Pro-life is as much about the end as the beginning

The death of Jimmy Carter, the approaching inauguration of Donald Trump, and the annual March for Life offer an opportunity to reflect on the pro-life movement’s past and future.

By now, it is clear that overturning of Roe v. Wade was not a terminable goal. The battle goes on, and it always will. The moment we believe a single political leader or party will definitively resolve the abortion issue and ensure that every human life is protected from conception to natural death is the moment we forget that the things of this world are mere “shadows of things to come” (Col. 2:17).

Yet a close consideration of the “things to come” may be precisely what we need to reinvigorate the pro-life movement from within. The movement has dedicated a lot of time and resources to educating the public about the beginning of human life and its marvelous development in the womb. But no less important is a consideration of the human being’s end if we are to fully comprehend the fundamental right to life. In other words, the “for which” of the human person is just as important as the “from which” when it comes to the dignity of human life.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of John Paul II’s encyclical letter Evangelism Vitae, which includes a marvelous section discussing the meaning of “eternal life.” In paragraph 37, Saint John Paul notes that Jesus “presents being born of God as a necessary condition if man is to attain the end for which God has created him.” Thus, the word “eternal” is not simply a temporal qualification of “life,” but designates “a full participation in the life of the ‘Eternal One’” (37). “Whoever believes in Jesus and enters into communion with him has eternal life (cf. Jn 3:15; 6:40) because he hears from Jesus the only words which reveal and communicate to his existence the fullness of life” (37, italics mine).

To violate a person’s right to life is to rob him of the blessed opportunity to hear the words of Jesus and thus come to a full understanding of his own life. Jesus, in fact, gives us the very definition of “eternal life”: namely, to know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (cf. Jn 17:3). In short, “to know God and his Son is to accept the mystery of the loving communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit into one’s own life, which even now is open to eternal life because it shares in the life of God” (EV, 37).

That means that the dignity of this present life is linked not only with its beginning, “to the fact that it comes from God,” but also to its end, “to its destiny of fellowship with God in knowledge and love of him” (38). “Life,” according to Saint Irenaeus, consists not only in bodily health and wellbeing in the present world, but “in the vision of God” (Adversus Haereses, IV, 20, 7; cf. EV 38). The bottom line is that “eternal life already springs forth” from and “begins to grow” in the present life. Life is the “‘place’ where God manifests himself, where we meet him and enter into communion with him” (38).

Although it is hard to articulate to the general public—apart from evangelization—just how the true end of human life consists in an eternal life to which we are called even now, we nonetheless understand what it means to live this eternal life from within. We fight for the life of every naturally and artificially conceived child precisely because, as baptized members of the Body of Christ, we know what it means to live eternal life now. Exterminating the biological life of a human being is horrendous enough, let alone thwarting him of the divine opportunity to hear the words of Christ and participate in “eternal life” already in this present life.

That is why ameliorating the effects of legalized abortion through band-aid solutions is not enough. The call to eternal life imparts an unqualified dignity to the human person that encompasses the context in which it is conceived (i.e., the family), the way it is conceived (i.e., sexual union), and the reason for which it is conceived (i.e., communion with the Eternal). Acknowledging the call to eternal life in its truest sense means fighting for all the conditions that both make life possible and accord with this eternal dignity.

On the eve of his presidential service, Jimmy Carter, who was personally opposed to abortion at that time, advocated governmental programs that he thought would help limit abortions—including “sex education/instruction” and “access to contraceptives.” But apart from the thicker matrix of eternal life, sex instruction and access to contraception only compound the problem: the former because, at least in public schools, it has been severed from its theological moorings (and therefore should be left to parents), and the latter because it severs the conjugal act from its proper end of generating lives oriented towards “eternal life.”

From the inside, our experience of eternal life compels us to fight not only for the protection of biological life, but for all the conditions conducive to and appropriate for “eternal life” as described by Saint John Paul II.

As for president-elect Trump, it is hard to say just where he stands. In the months leading up to the election, he seemed to indicate that he would vote in favor of Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment to repeal the six-week abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, but he then characterized it as “too harsh” and promised to vote against it. He has been equally vague about his views on a national ban on abortion.

Those of us who will gather in Washington, D.C. for the 52^nd annual March for Life represent a movement whose overall goal is much grander than the elimination of legalized abortion. Although we come from different religious and ethical backgrounds, the vast majority believes in some form of “eternal life,” by which I mean that we share a conviction that human destiny cannot be circumscribed to the present world.

Most of us believe that human dignity arises from some kind of participation in divine life, and that the tragedy of abortion goes far beyond the destruction of biological lives. As we in the pro-life movement look toward the future, we will greatly benefit from continued discussions on the end or telos of human existence and our noble call to eternal life, for whatever consensus can be found on that issue will only enliven our spirit and embolden us to never give up the fight for the right to life.