Some are; some aren’t. The pro-abortion crowd wants to turn as many as possible from the former to the latter. The current trend in the opposite direction has them somewhat mystified.
Today, The Catholic Thing headlines a column on a painful subject:
“Medically futile pregnancies” is the euphemism for children destined to die in utero or immediately after birth. It is better for mother and child, abortion advocates claim, to end the pregnancy quickly by abortion rather than prolong the physical and emotional pain that a stillbirth may bring.
This sort of tragedy is one of the Left’s arguments for abortion. Of course it is! Any way to get the camel’s nose into the tent, don’t y’know. Marginal situations such as this, fraught with grief and doomed to tragedy, can divert one’s attention from the core of the issue. Not enough of us reflect on old wisdom that “hard cases make bad law.” But David Bonagura asks a crucial question:
What makes life “worth it,” after all? Eighty years? Financial success and a modicum of human accomplishments? What if a person falls short of these marks? Was his life “worth it?” What is “it” anyway? And what good is worldly success if it cannot follow us into the grave?
That a baby will only suffer briefly and die does not deny that his life has value. The lover of life must stay the ever-ready hand of the abortionist.
It’s not about faith or the lack thereof. It’s about what matters – the sanctity of human life, however ephemeral – and what it takes to defend it, even in the most extreme cases. Ask Chiara Corbello Petrillo. No one has ever paid a higher price to defend the sanctity of life.