Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States

  https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf

Introductory Letter

   As Catholics, we bring the richness of our faith to the public square. We draw from both faith and reason as we seek to affirm the dignity of the human person and the common good of all. With renewed hope, we, the Catholic Bishops of the United States, are re-issuing Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, our teaching document on the political responsibility of Catholics, which provides guidance for all who seek to exercise their rights and duties as citizens.

   Everyone living in this country is called to participate in public life and contribute to the common good. In Rejoice and Be Glad [Gaudete et Exsultate], Pope Francis writes:

    Your identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of  love, justice and universal peace. . . .You cannot grow in holiness without committing yourself, body and soul, to giving your best to this endeavor.

  The call to holiness, he writes, requires a “firm and passionate” defense of “the innocent unborn.” “Equally sacred,” he further states, are “the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”

  Our Our approach to contemporary issues is first and foremost rooted in our identity as followers of Christ and as brothers and sisters to all who are made in God’s image. For all Catholics, including those seeking public office, our participation in political parties or other groups to which we may belong should be influenced by our faith, not the other way around.

  Our 2015 statement, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,sought to help Catholics form their consciences, apply a consistent moral framework to issues facing the nation and world, and shape their choices in elections in the light of Catholic Social Teaching. In choosing to re-issue this statement, we recognize that the thrust of the document and the challenges it addresses remain relevant today.

  At the same time, some challenges have become even more pronounced. Pope Francis has continued to draw attention to important issues such as migration, xenophobia, racism, abortion, global conflict, and care for creation. In the United States and around the world, many challenges demand our attention.

  The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.

  Our efforts to protect the unborn remain as important as ever, for just as the Supreme Court may allow greater latitude for state laws restricting abortion, state legislators have passed statutes not only keeping abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy but opening the door to infanticide. Additionally, abortion contaminates many other important issues by being inserted into legislation regarding immigration, care for the poor, and health care reform.

  At our border, many arriving families endure separation, inhumane treatment, and lack of due process, while those fleeing persecution and violence face heightened barriers to seeking refuge and asylum. Within our borders, Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and mixed-status and undocumented families face continued fear and anxiety as political solutions fail to materialize. Lawmakers’ inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform which acknowledges the family as the basic unit of society has contributed to the deterioration of conditions at the border. As we seek solutions, we must ensure that we receive refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants in light of the teachings of Christ and the Church while assuring the security of our citizens.

  The wound of racism continues to fester; the bishops of the United States drew attention to this important topic in the recent pastoral letter, Open Wide Our Hearts. Religious freedom problems continue to intensify abroad and in the United States have moved beyond the federal to state and local levels. As international conflicts proliferate, addressing poverty and building global peace remain pressing concerns, as does the need to assist persons and families in our own country who continue to struggle to make ends meet. We must work to address gun violence, xenophobia, capital punishment, and other issues that affect human life and dignity. It is also essential to affirm the nature of the human person as male and female, to protect the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, and to uphold the rights of children in that regard. Finally, we must urgently find ways to care better for God’s creation, especially those most impacted by climate change—the poor—and protect our common home. We must resist the throw-away culture and seek integral development for all.

  With these and other serious challenges facing both the nation and the Church, we are called to walk with those who suffer and to work toward justice and healing.

  At all levels of society, we are aware of a great need for leadership that models love for righteousness (Wisdom 1:1) as well as the virtues of justice, prudence, courage, and temperance. Our commitment as people of faith to imitate Christ’s love and compassion should challenge us to serve as models of civil dialogue, especially in a context where discourse is eroding at all levels of society.  Where we live, work, and worship, we strive to understand before seeking to be understood, to treat with respect those with whom we disagree, to dismantle stereotypes, and to build productive conversation in place of vitriol.

  Catholics from every walk of life can bring their faith and our consistent moral framework to contribute to important work in our communities, nation, and world on an ongoing basis, not just during election season. In this coming year and beyond, we urge leaders and all Catholics to respond in prayer and action to the call to faithful citizenship. In doing so, we live out the call to holiness and work with Christ as he builds his kingdom of love.

Merciful Father,

Thank you for inviting each of us to join in your work

of building the kingdom of love, justice, and peace.

Draw us close to you in prayer

as we discern your call in our families and communities.

