What is the pro-life cause?

Pro-Life Week at the University of Florida is drawing to a close tomorrow and I feel compelled to offer a reflection the pro-life cause in light of a true blessing sent down to me from the Lord through one of his great servants.

While at a rehearsal of UF's Schola Gregoriana, a friend of mind told me that the campus pro-life group was doing a vigil before the local abortion mill and that I should come. Despite knowing I had a huge amount of very important work to do tonight, I strangely felt no hesitation whatsoever. Surely it was the Lord moving. So I went, and all I could think about before that dreadful building was "what is the cause for?" and "what should I do?" The only image running through my head was that of a murderous abortionist reaching into the sacred body of a woman to desecrate it with an atrocious act of murder and all I could think about was the bewildering paradox of everything surrounding its perverse justifications. The blatant injustice! The unmistakeable horror! And yet so few see it. I myself have suffered from the blindness and often still do.

So what is the pro-life cause towards which I have often gravitated with greater or lesser degrees of activity but have never flinched in supporting and loving in my heart of hearts? It is undoubtedly many things, but if we look at the history which predates its necessary emergence, it is a fight for the reclamation of our humanity, which is being ground up in the gears of modernity which we are so eagerly turning. Against a culture of control, domination, fleeting pleasure, the destruction of value and the human aesthetic, the pro-life activist, or rather the human pure and simple, champions submission before our beautiful and natural dignity, for true worth, respect, profound love of others, and a profound look at that which is Truth in a culture of lies. It is a fight against the death which has gripped us not just physically in the act- or lack thereof- of allowing abortion to continue, but also the death which grips the heart of modern man. In denying the burdens which have so colored humanity and seeking a life of base and valueless gratifications our culture has effectively murdered the human. We must reclaim it on every front, but the first must necessarily be in that place where we all first draw life- the womb.

The question remains: what then to do? Fundamentally, I believe the starting point is to work to lead those around us to a deep realization of their deep human worth and of the innate beauty of our divine purpose, which is to create, to sustain, to reverence. Anyone who truly acknowledges their own essence, who embraces their true humanity, can not possibly endorse the base act of murder which has gone unpunished so long in our land. Nor can they in any way tolerate the acts of euthanasia and contraception which are but indicators of our deeper despair and terror before the vicissitudes of life. And of course, the direct act of educating, reaching out, informing, and inspiring must play a major part.

For my part I have utilized my love of writing to a great extent, however failed at times, to try to be, at best, a voice. I confess my deficiency and deep cowardice, but deep down a longing stirs in me to devote myself ever deeply to this beautiful cause so inextricably bound up in our humanness.