By Daniel A. Drain • Posted September 27, 2024

Each year the Church in the United States celebrates October as Respect Life Month, and asks of the faithful a particular, concerted effort to pray for and work toward a culture of life.

For some, the frequent clarification offered by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that abortion remains the “preeminent priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters and destroys more than a million lives per year in our country alone” is a source of confusion, frustration, and even a cause for rebellion.

Why must abortion be at the top of the list, particularly in a country so rife with gun violence, opioid usage, political division, homelessness, and the like? Is it truly pro-life to fight against abortion first and foremost?

One voice to which we can turn for clarity is that of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the theologian who eventually became Pope Benedict XVI). His voice is well worth listening to during Respect Life Month, as he helps us to understand better why abortion is so central. The reason for abortion’s priority has everything to do with its unique and indelible connection to the nature of human freedom itself.

In article written in 1995 titled “Truth and Freedom,” Cardinal Ratzinger argues that to be a human being is to be “from, with, and for” others; each of us is from our parents (and ultimately, of course, from God); each of us is born into a community (our immediate family, our town, our culture, our species); each of us exists “for” or “toward” others (we cannot truly live without loving).

Considering the child in the womb, he sees “simply a very graphic description of the depiction of the essence of human freedom in general.” Children, he clarifies, offer an especially vivid indication of what is true for all of humanity.

To construe abortion as a “right” accorded to the freedom of another should give us pause: “Exactly what sort of freedom has even the right to annul another’s freedom as soon as it begins?” His answer goes as follows: “Freedom is tied to a measure, the measure of reality – to the truth. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy another is not freedom, but its demonic parody…. Freedom must measure itself by what I am, by what we are – otherwise it annuls itself.”

Baptized Catholics, we who are called “sons and daughters of God,” should understand ourselves as children of God in exactly the sense Cardinal Ratzinger described: from God, with God, for God. And this God knows us, loves us, and has given us his Son that we might dwell with him forever – the highest aim of our freedom.

The reason abortion is the preeminent issue of our time is because a culture that thinks abortion is a right to exercise when he or she wills is a culture that misunderstands what it is to be a human being in the first place.

While it is true that abortion is the preeminent moral issue of our time, this bespeaks a fundamental crisis at the level of our cultural understanding of what a human being is. Culturally speaking, we reject life, relation, difference, and responsibility. We reject being from, being with, and being for. We reject humanity: the prevalence of abortion is the clearest sign of this.

Many find abortion to be the only answer to their problems. They, too, are victims in need of our prayerful support and tireless action. Our culture is one where abortion is not just possible, not just thinkable, but convenient. We must work to make it unthinkable.

In the meantime, we give thanks to God for ministries like Project Rachel, retreat opportunities like Rachel’s Vineyard, and all of the numerous active pro-life groups, both volunteer and professional, that are in the territory of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

To best respect life, let’s pause for a moment to consider the original meaning of “respect.” From the Latin re-specere, meaning to “look back at” or to “regard,” to respect something indicates being able to truly see that thing: to allow it to be seen for what it is, to let it be, to safeguard it.

Perhaps now we can appreciate better the wisdom of naming abortion as the pre-eminent pro-life priority; it makes all other pro-life causes more intelligible, and more worthy of our efforts, by drawing us back to the notion that all life is a gift. We are all children willed into existence by our utterly gracious Father. This is why to be pro-life means to care for everyone and to labor to build a culture that does not have to pause to consider whether we ought to care for the hungry, the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the elderly, the oppressed, and all those whom Christ said that “you will always have with you” (Mk 14:7).

Respect Life Month asks that we stop and see life in order to better love it, live it, and protect it. It is good to be from another. It is good to depend upon and be with one another. And it is fundamentally good to live for others.

Our role is never to lose sight of this truth, and to live and die for it.

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Daniel A. Drain, Ph.D., is the Director of the Office for Life and Family for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He is a father and a theologian living and working to build up the faithful through his administration, teaching, and witness.