Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

January 22, 2012

Last week we talked about how much fun it is to be a 10 year old. The first reading was the call of Samuel, how he heard the voice of God and responded. Today I would like to talk about 20 year olds and how exciting is to be 20 years old. I envy those going to college and all of the opportunity it gives. Some 20 year olds go to the military, some travel or move or get a job. They want to live, learn, love, see, travel, feel, and hear, find their niche and stand tall, and be fully alive.

There was a time when some 20 year olds were not considered human, they were slaves who were bought and sold. There was a time, if you were a woman, you could not vote. You had no voice. You were looked upon as a misbegotten male with less rights and position in society. Now it is unthinkable and illegal that anyone be held in slavery or that anyone, male or female, should not be allowed to vote.

But now let us go back 20 years and 9 months or less. We have a person every bit as eager to live and be free. With our medical scientific sophistication we know a great deal about this very young, yet unborn person. He or she has her own heartbeat, brainwaves, her own unique fingerprint and dna, she sleeps and wakes and sucks her thumb, feels pain and comfort. She yearns to live, learn, love, see, travel, feel, and hear, find her niche and stand tall, and be fully alive.

But because she is too young, and because of where she is (inside the womb), she is looked upon as not human. The medical criterion for a person being alive or not is having brainwaves and a heartbeat. If a doctor is trying to determine whether a person has died, he will listen for a heartbeat. Why doesn’t our courts use the same criterion?

Thirty-eight years ago this weekend the U. S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States. Since then it is estimated that over 50 million children have died from abortion in our country. And those of us who protest and oppose this atrocity are dismissed by the indignant and cynical as the conservative religious right. They say we are narrow minded, promoting single-issue politics.

The single-issue politics of abortion are not unlike that of women suffrage or that of slavery. The dispute was and is whether a certain person is fully human with all the rights and dignity afforded a human person. In our country, the land of the free, you do not qualify as being a human being if you are too young. You are still in the womb and live in a land of anarchy where there is no protection under the law.

In our community Planned Parenthood wave their scandalous banner across from the Shopko Mall. Under the guise of care and understanding they delve out death and devastation to those who have an unwanted pregnancy. When they do abortion referrals they go against the deepest, most fundamental instincts of a mother. In our community we also have extensive support for women in need of help. Catholic Social Services, Lutheran Social Service, and many more people and agencies are anxious to help. We will do anything for the nurturing, care, and protection of our children.

All we ask, all that we demand, is that our country has a consistent ethic. Even for an atheist, one who doesn’t even believe in God, it is reasonable that the child in the womb is every bit a human being as the child outside the womb. Medical science shows this in many dramatic ways.