"Law & Order v. Roe v Wade"

Someone sent me a clip of the Oct. 23 episode of NBC's "Law & Order". I didn't see the episode when it aired but have viewed the clip. Like many people, I was surprised to see a show like Law and Order present the truth about an abortion procedure, especially because, as the person who sent it to me wrote, "Usually, the show promotes a woman's right to kill her unborn child".

You can view the clip by clicking on today's title and then scrolling down to the video on the site. Part of the script includes disturbing courtroom testimony about a born-alive baby who is killed. It is disturbing but true. This happens every day in the United States. One of the attorneys seems to have a change of heart with regards to the abortion issue (my guess is that this character represents the person or persons at NBC who have also had a change of heart).

The pro-life movement is often slammed for being too extreme about abortion by the modern culture. This is brought up in the show by the attorney who pits the two extremes against one another and then says that everyone else is in the middle. But, what happens to her in the show is what has happened to any of us who are adamantly opposed to direct abortion. What happens is that when we learn the truth about abortion, it makes us sick because it is so grotesque. We are affected greatly by what we learn. Children are so precious to us; we don't want anything bad to happen to them. We certainly do not want them to be aborted. We take up the cause to fight for their lives because they cannot fight for their own lives.

Tbe saying goes about abortion: "one dead, one wounded". Every abortion kills a baby and seriously wounds a mother. The mother is wounded physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The Church often picks up the pieces left behind by the abortion industry. These broken pieces are the shattered lives of mothers who have had abortions. The Church offers the most post-abortive care to women in the world. I and so many priests in Washington have helped women who have had abortions to find healing. Their healing can only come from Christ.

If you know of any women at GW who had an abortion, please send them to me. As I said in a homily recently, I will not get angry or judgmental or condemning. I will offer them mercy... the mercy of Christ. They have serious wounds that will last a lifetime unless they bring them now to the Divine Physician who is Christ. He can heal them.