Violence and Discord at the Heart of the Most Intimate of Human Relationships

May we pray today (as always), on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, that the seed of violence and selfishness that has disrupted the magnificence and perfection and fulfillment of eros, be purged, foremost, from our hearts. May we hold sexual intimacy in holy awe and esteem the fruit of its union as our most valuable treasure, not as a commodity with which we have the right to dispose. May we pray for the women and men who are scared and confused for the life that they have created, that they may receive comfort, counsel and support, to raise their child to know the presence of love.
- Sarah

America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men.

It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.

And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.

Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.

Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14