CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - Most people are appalled by the continuous slaughter of innocent children through the horrible scourge of abortion.  Abortion is a horrendous menace and tragedy, but it is the manifestation of an anti-child, contraceptive mentality.  Contraception is the gateway to the culture of death. 

In their revision of the Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities A Campaign in Support of Life, the United States Catholic Bishops speak of the connection between abortion and contraception when they write: "It is noteworthy that as acceptance and use of contraception have increased in our society, so have acceptance and use of abortion.

"Couples who unintentionally conceive a child while using contraception are far more likely to resort to abortion than others. Tragically, our society has fallen into a mentality that views children as a burden and invites many to consider abortion as a 'backup' to contraceptive failure. This is most obvious in efforts to promote as 'emergency contraception' drugs that really act as early abortifacients."
 
The practice of abortion is a socially destructive force.  This practice countenances the murder of innocent children and destroys the lives of the women who succumb to abortion.

Blessed Mother Teresa once said: "But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself." 

"And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

"How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts".

"By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion."

"Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. "

More than 53,908,072 children have been murdered through abortion since January 22, 1973.

If we can kill inside of the womb, what is to keep us from killing outside of the womb? If abortion does not shock us, nothing will. 

There is a direct connection between the civil rights movement and the pro-life movement.  Unborn babies have human rights which give rise to civil rights - because they are human persons. They have a right to the equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution. 

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

If laws are permitted to exist that do not give equal protection to all citizens, what will keep the worse kind of tyranny from trying to emerge in our country?
 
"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law.  When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.  As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2273).
 
It is important that we commemorate the life, legacy and struggle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Since the civil rights movement of the 1960's much has been accomplished in order to guarantee civil liberties for all Americans.  Unfortunately, there is still much to be done. 

Nevertheless, the noble desire for true civil rights for all will never bear fruit in ...