Send us forth to encounter all whom you love:

those not yet born, those in poverty, those in need of welcome.

Inspire us to respond to the call to faithful citizenship,

during election season and beyond.

Help us to imitate your charity and compassion

and to serve as models of loving dialogue.

Teach us to treat others with respect, even when we disagree,

and seek to share your love and mercy.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen

The Democratic party and Pro-Life

Just what is keeping the Democratic party from even trying to woo millions of pro-life voters, who hold to the principles of the past, where every human individual's life has valued and ought to be cared for? Is it the power that NARAL and Planned Parenthood have over you, like the power that the NRA has over the Republican party? Make any move that supports a policy that hints of being just a little pro-life; and they jump all over you, screaming of a woman's right to choose, limiting access to health care and shaming women. Why did you give them such power? Being cynical, I would say the promise of votes. So, you pander to the pro-choice supporters just as the Republicans do to pro-life. 

The words are all there, but really? Is it choice when the party does not PUBLICLY and STRONGLY
push for meaningful options for women who want to choose life but think that abortion is the only option? Is it caring for women when the party doesn't support legislation that regulates abortion clinics to the sanitary standards of other health facilities, or even places like hair salons? Is it shaming women to let them know as much as possible about the unique human individuals that are living inside of them before abortion and sparing them the consequences when  they realize they have ended a human life later? (Yes, women still do say that they were told that they are getting rid of a clump of cells. And, yes those pro-life facilities that do give women the knowledge of their fetus and other available choices are labeled as anti-choice.) Is the Democratic party saying in reality that women are too stupid to make their own choices when fully informed? (I have read how abortion counselors give out information with a bias towards how an abortion would be the best choice.)

The Democratic party is unrecognizable from the party that I knew as a teenager and young adult. That party fought for the civil rights and the dignity of ALL human individuals, regardless of the stage of life. That party held the promise of a better, greater nation, once we got out of the quagmire of the Vietnam war. 

That party is gone, but not forgotten by those of us who knew it then. That party is gone, but wished for by the millions of pro-lifers of all ages. 

The nation is changing, just as in the 1950's and 1960's when the civil rights movement challenged the party. The party moved to support civil rights and a lot of voters became and still are Republicans. The Democratic party was the better for it. 

In its continuing move to the radical pro-choice position, the voters who were in the party in the 1960's and 1970's, like me, also turned to the Republican party. But that was also a false hope. There are millions of pro-life voters who see neither party as an option for this nation.

 

Now, there are people of all types declaring to be pro-life. It is not only Democrats for the Life of America. It is not only Catholics; I am one. There are Pro-Life Muslims, Jewish Pro-life Foundation, National Black Pro-life Union. It is Secular Pro-life.  It is Feminists for Life. It is New Wave Feminists. It is Students for Life. It is Rehumanize International. 

The Democratic party is going to be left behind if it doesn't recognize that this is not the 1980's anymore, or the 1990's. If you do not support a candidate who can manage to bring the two sides together on common concerns for women, then the Democratic party will not be able to beat Trump in November. 

Your choice.

https://prolifewholelife.blogspot.com

Why Liberals Should Oppose Assisted Suicide

Michael Sean Winters, Oct. 28, 2015 Distinctly Catholic 
National Catholic Reporter  

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/why-liberals-should-oppose-assisted-suicide

Assisted suicide is now legal in five states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont. In the coming year, Connecticut, Maryland and New York will likely face the issue in their state legislatures. All but one of those states, Montana, is a blue state, and in the three states set to consider the issue, Democrats control both houses of the legislature in Maryland and Connecticut, and the governorships in Connecticut and New York. So, this political battle will largely be fought within the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Liberals certainly value personal autonomy. They also have been the core of the party which has evidenced a sense of social solidarity: Democrats created the New Deal and continue to defend it, they support union rights, they care about immigrants and how they are treated. On the issue of assisted suicide, these values, personal autonomy and social solidarity seem to conflict and, indeed, there are prominent Democrats who support it and prominent Democrats who oppose it. All Democrats and liberals should oppose it and here is why.

