Chad Pecknold, associate professor, theology, published commentary in the Catholic Herald (UK) on the March for Life.
Those who organized the very first March for Life on January 22, 1974 – the one year anniversary of Roe v. Wade – never imagined that such an unjust law would still stand 45 years later. With the effectiveness of the Civil Rights marches fresh in their minds, it was reasonable to think that they could also successfully overturn, through democratic action, a legal judgment so clearly at odds with the justice that is owed to every human being, no matter how vulnerable or small. That optimism has stayed with the movement. We are always on the cusp of “turning this thing around.”
But the obstacles to this optimism have been substantial.
One of the first obstacles should have been evident in how the Court decided Roe v. Wade, 7-2, on “the right to privacy”. America has long had a great communitarian ethos, habits of association, the power of the neighbourhood, the front porch, the parish. But it has also long been marked by the cowboy myth of the rugged individual who does things his own way, often bending or ignoring the limits of the law for some personal code or preference. ...
Continue reading in the Catholic Herald.