This past Friday, January 24th, 2020, thousands upon thousands of people converged upon Washington, D.C. to March for Life to help bring to light the horrors of abortions. A vast majority of those marching were young people from Junior High School to College. There were those in their 20's and 30's with their families and children marching to bring attention to the fact that for the last 47 years innocent children have been killed through the legalization of abortion.
Before the march got started there were several speakers giving support to those marching. But the one that stood out for everyone there was President Trump. Two lines that stand our for me from President Trump during his speech are "Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God", "When we see the image of a baby in the womb we glimpse the majesty of God." What beautiful words. You can check out his whole speech at https://youtu.be/3RjuADPBo-Q
I pray that this message of respect for life from conception to natural death touches the heart of all people, not only here in the United State, but around the world, where respect for life is not something that is practiced.
Heavenly Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit will descend upon all people to have a greater love and respect for all life, from the moment of conception to natural death. It is through your inspiration that can change hearts to love and cherish all life, especially that of the unborn.
Amen. Respect for all human life involves, of course, working for a legal end to abortion & defunding Planned Parenthood & hopefully having a pro-life majority on the Supreme Court & a landmark Supreme Court case (perhaps in response to a state's "heartbeat laws") to overturn Roe v. Wade. But it goes beyond these. Besides working to make abortion illegal we must strive to make abortion unthinkable by a change of heart in the people of the US & throughout the world & by the love & care we show women in crisis pregnancies to encounter them to choose life & to help provide them with the physical, material, psychological, social & spiritual resources they need to support them during pregnancy, labor, delivery & beyond. Supporting pregnancy resource centers & organizations like Good Counsel Homes, The Bridge to Life and the religious order, the Sisters of Life can help us do our part. As Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, suggests, often women in crisis pregnancies don't abort their babies out of choice but because (out of desperation & being deceived by those around them & our society) they believe they have no other choice.
ReplyDeleteBesides respecting the lives of the unborn and their mothers, we need greater respect for the lives of elderly people, sick people & people with disabilities & protect them from assisted suicide & euthanasia. If a family member or friend or neighbor is in a nursing home, hospital or rehabilitation facility he or she needs an advocate who will ensure that he or she is getting all the proper care that he or she needs. Caring for a loved one who is sick, whether at home or in a facility, is a work of mercy that can be a witness to our belief in the sanctity of human life. If we don't cherish the lives of our family members who are I'll our pro-life words have no backing. There are many people in nursing homes & rehabilitation facilities who rarely receive visitors & this is tragic. Sometimes a smile & a kind word or kind deed to another resident in the common room where we are visiting a family member or friend can make a difference.