In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s Roe v. Wade decision knocked down laws against abortion in all 50 states, fabricating a constitutional \u201cright\u201d\u009d to abortion that continues to haunt and divide our society. Within two days of that decision, the Catholic bishops rejected it as \u201cbad morality, bad medicine and bad public policy.\u201d\u009d We called for a comprehensive response: exploring \u201cevery legal possibility\u201d\u009d for challenging the Court\u2019s tragic error and restoring legal safeguards for the right to life of the unborn child; helping to pass laws to \u201crestrict the practice of abortion as much as possible\u201d\u009d in the meantime; and educating society to the need to safeguard the child and support \u201cmore humane and morally acceptable solutions\u201d\u009d for women facing problems during pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Recently, some have called on the Church to abandon most of this effort. They say we should accept Roe as a permanent fixture of constitutional law, stop trying to restore recognition for the unborn child\u2019s human rights, and confine our public advocacy to efforts to \u201creduce abortions\u201d\u009d through improved economic and social support for women and families.<\/p>\n
[We have been very involved in manifold ways in seeking to provide such ministry and support]….<\/p>\n
These efforts, however, are not an adequate or complete response to the injustice of Roe v. Wade for several important reasons. First, the Court\u2019s decision in Roe denied an entire class of innocent human beings the most fundamental human right, the right to life. In fact, the act of killing these fellow human beings was transformed from a crime into a \u201cright,\u201d\u009d turning the structure of human rights on its head. Roe v. Wade is a clear case of an \u201cintrinsically unjust law\u201d\u009d we are morally obliged to oppose (see Evangelium vitae, nos. 71-73). Reversing it is not a mere political tactic, but a moral imperative for Catholics and others who respect human life.<\/p>\n