I am breaking with my usual theme for this Special Christmas Edition from the Building a Culture of Life web site. Typically, I am reporting on current events in the cause of respect for life and individual dignity, especially for protection of the unborn, thus reporting on the struggle over unrestricted abortion, as well as commenting on the things we can do to provide everything a woman needs to have a healthy baby.

Before going on, however, I urge you to support a couple of my favorite activists as we close out the year with much competition for your resources. Please visit https://abortionsurvivors.org and become acquainted with their activities. Watch the video at https://www.webcastsuccess.com/survivors-event and your life will be changed. There is nothing more powerful that the attestation by an abortion survivor asserting “Look at me! Before I was born, I was a real person! My life matters!” Also visit https://lifefirst.org , see all that they do, and be amazed. It takes money to do all of these things, so please make a donation. No matter how insignificant it seems to you, it will be highly valued, blessed by God, and used well to change lives.

Now, on to the news. I am drawing on the National Catholic Register Dec 19–Jan 1 for this communication. If you do not yet subscribe, I do recommend that you do so NCR@sfsdayton.com .

Everyone must know by now that the Supreme Court has completed hearing arguments in the Dobbs case. If you have not read it yet, I refer you to my post dated Dec 5 which will appear below this one on the Current Events page. NCR has an article “Experts Say Roe’s Days Are Numbered.” They report that both pro-life and pro-abortion advocates believe that “the days of adhering to the framework laid out in 1973 Roe v Wade …are likely at an end.” I have commented on this previously and will only summarize a few facts below.

The Roe decision has baffled legal scholars for 50 years. The court (described as “liberal activists” by many) decided that sentence fragments in various constitutional amendments implied that a woman had a right to “privacy” and thus (with a giant leap in “logic”) she had a “right” to an abortion. They then set about to decide what a trimester system for pregnancy meant for development of a growing baby (that they denigrated to a lesser entity), and when fetal “viability” outside the womb occurred.

They even declared, in contradiction to what was accepted by doctors and taught in medical books around the world…that the life of a new person begins at the moment of conception, saying there was no such agreement, and that the court would not make such a decision for the purpose of deciding when a woman has a right to an abortion. They had to say that. Otherwise they would be deciding that abortion is murder. They also had to declare that an unborn baby is not a “person” under the constitution and thus not entitled to life.

It may well be that the constitution says nothing about when a growing baby becomes a person. In fact, the constitution says absolutely nothing about a developing baby or abortion. What the constitution does say, absolutely and irrefutably, in the simplest of terms, is that any matter not explicitly delegated to the United States by the constitution or forbidden to it in the constitution is delegated to the individual states. Period. SCOTUS totally ignored this 10th amendment in the Roe decision, making no comment on why this amendment should not be applied to the case.

Many legal scholars have said from the beginning that the court should never have heard the Roe case in the first place because the constitution de facto states clearly that the individual states have the right to make laws regulating abortion. The majority justices were clearly influenced to make the decision to expand abortion in the manner written, not because of the constitution, but because of their personal values and ideology while under extreme political pressure from like-minded political activists.

I have written a great deal more in my book Building a Culture of Life about the political climate that was developing over the previous 100 years, as well as what ensured over nearly 50 years after the Roe decision. Now, people are much better informed and communicate rapidly. The attitude toward abortion has shifted significantly as people have learned that a new life of a very real person begins at conception. They have also seen on ultrasound the images of babies, and they have then seen them being killed. Science has also solidly debunked the writings in the Roe decision.

In the current court, 4 justices (as required) voted to hear the Dobbs case, and 5 justices voted not to interfere with the right of Texas to enact the “fetal heartbeat law.” Pro-abortion activists heavily lobbied to keep the court from taking the Dobbs case, knowing how weak is the argument in support of Roe. Experts in law, based upon what we know about the sitting justices, believe that the court will completely revise Roe (essentially overturning it and Doe and Casey), bringing the science up to date, and returning the right to regulate abortion to the states, by a 5-4 or even a 6-3 decision.

It is expected that, while returning regulation of abortion to the individual states, that some reinforcement of the rights of women will also be forthcoming. The state has an interest in the rights and health of both the unborn child and the pregnant woman. It will be very interesting to read how the court threads that needle.

Moving on to other news (before the reader falls asleep trying to keep all this complexity in the head), the NCR also reminds us to keep Christ in Christmas, and declares “O Come Let Us Adore Him” while extolling the magnificent nativity exhibitions by the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Conn. We are also reminded that, after nearly 8 years of restoration of the ancient stone Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the task is nearly complete.

And, the “Church Awaits Canonization of India’s First Lay Martyr Saint.” Devasahayam was martyred in 1752 during Hindu persecution of Christians. He will be canonized May 15, 2022.

Sadly, not all news is positive. Catholic school officials are objecting to Biden’s proposed “Build Back Better” bill, saying that its provisions will force Catholic schools to pull out of preschool and child care. This is associated with an article titled “As Culture Continues to Unravel, Religious Freedom Becomes More Vital.” Mary Rice Hasson, head of the Catholic Women’s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington has co-authored (with her sister Theresa Fornan) a book entitled Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child From Public School Before It Is Too Late. They describe the “morally, intellectually and politically toxic environment found in many of our schools.”

The Supreme Court also heard arguments on December 8 in the case of Carson v Makin. A school-choice tuition assisted program in Maine discriminates against Catholic and other Christian parents. “Progressive” lobbyists heavily lobbied against the court hearing this case as well. “According to the Supreme Court, the First Amendment guards against excessive government entanglement with religion,” the NCR reports. The Maine law is so blatantly unconstitutional that the court is fully expected to end that practice.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has called for greater unity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In Athens, he addressed His Beatitude Ieronymos II, archbishop of Athens and All Greece, apologizing in most contrite terms “for the ways Catholics have contributed to division with Orthodox Christians.” When the Pope first arrived, an Orthodox cleric shouted at him, “Pope you are a heretic.” I have written extensively on this schism in my book “A Timeline Of the Journey of Humankind.” It is a frustrating story of things that did not have to be that way, and there is quite enough blame over hundreds of years to spread around to many involved individuals and factions.

Back to more hopeful news, there are a couple of long articles in NCR on the problem of unsafe water in Kenya. “Families struggling to survive” are turning to Catholic missions and donations from the US for help. Cross Catholic Outreach was founded nearly 20 years ago just for this purpose, to work with Catholic priests and religious sisters in such missions to help the poor.

And finally, how could it be Christmas without viewing the 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie was directed by Frank Capra, a Catholic who reached maturity saying, “My films must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other.”

That just about says it all. Merry Christmas !!