WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - The great human rights movement of our age is the struggle to restore to the Civil and positive law of this Nation - and the rest of the nations - the legal recognition of the fundamental Human Right to Life.

Without recognizing this first Right, the Right to life, there can be no recognition of any other derivative rights. In fact, the entire infrastructure of human rights is placed at risk. All true Human Rights are goods of human persons. When there is no human person there can be no rights endowed upon them or exercised by them. All the "rights talk" in the world will not change that.

Every procured abortion is intrinsically immoral because it takes an innocent human life. It is always and everywhere wrong to take innocent human life. Medical science confirms what our conscience has always known; the child in the womb is one of us, our neighbor.

No positive law can change that fact. When they seek to do so they are unjust laws which are not law at all. The great civil rights movements of the past two centuries have depended upon the recognition of an objective truth; every human being, at at every age and stage, has human dignity and a right to life.

Civil Rights are those human rights which are first recognized - and then properly protected by - civil government. The American founders stood in the best trajectory of Western civilization in their insistence that human rights are not given or bestowed by government but by the God in whose Image we have all been created.

Truly just governments are instituted precisely to secure these human rights. The first among them is the Right to Life. The Right to Life is revealed by the Natural Law which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason.

There is no more urgent work in the contemporary culture than the work of the movement called "Pro-Life". That is precisely because the Right to Life movement is the foundational human and thus civil rights movement.

The egregious sin of the United States of America continues. We fail to hear the cry of our youngest neighbors in the first home of the whole human race, their mothers womb. When we allow their killing for any reason and by any means - and then actually call it a "right" - we profane the very word. We also place our future survival as a Nation at risk. 

When we allow their innocent blood to be shed and then protect the evil act with the Police Power of the State we betray our claim to being a civilized people. When we deny them the Freedom to be born we undermine the very understanding of ordered liberty upon which our Nation was founded.

Those engaged in the Pro-Life movement assert with the American founders that there are truths that are self evident - such as our equality before God - and rights which are inalienable - such as the Right to Life.

When we are victorious in this monumental struggle - and we will be victorious - there will be many heroes whose sacrifice and courage will be recounted in our history books. They will be celebrated by our children and grandchildren as Champions of Life who overcame the current culture of death, replacing it with a new Culture of life. 

When recognition of the fundamental Human Right to life is restored to the Civil and Positive law, these heroes will be remembered, honored and imitated. Right at the top of that list will be a Catholic Priest named Fr. Frank Pavone. He may be of small physical stature, like David of the Old Testament story, but he has a heart which is huge and the courage of a spiritual warrior.

Fr Frank Pavone has wielded his small smooth stones and sling mightily in the battle against the Goliath of the contemporary Culture of Death and that giant staggers as a result. He is one of my heroes and has been for decades. I also have the privilege of calling Fr Frank my friend. We have walked and worked together for several decades.

I recently spoke with Fr Frank about his efforts to ensure what I believe is the proper outcome of the upcoming elections in the United States. By proper outcome I mean electing men and women who recognize the fundamental human right to life and will do everything they can to restore that Right to our civil law.

I asked Fr Frank a few questions. His answers underscored why he is so effective in his work at the helm of the organization he founded, Priests for Life.  The first question I asked was "Fr. Frank, can you please help our readers and viewers put in perspective the importance of the upcoming elections".   

His answer, "We need to elect public servants who can tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public. If a politician can't respect the life of a little baby, how is he supposed to respect yours? Each of us has one vote, but we can each influence hundreds of ...