Whatever your thoughts on the issue per se, how Democrats conduct the debate on assisted suicide will have a clear impact on how our nation confronts one of the most consequential political struggles in the coming years: entitlement reform. Medicare and Social Security (and other entitlements) account for a large and increasing share of federal spending. These benefits go disproportionately to the elderly, who some of us believe have earned the right to live out their lives in dignity and consequently believe that the rest of us have an obligation to provide for our seniors. This issue, along with immigration reform, more than any others, requires a renegotiation of the social contract, the sense of what we as citizens owe to one another. (Assisted suicide is not only an issue about the elderly, but it is primarily about them and they are the focus of my concern here.)

It is obvious to me that if liberals spend the next twelve months in the important media markets of Washington, D.C. and New York talking about the importance and value of social solidarity in opposing assisted suicide, they will be well positioned to defend against efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare funding. If, on the other hand, those of us who care about entitlements celebrate personal autonomy, we play into the hands of those who wonder why they should be expected to pay their money in taxes to support people they do not know or do not care about.

Make no mistake about it: When the ideological libertarianism of the right on economic issues combines with the moneyed interests of those who will have to pay more taxes to keep Social Security and Medicare afloat, powerful political pressure will be brought to bear. It is easy to scare people about the rising costs of entitlements because the numbers are scary. It is easy to find someone who defrauded Medicare and make that person the poster child of an otherwise very effective system for providing health care. (I have never understood why people buy into this kind of attack, using one person’s fraud to demean an entire system. After all, in Watergate, we drove Nixon out of office, we did not cease holding presidential elections.) In the 1980s, Republicans regularly denounced “welfare queens” to attack social welfare programs, and stoke a bit of racial animus as well. Some such campaigns will likely be used to convince Americans that “we can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare, we have to make cuts, the laws of economics demand it, that we are depriving our children of their future, etc. Just because this is bunk doesn’t mean it won’t work.

This line of argument will have a harder time working if we on the left spend the next twelve months talking about the elderly in terms of solidarity and confronting assisted suicide because it is the opposite of solidarity. Solidarity with those who are suffering should speak to the liberal heart, shouldn’t it? And, it should speak to our brains too. Assisted suicide as public policy is a statement of failure, of social failure, not medical failure: Pain management has come a long, long way and those who are dying need not suffer pain and they can experience a death with dignity, surrounded by caring family and nurses. Vicki Kennedy, whose husband Sen. Ted Kennedy had died after a long illness, spoke to this in her important op-ed opposing assisted suicide in Massachusetts three years ago.  She wrote:

When my husband was first diagnosed with cancer, he was told that he had only two to four months to live, that he'd never go back to the U.S. Senate, that he should get his affairs in order, kiss his wife, love his family and get ready to die.

But that prognosis was wrong. Teddy lived 15 more productive months. During that time, he cast a key vote in the Senate that protected payments to doctors under Medicare; made a speech at the Democratic Convention; saw the candidate he supported elected president of the United States and even attended his inauguration; received an honorary degree; chaired confirmation hearings in the Senate; worked on the reform of health care; threw out the first pitch on opening day for the Red Sox; introduced the president when he signed the bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act; sailed his boat; and finished his memoir "True Compass," while also getting his affairs in order, kissing his wife, loving his family and preparing for the end of life.

Because that first dire prediction of life expectancy was wrong, I have 15 months of cherished memories — memories of family dinners and songfests with our children and grandchildren; memories of laughter and, yes, tears; memories of life that neither I nor my husband would have traded for anything in the world.

When the end finally did come — natural death with dignity — my husband was home, attended by his doctor, surrounded by family and our priest.
That is what death with dignity looks like. That is what health care, which Sen. Kennedy considered the cause of his life, looks like. That is what solidarity looks like.

Assisted suicide is promoted as a means to alleviate suffering, but that is not how it is actually practiced. All of us fear being in great pain at the end of our lives, but once this right is established, people who are not facing great pain avail themselves of it. This is not a slippery slope argument. There is clear evidence that the slope is slippery. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, the principal reasons for availing oneself of the “right-to-die” are: loss of autonomy (91.4%), decreased ability to engage in enjoyable activities (86.7%), loss of dignity (71.4%), loss of control of bodily functions (49.5%) and becoming a burden on others (40%).  Advocates of assisted suicide say they are in favor of “compassionate choices” but surely, there are more compassionate ways to help people cope with these anxieties than inviting them to kill themselves.

