By Judie Brown
Some years ago when American Life League was in its infancy, we came upon a concept devoted to explaining our work. We used the example of a wheel, describing the spokes in that wheel as the many different activities that comprised our movement. We noted the pregnancy care effort, the lobbying effort, the political action committee effort, the education programs, and the youth outreach.
Over the years, of course, the wheel acquired more spokes as the works of the pro-life movement continued to grow, but what we said at that time still applies today. Namely, if God Himself is not the hub of that wheel—the inspiration for whatever work we are doing—then the wheel will fall away, decaying for lack of grace.
This image came into stark focus when LifeNews published a report about Wendy Duffy, a British woman who sought assisted suicide because of the accidental death of her son. Duffy died last Saturday. As we pray for the repose of her soul, we understand that life hinges on personal emotions, the ebb and flow of conditions surrounding one’s existence, and an absence of genuine reliance on God, especially when life becomes hard to bear.
Duffy’s angst is really a symptom of the attitudes that lead our fellow human beings to kill their preborn children, to ask doctors to end the lives of physically challenged newborns, or to explain away the reasons why their elderly family members choose imposed death rather than allowing nature to take its course.
Such outcomes are not surprising in a culture that honors personal autonomy in preference to the will of God. One insightful writer explains, “Supporters of assisted suicide frequently play personal autonomy as their ethical trump card: ‘My death, my choice.’”
In such scenarios there is no place for humble surrender to God.
The spokes in that wheel are becoming more important today than ever before. In times past we would at least be given a hearing by major media, but as electronic varieties of communication have grown, the opportunity for fair debate, let alone public education, has become far less reliable.
And so we must devote ourselves to creating and delivering messages to people in ways that resonate among those who prefer ignorance to intellectual discovery. We hasten to suggest that for such people the option of blissful unawareness is a salve to their consciences as they choose dangerous behaviors. It has become socially acceptable to rely on contraception, abortion, and all the other deadly alternatives instead of adhering to the positive, pro-life wheel of commonsense basics. But when folks use good judgment tempered with humility before God, their choices suddenly become distasteful.
We pray that people realize that the loss of a “sense of sin” is eternally dangerous. Saint John Paul II wrote about this, teaching, “The loss of the sense of sin is thus a form or consequence of the denial of God: not only in the form of atheism but also in the form of secularism. If sin is the breaking off of one’s filial relationship to God in order to situate one’s life outside of obedience to him, then to sin is not merely to deny God. To sin is also to live as if he did not exist, to eliminate him from one’s daily life.”
These words summarize the reasons why we continue to reach others with truth, even when they scoff, sneer, or otherwise rebuke us. As we so often said to our foes back in the early days of pro-life work, “We are praying for you.”
Jeer as they might, we knew then what we know now! The Lord can soften even the hardest heart. And so we roll along, day after day, confident that the blessings of the Wheel of Life will bring many graces to one and all.