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On Friday morning, June 24, when the decision came through at 10:10 a.m. that the United States Supreme Court had struck down Roe v. Wade, I didn’t know it happened.
Not because I wasn’t watching. Like many Americans, I spent the better part of my free time throughout the week obsessively refreshing the Court’s website and scrolling the SCOTUSblog Twitter feed.
I didn’t hear the news right away because I was on an airplane.
But as *soon* as we landed, everyone on the plane was talking about the decision. And there I was, wearing my Dominican habit, with my views on the issue for all to see, as if printed on my sacred vesture.
I heard audible gasps from a group of teenage women, clearly on a school trip of some kind. These woke acolytes - as was clear from their manner of dress, stickers, and conversation - were devastated to hear the ruling. As my phone was blowing up with celebratory texts, pro-life news notifications, and acclamations of praise and gratitude to Almighty God, I listened as I heard a teacher condescendingly assure these young women that the Court’s decision wouldn’t matter. He told them that in plenty of states, abortion would still be legal. And that Congress would certainly immediately author a bill to protect abortion.
And right there, still on the plane, after my moment of celebration, I found myself hit with emotions other than joy. The best this middle aged man had to offer these young women was the promise that it would remain possible for them to murder their unborn children if they so choose? The best we can do for women in crisis pregnancies is torture their bodies with an invasive and dangerous medical procedure and kill their children?
But God is so good. And his love had other plans.
In the court’s ruling I see God’s Providence everywhere at hand:
Our vocation, our calling
Which brings us to St. Paul’s words to the Galatians:
St. John Paul II, in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979), quotes Our Lord: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." The Pope explains Christ’s teaching saying,
The link between freedom and truth
There is no freedom without truth. Between freedom and truth, there is an inseparable link.
And what is the truth?
The truth is that it is always wrong to take an innocent human life. That women are more than sexual playthings and deserve more than the exploitation which wounds and constrains them. That happiness can't come from a career or eschewing responsibility. That every child deserves to be welcomed, cared for, and treasured.
Fighting for truth, living charity
We must fight for this truth. For every state. For every citizen.
John Paul II, who lived through the tyrannies of Nazism and the Soviet occupation of Poland, elsewhere warns us,
By announcing and defending the truth, we defend the foundation of freedom, temper the violence of passion, and resist manipulation by the media and foreign powers.
And we will use this freedom to love; we will serve one another in love. We will love every mother in a crisis pregnancy. We will love families who struggle with disease and poverty, uncertain with difficult pregnancies or who face a daunting prenatal diagnosis. We will love every unborn child.
