Reversing the trend

Often one hears it said that Europe is ageing and that, in our country too, the birth rate is declining. Few, however, ask themselves what the causes of this situation are. Is it out of place, for example, to think that one of these causes is abortion, which is now considered a normal method of birth control? The European Institute for Family Policies recently presented in Brussels its report on the practice of abortion. It has been estimated that in the last fifteen years, in the EU alone, 20 million children have not seen the light of day, and Italy, together with Great Britain, France and Romania forms part of the leading group of this massacre of the innocents. It’s a shocking figure: 20 million European citizens have been lost. And the pace is quickening: every 11 seconds – it has been calculated – an abortion takes place. In truth, to this figure we would also need to add the abortions practiced with chemical substances shortly after conception.In this scenario, encouraging signs are not lacking, such as the policies implemented here and there to support the family and those who decide to have children. Unfortunately, however, this commitment is not enough in itself. The penalization of abortion, its permission by law, has corroded in depth the way that millions of people see life. Abortion has by now become part and parcel of our culture.Opposing abortion today means culturally dedicating ourselves to a pro-life attitude, because what’s needed is to recreate a conception of what life means. We need to begin, for example, by rejecting a shift in a school of thought that originated centuries ago. A current of thought – called nominalism – taught that good is good because it is contained in laws; evil is evil, because it is prohibited. In this sense, today, many have no problem with abortion, they are serene about it, because it is prescribed by the law. But that’s not true! Good and evil are, first of all, recognized by the reason of man, which is illuminated and sustained by faith. Only in this light can the value of conscientious objection be understood.Faced by a law that refuses to punish evil, or that authorizes man to commit it, man has an innate strength to react: his own conscience. Through it, he transcends the cultures, the visions of the moment; attains what is always and universally true; and, above all, recognizes the rights of the Creator. One of the greatest defenders of the dignity of the human conscience was Cardinal J. H. Newman; in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk, two centuries ago, he wrote words of extraordinary actuality in our time: “when men appeal to the rights of conscience, in no way do they intend the rights of the Creator, nor the duty that the creature owes to Him, both in thought and in action. They intend the right of thinking, speaking, writing and acting according to their own judgement and their own mood, without giving any thought to God”. In this case we are faced not by conscience, but – says Newman – by a counterfeit of it, which leads man to affirm the right to act just as he likes.Conscience, true conscience, seeks primarily the rights of the Creator; in this sense, conscience has duties and, only then, rights. So, conscientious objection to abortion assumes the value of testifying that life is not comprised among human rights: for life belongs to God. Wherever abortion is no longer perceived as a crime, the spread of atheism and materialism seems clear.Can one oppose all this? Time and time again improvements occur in places where a grassroots network of personal formation exists. And the Church still has many of these networks: for instance, the parishes and the movements. Proclamation, preaching, catechesis and dialogue are the means from which we need to start out in our defence of life. Then there are the papers and the means of communication of Christian inspiration, which play an indispensable role. It’s enough to think of the shameful silence with which other mass media condemn data such as those relating to the practice of abortion.There are so many good examples: those of the parents who welcome life in children and cherish it in the abandoned and the suffering; those who have a pro-life attitude, who defend life, even if it is not of “quality”. To such people scope needs to be given, because they have the ability to reverse the course of history. Even in Europe.