First… let us honor our veterans on this Veterans Day, without whom we would have nothing else to talk about here. Thank you to all my fellow veterans who served with me, and before and after me, in our common cause, so that our freedoms and liberties will not vanish from the earth.

At this writing, some of the 2022 mid-term election results are still not known days after voting was supposed to have ceased. However, it is now reported that some states had same day results while others are still looking for more votes to count. This has led to much concern about why there is a delay in counting votes, especially in states where key races are close and the rules for counting are controlled by the political party in power. Conversations circle around improprieties, election fraud, and ballot stuffing to get the desired results for the party controlling the election process in those venues. Since those in power control what we can know, it seems unlikely that we can ever be sure if we are having fair elections. We veterans, who served our country in order to preserve our freedoms as a beacon to the rest of the world, have a justifiable complaint, if anyone will hear it.

If those concerns are not enough, the shameless and deliberate use of false information and fear mongering once again characterized our election process. This was used somewhat successfully to confuse voters and distract them from important issues of immediate concern. Obscene amounts of money have been poured into such efforts instead of supporting debates to determine which ideas are best for the future of the country. Accordingly, we can also expect this to shape our future.

Returning to our theme of protecting life and human dignity, those who favor abortion enjoyed success in these recent elections based upon the proposition that (1) if women cannot get abortions on demand, then they will lose the right to vote and to have equal wages (for example), and (2) that women who experience a miscarriage can go to jail (as another example of a ludicrous tale that was sold to the public).

We have a serious problem in this country with lack of an education that would prepare the public to discern factual information and provide the ability to engage in critical thinking and decision making. Accordingly, we are quite confused and easily manipulated.

A good example is provided by people who voted for candidates in the same political party that promotes the policies that they totally reject. Another example, back on our main subject, is the confusion among Catholics over abortion. Catholics have led the way in objecting to abortion as a means for birth control, and have spear-headed the formation of pregnancy help centers across the country in the aftermath of Roe in 1973.

To demonstrate how even Catholics have become confused, a survey by Catholic network EWTN that was published in the National Catholic Register reports that 13% of Catholics said abortion should be permitted at any time during pregnancy, while 8% said abortion should never be permitted. Catholic teaching, of course, is that human life must be respected and nourished with preservation of dignity from its tiniest beginnings, throughout all its stages and conditions, until natural death.

The survey further reported that 46.2% agreed with Roe being overturned while 47.8% did not. At the same time, 86.5% favored some limits on abortion, with that number divided such that 26.8% said abortion should only be allowed in cases of rape, incest, and if the mother’s life is in danger, 19.8% objecting to abortion after 15 weeks, 13.1% saying abortion should be legal until week 24, and 9.9% would restrict abortion after detection of the heart beat (about 8 weeks on abdominal ultrasound and 6 weeks on vaginal ultrasound).

While demonstrating that Catholics poorly understand what abortion is, it also indicates clearly that they have no idea what the decision in Roe was. It is no wonder people are confused. The decision in Roe, of course, made abortion a legal procedure throughout all the states so that the people could no longer debate the issues and decide how to regulate abortion in their own communities according to their own values and beliefs.

In overturning Roe, SCOTUS stated that the 10th amendment to the constitution declared in simple and unequivocal terms that any issues not specifically allocated to congress should be debated by the people in the individual states who should elect the representatives who will make the laws to govern their communities. They wrote in detail that the “right to an abortion” that the court in1973 “found” in a clause declaring “the right to privacy” was at no time during debates over that amendment said or implied to have anything to do with abortion. No matter how one feels about abortion, the ruling in 1973 by judges appointed by liberal presidents who supported abortion was clearly “a decision looking for a justification.”

However, it is also clear that most people who have opinions on Roe at the same time have no clue at all about the actual rulings in Roe or Dobbs or what is actually written in the constitution.

It is anguishing to talk about a child conceived by rape or incest. These crimes are infuriating and the implications for the victims is heartbreaking. The perpetrator of these crimes should go to jail, but many people assert that the innocent child developing in the womb should get the death penalty. That is just another reason that those crimes are considered so heinous; one tragedy is compounded by another. It is a horrible situation to contemplate, but abortion is not a healing act for the victim. If anything, it just deepens the pain. Moreover, as I discuss in my book, those who have raised such children have a wholly different opinion on the worth of that child’s life.

It is also worth noting that the cases in which aborting a pregnancy is necessary to save the mother’s life are extremely rare. However, I did experience such a case. The mother had lupus and lapsed into a coma as a consequence of an extreme condition. She was in imminent peril of dying. Scanty data in such cases caused the rheumatologist to opine that the only chance she had for survival would be to abort the pregnancy. Then she could be given medicines that might save her but which would have killed the baby anyway; and, if she died, the baby would die also.

Most people also do not know that babies have survived at gestational age 15 weeks to grow into healthy children. Whereas, this is extremely uncommon (at this time), it should be clear that this is a growing human being whose life should be protected. Why would one want to kill the child at 6 or 12 or 13 or 14 weeks, but let it live at 15 weeks? Is this child not just as much a human being like ourselves, no matter how small? Therefore, we protect pregnant women from injury and restrict them from certain types of work and recreational activities to protect the life of the baby. Yet, we also make it legal for the mother to have the baby killed in the womb.

At age 24 weeks, the baby has more than a 50% chance of living outside the womb. Every possible measure will be taken to save the baby’s life. Yet, in some places the baby will be killed at this age as a matter of convenience for the mother. In some venues, it is now proposed to let an unwanted baby born at full term (40 weeks) be set aside to die from neglect, that is to starve to death or to allow to die from dehydration or infection.

Interestingly, there is a direct correlation between how often Catholics go to mass (from daily to weekly to monthly to yearly) and how they feel about abortion being completely illegal or simply a choice for the woman to make, sometimes with certain restrictions. However, Catholic priests typically do not actually address the subject of abortion during services and seem to care little about the importance of teaching about the precious gift of life and our duty to protect human life and preserve human dignity. Perhaps people listen to the message from their hearts and the teachings in the Bible.

For those who do believe in the sanctity of human life and the worthiness of the smallest and weakest of us, there is grave concern for what is proposed by some of our leaders in the highest positions of government. They want to codify the precepts of Roe by legislation, thus making the option for abortion on demand up to birth, and infanticide after giving birth, the law of the land, which the Supreme Court is pledged to uphold. Thus, there would be no more debate and no more voting on the issue.

The Supreme Court has ruled that we must debate the issues and elect our leaders. The battle over the issue of respect for life in all its stages and conditions in now in our communities. It is a battle to change the hearts and minds of the people. Education and science has brought us to this point after 50 years. Now, we must convince the people that the tiniest growing baby is a person, like us, small and developing, but a real human baby… a person entitled to life.