A voice for the unborn

Richard A. Sokerka

“3,000 die.”

Seeing a headline like that glaring back at us would certainly grab our attention. Many of us would assume that such a great loss of human life was caused by a natural disaster, like an earthquake, or in some war-torn third world nation where a demented dictator’s lust for power and total disregard for the life of his fellow countrymen caused such a slaughter of innocent blood.

Think again.

This unbelievable statistic is the number of unborn children being legally aborted every day in the “civilized” United States of America.

That is why 45 years after the Supreme Court ruling that mandated legal abortion nationwide, hundreds of thousands of pro-life people will travel to Washington, D.C. tomorrow, Jan. 19 to participate in the annual March for Life and be that voice for the voiceless in the womb.

Under this year’s theme, “Love Saves Lives,” many pro-lifers will take time from occupational and daily responsibilities to tell our political leaders that they are a united voice for the unborn. Among them will be many of our fellow Catholics from the Diocese of Paterson, who will board busses in the dark of the early morning tomorrow to reach our national’s capital in time to take part in the March, which will end in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building.

There, they will here speakers like Pam Tebow, mother of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who was told when she was carrying him in her womb that her pregnancy was too high risk and she needed to abort her child, and Congressmen Chris Smith (R-NJ), a fellow New Jerseyan who has done more in Congress for human rights and the pro-life movement over the years than any other elected representative.

With strength in numbers tomorrow showing that the unborn do have a voice, it is our hope that our political leaders will finally realize that a strong majority of the American people believe that abortion is murder and that indifference to this moral evil in society will no longer be tolerated.