Personal Witness: Dismantling
the Structure of AbortionA Word from Geoffrey Surtees
In his numerous writings, Pope John Paul II has described what he calls "the structures of sin." As the Catechism puts it, the structures of sin are "the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead victims to do evil in their turn." One grave personal sin which has grown into a formidable structure — a structure evident in the courts, legislatures, indeed, in the way people think — is abortion. Through the two-fold force of (i) personal choices and (ii) decisions of various institutions to secure this choice, the thought of altering, amending, let alone withdrawing, this so-called right seems far from achievable. In the most recent abortion decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court held that the right of a woman to abort her young was necessary to retain, if only because many women have come to depend on it as a alternative plan for failed contraception. The structure of abortion appears to be firmly in place.
Now that we have crossed the threshold of the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, much is being written about how to dismantle this apparently omnipotent structure: what legislation to enact, what litigation to employ, what educational material to be distributed. While all these strategies are crucial for the future of the pro-life mission (as they have been for the past 25 years), no significant ground will be made unless we begin with that most powerful and effective means of proclaiming the dignity of life available to all: personal witness. As John Paul II wrote in his encyclical letter, Redemptoris missio, "People today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories" (n. 14). Only through our personal choices and witness — formed by faith, hope, and charity — can we hope to establish, in opposition to the structure of abortion, a civilization of love.
Indeed, we who are called to proclaim the Gospel of Life should not leave the pro-life mission to "pro-life professionals" alone: pro-life attorneys, legislators, judges, activists, etc. Why? Because by virtue of our baptism in Christ, we are not only called to be apostles of salvation — proclaiming the "good news" to those in a society which has forgotten the Divine — but apostles of life — proclaiming the "good news" in a society which has forgotten the child. Only through the personal efforts of each one of us — working together and alone — can we hope, with the grace of God, to dismantle the towering structure of abortion.
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