortions during his life. He even aborted one of his own children. Not only did he operate the world’s largest abortion clinic, he was one of the founding fathers of NARAL which originally stood for the “National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. Interestingly, in his autobiography he admits his primary enemy at the time was the Catholic Church because of their unwavering pro-life stance.
Here’s perhaps the amazing twist of Dr. Nathanson’s story: he did not have a faith conversion that led him to recognize the sanctity of human life. Dr. Nathanson came to recognize that life begins at conception while he was still an atheist and a doctor. What brought him to this truth? It was the invention of the ultra-sound in the 1970’s. Seeing a little baby in the womb, began to haunt him and raise questions: what I am doing? What am I destroying? He further became conflicted because in the hospital he was working, on one floor he was striving to save of pre-mature babies in the neo-natal unit at 27 weeks and then going up to another floor and aborting babies who were 27 weeks old. Finally he performed his last abortion at the beginning of 1979.
Not only did Dr. Nathansan stop doing abortions, but he became an advocate for life and began giving pro-life speeches. In 1984 he asked one of his old friends who was an abortion doctor if he could hold a sonogram over a woman’s womb as an abortion was performed. It was the first time an abortion was video-taped. He then asked the abortion doctor to edit the tape with him. What they saw horrified them. They saw the baby in the womb fighting for survival against the abortion doctor’s tools of destruction and the little baby had its mouth open screaming. The video became known as the silent scream. I watched it for the first time after reading Dr. Nathanson’s book. You can still see it on YouTube. After editing the tape with Dr. Nathansan, the doctor that did the abortion never performed another abortion. The woman who had the abortion was a pro-abortion feminist. The asked her if she wanted to see the tape. After seeing it she could never talk about abortion again and never advocated for it.
Dr. Nathanson’s conversion to the faith finally came about as he went around the country giving pro-life speeches. He kept running into faith filled Catholics. It was the witness of all these Catholics that led him to be baptized into the Catholic Church in 1996 by Cardinal O’Connor. Cardinal Dolan presided over his funeral in 2011.
The second point I want to make today: Your life matters! I bring this up because this past week I attended a conference on the millennial generation. The presenter was a PhD and had studied youth today. He said that outside of a war zone, young people today are the most stressed out generation ever. Why? -Because it has been engrained into them that their value, their self-worth depends on their performance and success. Unless you are a star athlete, or get on this club team, or have above a 4.0 grade average, or get this ACT score, or get into this college you don’t have value. Young people, your life matters. Everyone’s life matters. Not based on what we accomplish or do but we have an intrinsic worth from our very being.
The gospel today reminds us that Jesus knows us by name and is calling each one of us – not because we have extraordinary talents or gifts but because he willed us into being and created us out of love. Who we are, our identity comes not from what we accomplish but it is rooted in our relationship with God. We are God’s beloved children.
St. Paul further reminds us that the weakest members are the most important. We proclaim the dignity of every human being: especially the mentally challenged, those with special needs, the disabled. All lives matter: The embryo in the womb to the elderly person with alzheimers.
Along with this: our value isn’t diminished by the sins we have committed. Dr. Bernard Nathanson was responsible for 60,000 abortions (some estimate 75,000). And he was baptized and forgiven of all his sin. Hopefully he’s a saint now in heaven! There is no sin God cannot forgive! If you have had an abortion or participated in abortion, God wants to heal you and set you free and give you hope that you can still live your life. Allow God to forgive you in the sacrament of reconciliation. Sometimes women that confess abortion don’t really feel forgiven. Forgiveness is a process that also includes forgiving yourself. We are so blessed in our Archdiocese to have Project Rachel. Project Rachel puts on retreats for women who’ve had abortions to help realize: God still loves you. Your life can continue. We also have Project Joseph – a program of healing for men touched by abortion.
Final point– The fact that life is sacred is a universal truth. This isn’t my opinion, this is a truth from God that applies to all people. All human lives matter. I bring this up because so often I hear things like: “We’ll I personally opposed to abortion, but who am I to impose my moral views on others?” Think about this: would we ever accept the argument of someone who said, “I’m personally opposed to slavery, but you want to have a slave that’s alright by me.” Or “I’m personally opposed to gangland drive by shootings but if you want to gun people down in the streets that OK with me!” These arguments are crazy. Why then would we accept this logic: “I’m against abortion but if you want to kill your unborn child that’s OK by me?”
There is an underlying problem with the notion of imposing “my” morality on “others.” This argumentation stems from relativism. This is the idea that I have my own morality that I can then imposing on someone else.
Moral truth in fact comes from God not the individual! Even our founding father’s recognized this. In the declaration of Independence our founding Father’s recognized there are truths endowed by our creator – truths that come from God. Among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that life is sacred is a truth that comes from God and it applies to all people. It is not “my” truth that I’m imposing on someone else.
Every Civil Society throughout history has legislated morality. It is a crime to steal. It is a crime to murder. These laws didn’t come about from a group of people imposing their morality on others. No, these are universal truths, endowed by our creator, that apply to all people. They flow from our human nature.
Cardinal O’Connor said, “The lack of respect for life is rooted in a lack of self-respect.” The Good News is your life matters. Jesus knows you by name and is calling you. Once we know our own identity in Christ we begin to see others in that very same light.