by Mary Claire Kendall

Created on: February 20, 2009   Last Updated: July 31, 2010

"The Silent Scream" www.silentscream.org, directed and produced by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, vividly shows, via ultrasound, an abortion in progress. It's shocking. The unborn baby cries in response to the pain the fatal procedure inflicts. Even the website warns, the film "graphically shows an abortion 11 weeks after conception and therefore should not be viewed by children."

This is the reality – a reality that has persuaded millions like Dr. Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, to conclude this violent procedure should be restricted. Once he realized the moral consequences of his actions, having played such a key role in the liberalization of America's abortion laws, he repented and converted to Catholicism.

Yet, millions more in our society, almost totally insulated from this reality, rationalize abortion, convincing themselves it is the only way to deal with a pregnancy that will impose too great a burden, economic or otherwise - forcing a woman to forego, or delay, the rise up the promising career ladder, or to give up some of life's comforts, or to triage some of life's necessities for a time.  Of course, poor women, such as the mother of Mike Oher, living in the Memphis projects, depicted in Oscar-winning film "The Blind Side," would seem perfect candidates for abortion.

The suffering caused by such life-altering circumstances is not to be dismissed. But, at the same time, it's helpful to consider the relative moral weight.  What's worse? A career that dips and/or may not rise quite as high as one hoped for; or a life, painfully cut short, that does not even have a chance to begin and take a baby step let alone a step up the corporate ladder (or out of the projects) - and will never enjoy life's simplest pleasures.

No one is arguing that, with the stroke of a pen, hearts and minds will change. As St. Thomas More noted, there are limits to the state's ability to influence private behavior.  And, attaining a "culture of life" is surely a matter of such change!

At the same time, allowing unlimited access to a procedure so gravely at odds with the basic parameters of justice (taking one life to enable another's life preferences to continue uninterrupted) and morality ("Thou shalt not kill") begs for a better "solution" than the one currently on the books, i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision overturning state abortion laws.

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