The dignity of the human person and the right to life

In the battle to win hearts and minds to the cause of life, it is sometimes necessary to speak in non-religious terms.  This is certainly possible and effective.

For example, medical science and biology can help us defend the lives of unborn children and argue persuasively for an end to abortion.

An unborn child is alive.

An unborn child is demonstrably human.

An unborn child is a unique human life with DNA that is distinct from each parent.

These are scientific facts. The unborn child does not have the potential to be a human life, the unborn child is already a human life. Fact.

Even if one argues that this life in the womb is not yet a person, one need not resort to religion to oppose this claim. After all, a lack of certainty about personhood should not lead to a callous sentence of death, but rather to the urgent preservation of the life.

We have too sordid a history of the powerful declaring the innocent weak as something less than human.

Proclaiming the Good News
At other times, what is needed is precisely the proclamation of the Gospel and trust in the Holy Spirit to convert heart and minds.

Consider this passage from Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

“The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he not created by God’s love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator” (GS 19.1 ). Continue reading

  • Deacon Michael Bickerstaff is the Editor in chief and co-founder of the The Integrated Catholic Life™.
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