How big was the March for Life? Here’s how one pro-life group came up with a massive total

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1. Most of us Catholics note with disapproval and so rightly correct Evanglicals when they call themselves Christians to distinguish themselves from Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Orthodox. They forget that by doing so they have misappropriated the term Christian which actually refers to a wider group reality beyond themselves and that we Catholics make up the Church that is in fact the original, genuine, and complete Christian Church having been founded by Jesus Christ himself. This analogy of what can be called misappropriation of term also reflects the reality of the use of the term Pro-Life by the movement when semantically it is at most simply Pro-Birth or Anti-Abortion by its adherents’ almost – not complete – exclusive fight and care for the unborn while forsaking the born who also face premature deaths from various forces of death, who precisely were the ones prioritized by Jesus himself in his life and ministry as can be read in for example Matthew 25:31-46, the socially excluded like: the poor, orphans, widows, homeless, hungry, immigrants, imprisoned, etc.. The movement should be properly called Pro-Birth and the march, Walk for Birth.

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   • Emphasizing the full range and depth of Catholic teaching about life is, of course, vital and necessary. But your approach here is unconvincing.

     When I was a Fundamentalist, I certainly thought many mainline Protestants and all Catholics were not true Christians. But as an Evangelical (in my early 20s), I recognized that was incorrect. Now, it could be that there are a significant number of pro-life folks (Catholic and otherwise) who give short shrift to the full scope of Christian teaching about caring for the poor, etc. My experience, however, is quite contrary to that. For example, my parents, who remain fundamentalists, have always been incredibly generous in helping out the poor, widows, etc. I see the same sort of generosity and charity among pro-life Catholics; in fact, they usually seem much more interested in walking the walk than talking the talk.

     But, the fact remains, protesting abortion and standing up for life, which begins at conception, is indeed pro-life. (To say it is merely pro-birth is something akin to Nestorius insisting that Mary is really only “Christokos” and not “Theotokos”, as if her part in the Incarnation was somehow lacking.) Yet “Gaudium et spes” flatly states:

     For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes. (GS, 51)

     And St. John Paul II’s great encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (pars 58-63) makes it clear that standing against abortion is to stand for life. For example

     Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an “unspeakable crime”

     But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. …

     Furthermore, what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo. Precisely for this reason, over and above all scientific debates and those philosophical affirmations to which the Magisterium has not expressly committed itself, the Church has always taught and continues to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as body and spirit… (EV, 58, 60)

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