Since October is Respect Life Month, here are some Biblical reminders about the preciousness of the gift of Life. In Psalm 139, the psalmist writes, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.” The Book of Job has the same perspective. It says, “Your hands shaped me and made me… Remember that you molded me like clay… you gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence you watched over my spirit.” (Job 10, 8-12) In the Second Book of Maccabees, this is how a mother talks about life in the womb: “I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part. It was the Creator of the world who made everyone and ordained the origin of all things.” (2 Maccabees 7, 22) The prophet Jeremiah was called by God to become His prophet while he was still in the womb of his mother: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1, 5)
It is supremely important to respect and protect all forms of human life from conception to natural death. We are called to work and pray vigorously to end “the culture of death.” Protecting all life is no more a sectarian creed than the Declaration of Independence is a sectarian document. Because all rights depend on life, the right to life is the most fundamental issue of all; if that is eliminated, the rest will follow. So, we are called to work to have the government enact anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, and anti-physician-assisted suicide laws; such things violate justice, and, therefore, the command of God to love one another.
”It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.” (Evangelium Vitae)
