The lost generation

Friday will be the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court's radical decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. Since then, nearly 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States. They are America's lost generation.

For a startling juxtaposition: the entire Baby Boom Generation comprises 75 million people. Do you not find this haunting?

Such a dubious anniversary needs to be recognized for what it is - a modern-day slaughter of the innocents. Enter: the March for Life.

Three buses will depart from Danville carrying Catholic parishioners from Elysburg, Bloomsburg and Danville to Washington, D.C., where they will participate Friday in the annual March for Life.

Those who make the commitment have no way of knowing what type of inclement weather they may encounter in a month where the average temperature hovers in the 30s, an inauspicious time for a march if there ever was one. But they make the trip dressed layered like an onion and create a chorus of voices for those who can't and never will speak for themselves.

Science has finally come to terms with the Catholic theology that, yes, Barack, life does begin at conception. What no one can logically deny is that regardless of political ideology, all of us were there at one point in our lives. Since it has been proven that life begins at conception, it is then against natural law to deny its fulfillment.

What remains so revealing, yet completely ignored by those who proclaim to be "pro-choice" - a euphemistic legerdemain par excellence - is how the unborn, the most blameless and vulnerable among us, in a country that boasts equality and freedom for all, are afforded not a shred of dignity. Their inherent rights and citizenship are disregarded as non-existent. Where's the choice?

There seems to be a growing phenomenon that continues to manifest itself from sea to shining sea between common sense and how our pro-choice elected officials' reason, but such things can be rectified as early as November.

Why not put the issue to a national referendum?

I don't know who said it, but the character of a nation is determined by how we treat the least among us. How can you argue against that? Abortion is totally at odds, not only with the founding principles of the United States, but also with modern science.

The right to life is the first and most definitive of rights without which all other rights are non-existent. Are we going to be a people who choose life, or are we going to ignore our senses to the essential rights of those who cannot speak for themselves? Would you be as closed-lipped if they were hanging all first-born men over the age of 21? Such a paradigm may seem extreme, but what's the difference? After all, a life is a life.

Those whose eyes fall here who know in their heart and soul that abortion is the intentional murder of an innocent life are bound morally to work toward a pro-life culture. Polling suggests that more and more Americans oppose abortion. Equally important is the need for peaceful demonstrations like the March for Life.

It doesn't end there, however. Education is the key. A CNS story told of how young women who were preparing to abort largely changed their minds when they actually viewed an ultrasound image of the live child moving inside the womb. Perhaps if the nation could witness such a unique experience, things would change.

This is a story that you won't read in any mainstream paper, and that is shameful. For proof of how little coverage the march will receive this week, watch the national news programs and newspapers and see how it is virtually ignored.

This Friday, my wife and oldest daughter will be two of the numerous pro-life supporters on that trio of buses heading to Washington. Both will take a stand for life in a society that Pope John Paul II justly called "a culture of death." Just because you can't make the trip certainly does not exclude you from participating in other effective ways. Will you protect the sanctity of life by raising your voice for the least among us?

If one day justice is finally served and abortion outlawed, such a journey will grow as a distant, yet distinct memory for our daughter who will know that she marched for life in the cold, standing for a cause greater than herself.

Until that day arrives, the campaign for life marches on.

(Maresca, a local freelance writer, composes "Talking Points" for each Sunday edition.)

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