January 17, 2005
Dear Friends,
Below is my latest column, in English and in Spanish.
I have placed the following new question on our Online poll: "In the past, many
people peacefully
blockaded abortion clinics to prevent the abortionist from entering to kill
babies. Now there are
young people who want to resume such activities, in an organized way. Do you
think it is time to
conduct such activity again?"
Your opinion is important, so please visit
www.priestsforlife.org , scroll down
the front page, and
give us your response!
While you're there, you'll notice a new feature on the front page of our
website: Every weekday,
you can hear my daily one-minute radio spot! You'll see the link right there on
our front page; the
URL is
www.priestsforlife.org/dailyspot/dailyspot.m3u
Finally, if you are going to Washington for the March for Life on January 24, or
if you know
someone who is going, please note the following:
1. You are invited to join me at a prayer service at the US Senate Caucus Room
(Russell Senate
building, Rm. 325) on the morning of the 24th starting at 8:45am. Admission is
free, and the
service will end in time to allow you (and me) to get over to the March for
Life.
2. As usual, once the March reaches the Supreme Court, I will be standing in
front of the Court
building to greet as many other marchers as possible. If you're going, let's
look for each other
there!
3. Then, come back to the Court steps at 5pm to join the women of the Silent No
More
Awareness Campaign, who will bear witness to the pain of their abortions and the
healing
that can come afterwards.
4. You can consult my website to see where else you can meet up with me in DC
this week. Just
see the link on the front page: "Meet Fr. Frank in DC!" The page is
http://www.priestsforlife.org/news/meetff.htm
5. If you are coming by bus, we are offering Priests for Life videos for the bus
riders to watch
on the way down and back. Give us a call and we'll rush the videos to you
without charge!
Call 888-PFL-3448, ext. 237, or email
orders@priestsforlife.org
Blessings to you and your family!
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life
Violence Fosters Violence
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life
The January 2005 Boston Magazine Online carries the story "Confessions of an
Abortion
Doctor". The anonymous abortionist says, "I have the utmost respect for lifeut
also believe
that I'm ending it for good reasons." Yet she withheld her name for fear that
someone might take
her life. The shootings of abortionists years ago, which she recalls vividly,
scare her.
But doesn't she realize that the words of those who would justify killing people
like her are
simply an echo of her own? They say, "I have the utmost respect for life...but
also believe that
I'm ending it for good reasons."
It's the same argument, and the same fallacy, just applied to a different group
of people. It's
simply a variation on the old heresy that "the end justifies the means." The
"good reasons,"
whatever they may be, can never justify the direct taking of a human life.
The anonymous abortionist of this article is not the only abortion supporter who
admits that
abortion is the taking of life. In a February 26, 1997 New York Times article,
Ron Fitzsimmons,
former Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, was
quoted as
follows: "...The abortion-rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it,
and so probably,
does everyone else. One of the facts of abortion is that women enter abortion
clinics to kill their
fetuses. It is a form of killing ...you're ending a life."
That same year, Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood, said "I
think we have
deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is
killing. So any pretense
that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we
cannot say yes, it kills
a fetus, but it is the woman's body, and therefore, ultimately her choice."
[Ms., May/June 1997]
I am not arguing in favor of killing abortionists when I ask the question, "What
is the difference
between the mindset that you can kill a child for good reasons and that you can
kill an adult for
good reasons?" There's no moral difference when the victim is a different age.
The problem is
that we think we can kill by choice, and the idea that we can kill by choice has
been spread not by
the people who oppose abortion, but by the people who support it.
It is time to call for a consistent stand for life. It is self-contradictory to
oppose abortion and
support the killing of abortionists; it is equally self-contradictory to protest
the killing of
abortionists and support the right to kill unborn children.
It is time for the abortionists themselves, like the one quoted in Boston
Magazine Online, to take
responsibility for their own rhetoric, and the poisonous effect it has on our
moral conscience. We
are called to reject all violence, whether against unborn babies or against
abortionists. We are
also called to recognize that when we fail to protect any one group of people,
we endanger all the
rest.
This column can be found online at
www.priestsforlife.org/columns/columns2005/05-01-17violence.htm
Please remember to support our work at
http://priestsforlife.org/donate/
Comments on this column? Email us at
mail@priestsforlife.org, Priests for Life, PO Box 141172, Staten
Island, NY 10314; Tel: 888-PFL-3448, 718-980-4400; Fax: 718-980-6515; web:
www.priestsforlife.org