By Frank Wessling
The American conflict over abortion has reached at least one conclusion 40 years after Roe v. Wade. We are, after all, a pro-life people — at least by inclination.
We remain conflicted about how far the law should reach, but we seem to have resolved at least one fierce battle: a clear, firm majority rejects the idea that abortion is just another medical procedure. The Messenger has frequently referred to this extreme position with the term “easy abortion.” The latest opinion polling shows that most Americans — around 60 percent — now definitely oppose it and a greater majority is inclined that way.
We do realize that abortion takes innocent life. We see that if this is a legalized “choice,” it is a dark choice.
After the Supreme Court handed down Roe in 1973 there was great pressure to read that decision in the most expansive way and to define its spirit in a mechanical rather than moral sense. Women, with the freedom to abort a pregnancy, were to be seen as liberated from the tyranny of forced birth; free to be as unaffected by sexual activity as men; free to “choose” the effect of sex, not have it imposed on them by anatomical difference.
To read the rest of this article, subscribe to The Catholic Messenger’s e-edition.
