WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – On January 22, 2010 millions will march on our Nation’s Capital and in Cities around the Nation. We mourn the United States Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973, Roe v Wade. The countless millions of children killed in the first home of the whole human race cry out for justice.

Those who march stand in solidarity with our youngest neighbors whose cry cannot be heard without our voice. Children are being intentionally killed by surgical strikes and chemical weapons in an undeclared war on the womb in the United States of America. The Pro-Life cause is the great human and civil rights struggle of our age.

In the “Gospel of Life” the Venerable John Paul II warned of what happens at the “…level of politics and government…” when “…the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people-even if it is the majority. … democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. The State is no longer the "common home" where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenseless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part”.

He stripped the veneer of feigned civility off the barbaric practice, “The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations”

He gave us the question which we must ask in the United States of America on January 22, 2010: "How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practiced: some individuals are held to be deserving of defense and others are denied that dignity?"

The Gospel story of the “Good Samaritan” came in response to a question posed to Jesus by a Lawyer: “There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-29)

During the Presidential campaign Barack Obama called us to become a Nation which recognizes our obligations to our “neighbors.” Throughout the campaign I did everything I could in my writings to try to get him to respond to the question posed by the lawyer in the Gospel passage “Who is My Neighbor?” (Luke 10: 25 – 37) I simply could not fathom how any candidate could call us to recognize our obligations in solidarity to one another as neighbors and fail to recognize that the baby in the first home of the whole human race is also our neighbor. Now he is our President and his failure to recognize the first right of our first neighbors is clear.

The perverse idea that “freedom” allows one who is bigger to reach in the sanctuary of the womb and take the life of a vulnerable and innocent child is now killing us as a Nation. We would never make the argument about killing a one year old child outside of the womb. Yet, there is no moral distinction. The time thresholds of “viability” forced upon us by the Roe and Doe decisions keep getting pushed back as our technology confirms the truth about our smallest neighbors.

Science has confirmed what our consciences have always known, abortion is morally wrong. We now reach within the womb and routinely operate upon them to save their lives. We prosecute the aggressor who, in the commission of another crime, kills them as well. We know the truth; abortion is the intentional killing of a human person. There is no other group of human persons whom we allow to be killed under the cover of “choice”.

Our Civil “law” simply rejects the Natural Law prohibition against intentional homicide. We make an exception for children in the womb. There is never a “need for abortion”. There is a need for helping the mother carrying the child during pregnancy and care for the child throughout life. The father also needs our help. The child also needs our help upon birth and throughout the continuum of life. However, there is no moral justification for taking innocent human life in the womb. Abortion is our greatest National shame and it is corrupting us from within.

On February 5, 2009, President Barack Obama spoke these words at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.: “But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.” Yet, that is what we do in every procured abortion. We then protect the perpetrator of the bloody, violent act with the Police Power of the State. Now, as is evident in the fight against good people like Congressman Bart Stupak who are trying to protect our youngest neighbors from being killed under health care reform legislation, we want tax dollars to fund the executions.

The parable of the “Good Samaritan” presents a litmus test for any Nation which boasts of having a concern for its neighbors. By relegating our youngest neighbors to the status of property to be disposed of in the United States of America we commit a continuing egregious evil. As we march and pray, remember our cause is just and we shall prevail. We are giving a voice to those who have none. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta reminded us they are the “poorest of the poor. In the words of the Psalmist, the Lord hears the cry of the poor.