Many Parts, One Body

I was really struck by the second reading for today's Mass. Particularly the following passage:

"the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable"

When threatened, we naturally protect the most vulnerable parts of our body. St. Paul seems to be telling us that in a similar way, God has designed the Body of Christ so that the weakest members should be offered the most protection.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Since this decision, there have been more than 47,317,840 surgical abortions peformed in the United States. Figure courtesy of Priests for Life. The Guttmacher Institute, which works closely with Planned Parenthood (now there's a misnomer) reports statistics that appear to be similar if not exactly the same. That number is so big it threatens to become meaningless. To break it down, that would be an average of more than 1,391,701 abortions a year-more than 158 an hour.

The tragedy of innocent life lost is terrible enough to consider, but we also must keep in mind the mothers, fathers, and families of these babies. I once heard it said that a woman chooses an abortion the same way a trapped fox chooses to chew off her foot. As a matter of fact, women who have had abortions will often say they thought they had no choice. Ministries to post-abortive women are increasing, and programs like Raechel's Vineyard and Silent No More are reaching out to offer healing for mothers (and fathers!) who lost their babies to abortion.

It is time for us, as a people, to consider the state of affairs when pregnant women so often feel their only recourse is to destroy their unborn child. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves and ask how we have participated in what John Paul the Great named the culture of death. Surely the innocent blood of these little ones cries out for vengeance.

May God bless and protect all the weakest members of His Body, and may He grant us His mercy.