Tomorrow marks the 42nd anniversary of the controversial 1973 judgment Roe versus Wade in which the supreme court in the US legalised abortion, invalidating anti-abortion laws throughout the country. Prior to this ruling, abortion was prohibited in 30 states and only legal under certain circumstances (such as pregnancies resulting from rape or incest) in 20 states.
The ruling had a far-reaching impact and paved the way for the liberalisation of abortion resulting in the slaughter of unborn babies on a staggering scale. To date, the US is one of the few countries that permits abortion after the 20th week of gestation. In 2011 alone, over a million Americans were aborted.
Ironically, political parties that claim to be left wing and more sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged are more vigorously pro-abortion. On the other hand, conservative parties that cut back on social welfare tend to be pro-life. This ambivalent and confusing political mindset is mirrored, to a certain extent, in the EU as well.
As always, it is the poor and the disadvantaged who lose out most. Economic and social degradation leads to the increase of fatherless children. These, in turn, are often condemned to a poor education and a miserable future relieved by the recourse to promiscuity and drugs resulting in unwanted pregnancies and abortion.
In the US, abortion also impacts on racial minorities as it kills four times as many black babies and three times as many Hispanic babies as it kills white babies.
Martin Luther King once said: “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety. How can the ‘Dream’ survive if we murder the children?”
The tragedy of the Roe versus Wade judgment is all the more striking when one examines the life of the protagonist, Norma McCorvey, alias Jane Roe.
She had a most unfortunate background. Her father abandoned her when she was 13. Her mother was a violent alcoholic. She suffered sexual abuse as a child and was married at 16. Her husband maltreated her and she left him before she delivered her first child. By age 21 she was expecting her third child. She was then advised to have an abortion.
Her case led to the supreme court decision although her child was not aborted.
In 1994, she underwent a remarkable metamorphosis. She stopped working in an abortion clinic, converted to Christianity and regretted her pro-abortion stand. She has battled against abortion and has been a pro-life activist ever since.
Malta is repeatedly targeted because it is the only European country that outlaws abortion
Her dramatic life journey has similar salient stages with that of Bernard Nathanson who was a fanatical abortion crusader, presiding over 60,000 abortions.
He even aborted one of his own children. In his highly-moving book, The hand of God, he divulges with unbelievable candour and intimacy his life’s journey from being a callous materialist with a brutal attitude to the unborn to his conversion to the pro-life cause. His conversion was triggered by the breakthrough in ultrasound techniques that exposed the chilling cruelty involved in destroying a foetus.
His ruthless logic led him to a highly-charged examination of conscience and awareness, resulting in a spiritual journey from atheism to eventually believing in God and embracing Catholicism.
Over 40 years after the liberalisation of abortion, society is being made more and more aware of what is at stake. Scientific breakthroughs in ultrasound imaging have opened a window to the human being developing in the womb. Yet, the abortion mills still take the lives of millions of unborn children.
Thankfully, as yet, in Malta we still cherish life and this is reflected in our legislation and, more importantly, in a culture that is fashioned by our Christian heritage that recognise the sanctity of life throughout all its stages. Sadly, Malta is being targeted by France because we remain the only European country that outlaws abortion.
With these fears in mind, a new pro-life network has been set up recently as a registered NGO. Our mission includes the education and promotion of a pro-life and pro-family culture.
One hopes that pro-life advocacy will not just limit itself to abortion but strive to advocate and promote social and economic frameworks that favour sound families that have the means to welcome life and nurture it to its full potential.
This, after all, should be the vocation of leaders in the public sphere. The despicable expedient of eliminating the most vulnerable is not a worthy answer for a society that claims to be civilised.
In 1997, Jesse Jackson said: “It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system and our mindset with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.”
Klaus Vella Bardon is deputy chairman of Life Network.