All of those items on the list are things people with disabilities confront and overcome, which is one reason the disability community is in the vanguard of opposition to assisted suicide laws. They understand that, yes, life is made more challenging because of their disabilities, but they are not expendable, they still have dignity. They understand, too, that a society that starts calculating what people can and can no longer contribute to society, that links human worth with other people’s determination of social utility, leads to inhumane judgments and expectations: If you are a burden, and you know it, why not dispose of yourself? On second thought, why shouldn’t society help you? Our country found its better angels when it passed the Americans with Disabilities Act that responded to the challenges people with disabilities face by trying to ameliorate the hurdles, not encouraging people to make themselves scarce.

Still undecided? When confronting a decision that involves competing values of personal autonomy and social solidarity, a pertinent question to ask is whether a given policy will impact the poor disproportionately. The rich can hire help so that they are not a burden, nurses to take of their physical needs, and the like, but the poor cannot. This should set off alarm bells in liberal minds. Among the reasons Gov. Jerry Brown should have vetoed the assisted suicide law in California is that the state’s Medicaid program does not cover palliative care, but it will cover assisted suicide. So much for choices! Advocates of assisted suicide argue that everyone is free to choose whether or not to seek the drugs that will take their life and this is true in a formal sense. But, formal freedom is not real freedom. The rich and poor alike are formally free to rummage in the dumpster for their dinner. Blacks were formally free to vote before the Voting Rights Act. Real freedom is something different.

I return to the issue of entitlement reform and pose a question to fellow liberals: Do you really trust President Obama and incoming Speaker Ryan not to find a compromise on entitlement reform that harms the poor and the elderly? I don’t. No one, absolutely no one, either man speaks with on a regular basis receives their actuarial statement from the Social Security Administration, looks at their estimated retirement benefit, and asks themselves if they will be able to live on that amount. They are wealthy and highly successful people. When they leave government service, they will likely make large fortunes in the private sector or go work at a think tank where the idolatry of the market convinced far too many that Simpson-Bowles was a good deal. I will support cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security only when the top marginal tax rate is back around 70% where it was in the Eisenhower years! Those were good years for the country, good years for the wealthy, good years for working people, but they were not years that produced the kind of Gilded Age economics we have today.

Social Security and Medicare exist so that the elderly will not be destitute. That is a low bar. We as a society, not our government, should do even more for our elderly. Our churches, our unions, our neighborhood watch groups, our schools, and most especially our families, should do more to keep our seniors involved in our lives. As Pope Francis never ceases reminding us, they hold the wisdom of years, which is a wisdom we could all use. Instead of seeing the elderly, and the entitlement programs that support them, as a burden, we should all find ways to celebrate their lives and keep them integrated into our own. We can start exercising this kind of social solidarity by opposing assisted suicide and reminding our seniors that they are not a burden, that they are needed and valued, that they have dignity and can never lose it. Here is an issue on which solidarity must trump personal autonomy or else we will all lose, and we might lose more than we first thought.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/why-liberals-should-oppose-assisted-suicide

Save the 1: Hard Cases Unite to Make a Difference! by Rebecca...

Thursday, June 5, 2014

 

Hard Cases Unite to Make a Difference! by Rebecca Kiessling

 

How would like to be labeled  “a hard case?”  What if your class of people were systematically targeted for extinction within legislation?  What if political candidates felt quite comfortable with stating their position that you and your kind aren’t worth protecting and better off dead?  What if your child was regularly stigmatized by our society?  That’s exactly what it’s like for those of us who were conceived in rape, mothers from rape, and those given a poor in utero diagnosis.  But being branded as a “hard case” becomes easier when we all begin to unite behind our unique kinship.  And that’s what Save The 1 has been doing – drawing together perhaps the most stigmatized and marginalized members of today’s society.   

May 2014 was a very big month for Save The 1.  On Saturday, May 3^rd, Mary Rathke and I both spoke at the 1^st Annual International Pro-Life Leaders Conference in Rome, Italy – sponsored by Lifesitenews -- sharing our stories of having been conceived in rape.  Mary was a double-exception because her birthmother was raped after having been diagnosed as schizophrenic.   Pro-Life leaders from around the world received our message well – vowing to fight abortion without exception and without compromise.

