Abortion And Social Disintegration
By FR. MICHAEL P. ORSI
(Editor’s Note: This essay is based on a homily delivered by Fr. Orsi. It can be viewed online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=aLTZ0Erp2oY.)
- + + Over the past few months our country has been in a state of some turmoil. Any of several common expressions could describe this condition: “Society is beginning to fray.” “Things are coming apart at the seams.” “We’re on a downward spiral.”
Choose whichever one you like. They all speak to a social situation that’s increasingly disordered in a variety of ways.
For instance, we’re experiencing a rise in traffic accidents. At a time when fewer people have been driving, because of COVID, accidents are up 18 percent, with a 7 percent rise in deaths from those crashes. It appears that people are simply driving more recklessly or under the influence of “road rage.”
We hear about the growing numbers of drug overdoses, especially from the synthetic opioid painkiller, Fentanyl. The dangers of this drug have been widely exposed in the media. Its deadliness is well known and undisputed. Yet, people continue to take it, and die from it, more than 100,000 so far.
A huge, ongoing story is the breakdown of the family. Currently, one out of three children lives in a single-parent household, which usually means there’s no father present. This pattern varies throughout the population, but to a considerable extent it crosses all ethnic and economic lines.
Then there’s the crime rate, which has gone up exponentially. The latest criminal innovations include “flash-mob” shoplifting with sudden mass invasions of retail stores. Businesses have been forced to close because of it.
There’s even a resurgence in train robberies — which would conjure up the “Wild West,” except for the scale of this thievery. Shipping containers stacked on railroad flatcars are broken into, millions of dollars in products carted off.
The murder rate is up. A typical weekend in some large cities (Chicago, for instance) now includes dozens of shootings as a matter of course. Police officers are attacked and killed with increasing frequency.
What we see in all of this is a comprehensive disrespect for law, as well as a disregard for life. And I contend that there’s a direct connection to the Supreme Court’s tragically flawed 1973 decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. Once we made life cheap and expendable by allowing the murder of the unborn, we opened the way to all these social ills and many more.
We are currently awaiting a ruling from the Court in a new case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Oral arguments were given last December, and a ruling is expected sometime in June.
The claims of both parties have been much discussed, the comments and reactions of the justices closely scrutinized. Many people believe that, because of the Court’s present composition (which includes more justices who tend to read the Constitution in the way it was written, rather than how it is often imagined), Roe v. Wade will be overturned.
I am not convinced that it will be. The Supreme Court usually rules in ways that support what’s called “settled law.” Roe v. Wade is not “settled law.” It’s bad law. But the assumption that preserving the republic depends on following precedents has strong appeal within a certain realm of legal thinking.
I’ll be a little prophetic, and suggest that, if Roe v. Wade stands, this country will slide even more deeply into decadence than what we are currently experiencing, it will more thoroughly divide itself, and human life will become even cheaper. All of us — and our children and grandchildren — will be in danger of losing the dignity which God has given us.
The forty-ninth anniversary of Roe v. Wade was noted some days ago. Turnout at the March for Life that marked this sad anniversary was huge. And despite the media’s ongoing efforts to ignore it, the energy and dedication animating the Pro-Life Movement are undeniably impressive.
But it’s not enough.
I call upon all people of good conscience to pray for our Supreme Court justices. Pray that God gives them courage.
I’m not even asking that they be given wisdom. They’re smart enough to know what the Constitution states and what it doesn’t state. They’re smart enough to recognize the havoc, the degradation, the disunity which Roe v. Wade has caused.
Pray that our justices have the courage to do the right thing. Our well-being and the well-being of America depend upon it. - + + A priest of the Diocese of Camden, N.J., Fr. Michael P. Orsi currently serves as parochial vicar at St. Agnes Parish in Naples, Fla. He is host of Action for Life TV, a weekly cable television series devoted to pro-life issues, and his writings appear in numerous publications and online journals. His TV show episodes can be viewed online at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyFbaLqUwPi08aHtlIR9R0g