Someone recently offered me a brochure with the title “Vote Pro Life.” I declined the offer. I’ve been a practicing Catholic for almost 70 years, and I know what that brochure said without even reading it. But it made me think about what “voting pro life” means to me.
I decided to consult Pope Leo and a whole host of Catholic bishops and priests throughout our country to answer that question. And I came up with this.
“Pro life” doesn’t mean sending armed, masked thugs into our streets to round up, rough up, and even kill innocent people (including children), then sending them to detention centers where they are given contaminated food to eat and forced to buy their own bottled water; live in unspeakably filthy, crowded conditions; and have limited (or no) access to bathroom facilities, showers, and health care—for months on end. Oh, and then maybe deporting them to some war-torn country where they have never lived and that they may be removed from almost immediately. To go where? Some back to the dangerous countries they originally fled.
To me, “pro life” does mean welcoming immigrants, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and providing for those in need—not cutting off their food and heating assistance, health insurance, and rent subsidies. It means lifting people up by providing them with a decent education at all levels, medicines that prevent diseases and allow them to live with chronic illnesses, and access to veterans benefits and social services such as mental health care. It means caring for our elders.
And it means telling the truth, protecting our environment, honoring the Constitution, following the rule of law, and not stealing from the American people.
I do plan on voting “pro life,” and I urge you to do that, too.
Barbara JatkolaJaffreyVote Your Conscience