By Judie Brown
Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae Vitae that “children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents’ welfare.”
Expanding on this remarkable pro-life, pro-family insight, Professor Janet Smith asks that if Christians believe they’re raising souls to live in eternity with God, “why wouldn’t they want to have a lot of children?”
Indeed! This is the cornerstone of all that we as pro-life people believe. This is why we fight so hard to stop the brutal killing of preborn babies by abortion, no matter how that act occurs.
At the same time, it is a sobering reminder of how wily the enemy is when posing the question centering around the personhood of the preborn child. For example, the infamous pro-culture of death Washington Post recently published an article focused on Mother’s Day and the alleged need for “assisted reproduction.” Please note that the Post was not celebrating Mother’s Day but simply using that date to propagandize readers. The Post opines that infertile couples should have free access to various forms of man-made practices such as in vitro fertilization. Further, it proclaims that any proposal that might recognize human personhood for every preborn child is a danger to the reproductive technology industry. The Post does not like the idea of legally protecting the preborn as persons, but its stealth in tying human personhood to their defense of artificial methods of creating a child in a petri dish or otherwise does not fool everyone.
You see, the Post, like so many fake news outlets these days, is not committed to helping couples plan families. It does not want to be perceived as advocating for the preborn because then its obvious devotion to aborting babies would be called into question.
Let’s be clear: In vitro fertilization and its progeny are not really safe for the preborn or their moms. Not only that, but those human embryonic children whom nobody wants can wind up dying for the sake of science or may even be flushed down a sink. IVF is a ghoulish practice, and while we are certain Pope Paul VI could not have foreseen this evil, we are positive he would have opposed it.
Saint John Paul II told the Pontifical Academy for Life during a meeting I attended that IVF is “a technology that wants to substitute true paternity and maternity and therefore that does harm to the dignity of parents and children alike.”
Indeed. And though this point is rarely discussed because of today’s apparent disdain for the nuclear family, such ignorance does not change the truth of it! As John Paul II said, “May the community of the faithful itself strive to support authentic research channels and, when making decisions, resist technological possibilities that replace true parenthood and is therefore harmful to the dignity of both parents and children.”
To that we say amen and we call attention to such authentic research channels as the work done by the Pope Paul VI Institute—work that the pro-death community will never mention in public or otherwise.
While there may be some who would argue that the struggle to expose the dangers and evils of artificial procreation, contraception, and abortion are futile, we would remind them of our opening quote about leading souls to Christ, taken from the wisdom of Professor Janet Smith: “Why wouldn’t [Christians] want to have a lot of children?’”
Yes, and by the same token, why do we as a society appear to place the same value on killing preborn babies as we do on bearing children? Are we really that selfish? Are we really that inhumane?
The supreme gift of children is not a cute phrase; it is a truth that our nation needs to embrace, affirm, and propagate. After all, raising souls for Christ is a goal that is beyond politics, rhetoric, and media gobbledygook.
As pro-life people, let us celebrate in every way possible the truth that children are the supreme gift of a Creator who loves each and every one of us more than we can ever imagine.
