Parish Coordinator
Mrs. Regina O'Reilly
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A new, very serious threat to human life has arisen:
The Freedom of Choice Act.
FOCA eliminates
regulations that protect women from unsafe abortion clinics
FOCA forces
taxpayers to fund abortions
FOCA requires
all states to allow "partial birth" and other late-term abortions
FOCA subjects
women to abortions by nonphysicians
FOCA violates
the conscience rights of nurses, doctors, and hospitals
FOCA strips
parents of their right to be involved in their minor daughters’ abortion decision
October is Respect Life month, when the U.S. Bishops call us to prayer and action. This year, your support is needed more than ever.
Abortion rights groups and their allies in Congress are promoting a radical bill called the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA). If this extreme measure is enacted, widely supported and constitutionally sound abortion regulations will be knocked down nationwide.
If passed into law, FOCA will impose upon the entire country an abortion regime far worse than anything brought on by Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. And the current level of 1.1 million abortions a year will go up, not down.
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard to contact the offices of your Representative and two Senators: 202.224.3121.
Urge them to oppose FOCA.
For more resources, see www.nchla.org.
Tell congress:
Please pledge now to oppose FOCA!
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ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA JOINS NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
IN OPPOSITION TO FREEDOM OF CHOICE ACT (FOCA)
Parishes of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have joined Catholics across the nation in a postcard campaign aimed at requesting that legislators oppose The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) should it be introduced in Congress by the new administration.
In conjunction with a national effort by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Catholics throughout the Archdiocese are being urged to send postcards to their two United States Senators, Arlen Specter (R) and Robert Casey (D) and their United States Representative. The postcards from constituents respectfully urge the legislators to "Please oppose FOCA, or any similar measure, and retain laws against federal funding and promotion of abortion."
In a September 2008 letter to Congress, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia and Chairman of the United States Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged all members of Congress "to pledge their opposition to FOCA and other legislation designed to promote abortion, so that we can begin a serious and sincere discussion on how to reduce the tragic incidence of abortion in our society."
The Freedom of Choice Act creates a "fundamental right" to abortion throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy. It would prevent any state or local government from denying or interfering with this "right," would eliminate conscience clause exemptions and would erase the need for parental consent in underage abortions. In addition, passage of FOCA would force tax-payer support for abortion. In short, FOCA would single-handedly overturn 35 years of pro-life laws and policies enacted by the people and their elected representatives. There have been intermittent efforts to pass the Freedom of Choice Act since 1989, but previous attempts were thwarted by widespread opposition. The current postcard campaign is slated for the weekend of January 24-25, 2009 in most parishes.
Cardinal Rigali has called on all Roman Catholics of the Archdiocese and the U.S. to become involved in opposition to FOCA by contacting their legislators during the USCCB postcard campaign. Postcards are available at all parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. "There is one thing absolutely everyone should be able to agree on," Cardinal Rigali wrote in his September 2008 letter to Congress. "We can't reduce abortions by promoting abortion…No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions."
Editor's Note: Anyone seeking to find their U.S. House and/or U.S. Senate representatives by zip code should go to www.congress.org. More information regarding FOCA also is available on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia web site at www.archphila.org and on the USCCB website at www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/FOCA/
Contact
Donna Farrell
Director of Communications
215-587-3747
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| "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
(Jeremiah 1:5)
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"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not... with regard to abortion and euthanasia." Pope Benedict XVI
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The Catholic Church is a Pro-Life Church
All persons, not just Catholics, can know from the scientific and medical evidence that what grows in a mother's womb is a new, distinct human being. All persons can understand that each human being -- without discrimination -- merits respect. At the very least, respecting human life excludes the deliberate and direct destruction of life -- and that is exactly what abortion is.
Catholics are also pro-life because our Christian tradition is pro-life. As Pope John Paul II says, Christians believe that "all human life is sacred, for it is created in the image and likeness of God." Aborting an unborn child destroys a unique creation which God has called specially into existence.
Christian teaching also obliges us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who spoke and acted strongly and compassionately in favor of the most despised and vulnerable persons in society. Jesus touched lepers, spoke with prostitutes, and showed special mercy and tenderness to the sick, the poor, and children. Our society today has many vulnerable persons --- including women in crisis pregnancies as well as unborn children whose lives may be legally ended at any time during pregnancy and for any reason. In the tradition of Jesus Christ, Catholics have a responsibility to speak and act in defense of these persons. This is part of our "preferential option" for the poor and powerless.
The Church's mission to defend human life applies over the entire course of life, from conception to natural death. And so the Catholic Church has been a strong supporter of the civil rights movement and a leader in international relief and development efforts. Catholic hospitals and other health-care facilities form the largest network of private, not-for-profit health care providers in the United States. Catholic Charities USA --- one of a number of Catholic charitable groups --- is currently the single largest provider of social services to all Americans, regardless of race, creed or national origin.
The Catholic Church strives to be a prophetic voice, speaking out to protest injustices and indignities against the human person. Catholics will continue in this work, whether our words are popular or unpopular.
Since its beginnings, Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of human life. Jesus Christ emphasized this in his teaching and ministry. Abortion was rejected in the earliest known Christian manual of discipline, the Didache.
Early Church fathers likewise condemned abortion as the killing of innocent human life. A third century Father of the Church, Tertullian, called it "accelerated homicide." Early Church councils considered it one of the most serious crimes. Even during periods when Aristotle's theory of "delayed ensoulment" led Church law to assign different penalties to earlier and later abortions, abortion at any stage was still considered a grave evil.
When biologists in the 19th century learned more about the process of conception, the Church altered its legal distinction between early and late abortions out of respect for reason and biology. Since that time, science has only further confirmed the humanity of the child growing in the womb. Official Church teaching insists, to the present day, that a just society protects life before as well as after birth.
The reasons are not difficult to understand. One official Church document on the subject puts it this way:
"The first right of the human person is his life . . . It does not belong to society, nor does it belong to public authority in any form to recognize this right for some and not for others; all discrimination is evil. . . Any discrimination based on the various stages of life is no more justified any other discrimination. . . . In reality, respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generation begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth."
Declaration on Procured Abortion, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1974), paragraphs 11-12.
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Quotes from Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters"
And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)
"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
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| Madonna of the Streets by Roberto Ferruzzi, 1897 |
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