 The next day, Mary and I were introduced on stage at the Marcio Per La Vita – the Italian March For Life, which had an estimated 60,000 by the time we reached St. Peter’s Square, where the Pope came out and addressed us.  The theme of this year’s march was “Pro Vita Senza Compromesso,” which means “pro-life without compromise.”  During the march, thousands were chanting this theme!

 One woman – a nurse – came up to us and showed us a photo of a baby who was conceived in rape.  She explained that the pro-life activists at the hospital have been familiar with my story since it’s been translated into Italian, among many other languages.  So any time they have a patient who is pregnant by rape, they share my story on my website with the pregnant rape victim.  This nurse credited my story has having saved the baby in the photo.  What a wonderful example for every person with a difficult history to see how stepping out and sharing your story can make a difference across the ocean, for someone else who doesn’t even speak your language!

Upon returning from Rome, Mary Rathke spoke at Branch County Right to Life’s benefit dinner where she met a grandmother who shared that her grandchild was conceived in rape.  This grandmother was heartened to know that there are others who are paving the way for her grandchild to be loved and accepted in our society.  Several legislators and even judges shared with Mary how her story helps them to be able to articulate a defense of all human life.

 

On May 10^th, I spoke at a Mother’s Day brunch at Gateway Assembly in Imlay City, MI.  After the brunch, a 16 year old girl named Sarah came up to me to share her own difficult story.  She was conceived when her birthmother was sexually trafficked by her own parents.  Not only was she conceived during unconsensual prostitution, but her birthmother had become a drug addict.  Sarah is now writing out her story and is our newest member of Save The 1!  The next day at the church, another family approached me whose young adoptive daughter was also conceived in rape.  They too were thankful for a support system for their daughter and their family.

 A week later, on Saturday, May 17^th, Save The 1 had its 3^rd Pro-Life Speaker Training Conference, at the legislative offices of Right to Life of Michigan in Lansing, MI.  We had five adoptees who were all conceived in rape present – me, Mary Rathke, Travon Clifton, Sarah (these four are all from Michigan), and Darlene Pawlik from New Hampshire.  We also had one mother who had become pregnant from rape – Karyn Liechty, one post-abortive mother from rape whose abortion was forced upon her - Sheryl Williams, as well as Brad and Jesi Smith whose daughter Faith has Trisome 18.   In the morning, everyone had a chance to practice responding to impromptu questions often asked by reporters and during Q & A on college campuses, and in the afternoon, each member gave an 8-minute prepared speech.  We were blessed to have some family and friends there in support, as well as three of our friends from Right to Life of Michigan who helped with our critique – President Barb Listing, Ed Rivet and Genevieve Marnon.  As an additional treat, filmmaker Jim Hanon (End of the Spear) and his team were present  filming and we look forward to seeing the pieces he is putting together for Right to Life of Michigan in conjunction with Save The 1 members!

 After a wonderful day of camaraderie, we had our first official Board Meeting, having just filed our 501c3 application!  Thank you to the Thomas More Society for generously sponsoring our filing and to Sally Wagenmaker for your wisdom and representation.  I’m proud to announce our stellar Board – Darlene Pawlik, Mary Rathke, Jim Sable (conceived in rape adoptee from IL,) Nick D’Angelo (conceived in rape from NY,) Brad Smith, Dyanne Gonzales from NM, and me – thank you all for your confidence in electing me as President of Save The 1.  I’m eager to see what God is going to achieve through us all!

 Our next Save The 1 speaker training conference is Saturday, September 20^th in Akron, OH at the offices of Right to Life of North East Ohio, and our 5^th Save The 1 speaker training  will be held at the offices of Georgia Right to Life in Atlanta on Friday, October 10^th.  In 2015, we hope to have more conferences around the country, including in the Los Angeles area.

If you fall into one of the categories of “the hard cases” – those whom Jesus would call “the least of these,” we would love to connect with you!  You are not alone.  Connect with us on our Save The 1 Facebook page, and e-mail me.  We have a Save The 1 activism e-mail group, and there is also an e-mail support group for those who are struggling and/or who want to help others to know their incredible dignity and worth.

 

http://savethe1.blogspot.com/

 

Our Bodies, Our Consciences, By Kathryn Jean Lopez

February 4, 2013 12:00 A.M.

We are not alone. We can’t afford to pretend we are.

