I am Pro-Life

"I am Pro-Life. I believe in the right to life from conception to natural death." It is a statement many people both Catholic and non Catholic use when they describe their views when it comes to life. It is one that I have used myself. My feeling is that it does not always go into detail. More so when people find out that I'm Catholic. Which of course adds fuel to the fire if they are pro-choice. Since they believe that the reason why I'm pro-life is because I'm blindly following the church with out any consideration for my own thoughts. Yes I fully support Catholic faith when it comes to issues of life. Their is no question on that. My out spoken nature on the issues can be the stuff of legends. However that is not the full reason as to why I am pro-life.

The way that I look at this is that all life is precious. That as a follower of Christ I have a moral obligation to defend that life. This isn't about church teaching at this point. This is my deeply held personal view. When it comes to abortion, as someone who has a disability, I am out right fearful that once parents find out their child might have a disability they will chose death instead of allowing that child to live a full and rather happy life. I see all unborn life as having a purpose. Let that child be allowed to live and seek out that purpose. For me one of the greatest crimes of humanity is robbing an unborn child the right to life.

My views go much deeper than that though. I am also against capital punishment. I find the practice is extremely barbaric and not needed in this modern society. I would rather have a criminal serve out a life sentence than to be put to death by the state. Also I'm not fully sure that we can ever tell if someone is 100% guilty of a crime. Even now their has been some question of innocent people being put to death for crimes they may not have committed.

Euthanasia is a much more difficult subject. Personally I believe in dying with dignity. I believe that if we chose to end our own lives or to have someone help us. That doing so is a slap in the face to Christ who gave his life so that we might live.

But I think that it is more than that. I find that as someone who has a deep respect for life that I have a much greater sense of compassion to the suffering of others. That I understand that life is important and not so quick to seek it's destruction. We already live in a violent society. Played out every day. It seems that we find more justification to destroy life than find creative reasons to save it. When as a follower of Christ, when we chose support that pro-death movement directly or indirectly, we have turned our back to Christ. We fail to show compassion to others in their time of need. But also we have failed to show God's mercy.

Above all else. I made a decision that I will defend life in all of it's stages. From conception to natural death.

-JM