"The right to life is the first among human rights."

By Tom Quiner

My rhetoric can be biting on the subject of Life.
Readers of this blog know how important the Right to Life is to me. You know how utterly abhorrent and discriminatory I find human abortion.
By the same token, I take my lead from my Catholic faith in feeling compassion for the victims of human abortion, which includes the aborted person in the womb; her mother; and her father.
Taking a lead from my Church, I even feel compassion for the misguided souls who work for human abortion factories like Planned Parenthood. This Saturday, I will spend two hours praying in front of Planned Parenthood here in Des Moines.
[Like to join me? We’ll be at the clinic on Army Post Road from 9AM to 11AM.]
The prayers that will be unleashed by me and my band of pro lifers will be utterly devastating to the defenseless employees of that PP clinic. They are about to be overcome by the power of God’s love. Hearts will change. We don’t know when or how, but they will change.
Planned Parenthood clinics are closing at an accelerating pace around the country. The power of prayer is unstoppable. My group is praying as part of a national movement called 40 Days for Life.
I am thrilled by the strong, pro life message that has come from Pope Francis. Here is one of his most dramatic quotes, spoken as a Cardinal in 2005:

“‎Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you. No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school.”

Just last week, he encouraged Catholic doctors:

“Your being Catholic entails greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, in the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to contemporary culture, to help recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the tide, paying a personal price. The Lord counts on you to spread the ‘Gospel of life.’”

Do you pick up a theme with this man? Even if we’re “persecuted,” we are called to pay a “personal price” on behalf of the “Gospel of Life.”
And yet thanks to the media’s biased reporting of the Holy See’s interview last week, liberals are coming out with statements like the one above from NARAL.
On Saturday, I will have some folks hoist their middle finger toward me. They will be offset by ten times as many people who honk and yell “thank-you” out their windows.
On Saturday, I might hear a person or two scream “f*%k you.” They will be offset by the strangers who buy us coffee and donuts, and get out of their car with their families so their kids can get a close look at a public witness on behalf of a good and decent cause.
Any personal price we pay is nothing, nothing, nothing compared to the price being paid by the people for whom we pray, especially the human abortionsists and their co-workers.
For readers of this blog who support abortion rights, know that you, too, are in my prayers. I mean it. I pray for a change of your heart.
Pope Francis encourages us pro lifers to remember that …

… the right to life is the first among human rights. To abort a child is to kill someone who cannot defend himself.”

Amen.