Thanks, Mom, for Life

As a little girl, one of my earliest clear memories (I have a terrible memory and can't recall things nearly as vividly as my sister) is of making the corsages every Mother's Day with the local prolife ladies of the church. I believe the corsage proceeds went to MCCL (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life) which at the time was just one of thousands of grass roots groups dedicated relentlessly, selflessly and lovingly to the cause of the unborn.

Near as I can tell, many of the children and grandchildren of those women still assemble in the local church halls (I did myself again just a few years ago at St. Albert's Parish Center) neatly and handily wrapping green floral paper around little carnations, making sure to include a button with a message, and packing them up to be sold for a small fee to the moms attending mass the following day.

I'm not sure whether every year carried the exact same message but the one I remember and the one I am thinking about today is, "Thanks Mom, for Life".

The depth of the sorrow one must inevitably face when thinking of the millions and millions of babies who never were allowed the chance to utter those words is staggering. And heartbreaking. The gut wrenching agony one feels when trying to imagine the awful circumstances which would lead one girl, let alone millions, to allow a helpless baby to be broken into pieces and thrown away is nearly unbearable.

But the march for life continues in the face of this unspeakable tragedy. And the message has always been that we must speak for the unborn. And so we do. And so today, on the eve of the anniversary of a decision made in one of the lowest moments of the highest Court in our land, we speak for the unborn when we say to those who pray and work for an end to abortion, "Thanks Moms and Dads and Sons and Daughters for never forgetting our Lives".

"...but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here - our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."
-Mother Teresa, Nobel Lecture, 11 December, 1979

"I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life."
-Ronald Reagan, Simi Valley, California, November 4, 1991