 

 

On the morning of the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade ruling, I felt a chill. And it wasn’t brought on by the appropriate bitterly cold weather that particular January morning. After Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, some 500 or so New Yorkers walked through the streets of midtown Manhattan, in front of God, man, and Grand Central Station, praying the Rosary. Our prayers were for life and love and mercy. Our prayers were not in judgment of others but that we may do better, that women and men may see better options than abortion, that the hurt may be healed, that God may forgive us for letting anyone think she is alone and has no choice but the death of her child.

 

The chill was brought on by the knowledge that some of the commuters streaming into Grand Central knew the pain of abortion all too well. By the certainty that someone, on her morning commute, was thinking that was her only option. By the sharing in a community’s pain and guilt and sorrow.

We tend to live our lives masked in a veil of the imperial self. We pretend that we live alone. But as alone as we might sometimes feel, we make decisions that affect others. We need one another.
We do realize this, on some level. We’re decades into a welfare state premised on the idea that the government is our safety net. But the government cannot be a brother. The government cannot be a mother and a father. Where love thrives is in a flourishing civil society. That is where we flourish. Where our dreams are. Where we get the support that allows us to believe they can be fulfilled.

Our problems today run so deep. Now is the time to take a few steps back. Not to turn back the clock. But to reflect. To talk about some of the most contentious issues now that we are past the frenzy of a presidential election campaign.

Our problems won’t all be solved through legislative action. And legislative action, while it may sometimes be crucial, can’t be maximized without a fuller context. Congress may vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but we can’t assume that the political message that vote sends will cause the culture to change — that people will suddenly remember the poisonous eugenics upon which that organization was founded, that we will celebrate and protect human dignity, live chastely, and see adoption as a brilliant and generous option. A congressional vote is not a magic wand. There are so many steps that need to precede and follow it.

In a new book, Fill These Hearts, author Christopher West works on helping us with the backstory of our lives, a starting point for changing the terms of our debates and untangling our confusions. “Consider,” he writes, “the idea that our bodies tell a story that reveals, as we learn how to read it, the very meaning of existence and the path to the ultimate satisfaction of our deepest desire.”

“To call God ‘Father’ with a sincere heart is to recognize him as the ultimate origin of every good gift and to rest in his benevolent providence, trusting unflinchingly — despite life’s many sorrows and sufferings — that God does indeed have a perfect plan for our satisfaction. To call God ‘Father’ is to believe wholeheartedly that, in due time, he will provide precisely that for which we ache.” West quotes Psalm 145: “You give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

West makes the point that our bodies and our souls are not separate things, and that our very physical design speaks to our creation and destination. “In the biblical understanding, there exists a profound unity between that which is physical and that which is spiritual. This means that our bodies are not mere shells in which our true ‘spiritual selves’ live. We are a profound unity of body and soul, matter and spirit. In a very real way, we are our bodies.”
West writes as a Christian, but perceiving a person as an integrated whole does not depend on being a Christian, or a believer of any sort. Nor does understanding that men and women are different and complementary, and that that is a good thing. However, we can no longer take for granted that everyone understands that, let alone accepts, embraces, even celebrates it. Not when our federal health-care policy treats a woman’s fertility as a disease, a condition that she is expected to medicate away in order to achieve freedom and equality. Not when we are sending women into combat.

The world-famous former mayor of New York Ed Koch, who died just last week, was good friends with John Cardinal O’Connor. In 1989 they collaborated on a book, His Eminence and Hizzoner, in which Mayor Koch wrote: “The future of our nation depends on our ability to inculcate a strong sense of morality in our young people. That moral sense should be based on philosophical, ethical and religious teachings, which are the underpinnings of conscience. The way to oppose abortion is by challenging the conscience of those who advocate it. If the battle cannot be won at the level of conscience, it cannot be won.”

But what is conscience? What is right and wrong, and who are we and why are we? If we do not agree that there are answers to these questions — even if we don’t agree on what those answers are — we will never have a constructive debate about abortion, whether in terms of policy or of culture. That is the foundational work we need to return to. No election campaign is ever going to be better without it. Our culture is never going to be renewed without it. No lives are going to be truly redeemed without it. We won’t start making sense again without it. The dark bitter cold of winter will be warmed by the renewal that comes with embracing life, living life lovingly, supporting life, letting someone know she is not alone.

— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. This column is available exclusively through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association. She is a director of Catholic Voices USA.