WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 16, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- Here is a statement released

  Wednesday by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' pro-life office,

  on abortion and court decisions in the United States:

  In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton

  ushered in legalized abortion on request nationwide. By denying protection

  to unborn children throughout pregnancy, these rulings dealt a devastating

  blow to the most fundamental human right -- the right to life.

  In its 1992 Casey decision the Court could not muster a majority for the

  view that Roe and Doe were rightly decided. Yet the controlling opinion

  insisted that even if these decisions were wrong, they must stand because

  Americans have now fashioned their way of life on the availability of abortion.

  No more damning indictment of the coarsening effects of Roe on our national

  character can be imagined. This ruling has helped to create an abortion

  culture:

  --in which many Americans turn to the destruction of innocent life as an

  answer to personal, social and economic problems;

  --which encourages many young men to feel no sense of responsibility to

  take care of the children they helped to create and no loyalty to their

  child's mother;

  --in which men who do feel responsibility for their children are left

  helpless to protect them;

  --whose casualties include not only the unborn but the countless thousands

  of women who have suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually from the

  deadly effects of abortion;

  --in which fathers, grandparents, siblings, indeed entire families suffer

  and are forever changed by the loss of a child.

  The principles of Roe and Doe have also been used to call into question the

  right to life of newborn children with disabilities and adults with serious

  illnesses. In 1997 the Court denied a constitutional "right" to assisted

  suicide, perhaps realizing that its legal reasoning on abortion must be

  reined in if it was not to exert a further corrosive effect on the

  protection of life after birth.

  However, any hope that the Court might reverse course on abortion itself

  was shattered this year. In Stenberg v. Carhart, a majority of five

  justices ruled that even the killing of a child mostly born alive is

  protected by what the Court called "the woman's right to choose."

  This decision has brought our legal system to the brink of endorsing

  infanticide. Already the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action

  League has used this decision's expansion of the logic of Roe to attack

  congressional efforts to reaffirm that a child completely born alive is a

  legal person. Such a policy, said this group, is "in direct conflict with

  Roe," which "clearly states that women have the right to choose prior to

  fetal viability." The euphemism of "the right to choose," routinely used to

  avoid mentioning abortion, is now being used to justify killing outside the

  womb.

  Ultimately this issue is not about "when life begins," or even exclusively

  about abortion. Modern medicine has brought us face-to-face with the

  continuum of human life from conception onwards, and the inescapable

  reality of human life in the womb. Yet our legal system, and thus our

  national culture, is being pressed to declare that human life has no

  inherent worth, that the value of human life can be assigned by the

  powerful and that the protection of the vulnerable is subject to the

  arbitrary choice of others. The lives of all who are marginalized by our

  society are endangered by such a trend.

  As religious leaders, we know that human life is our first gift from a

  loving Father and the condition for all other earthly goods. We know that

  no human government can legitimately deny the right to life or restrict it

  to certain classes of human beings. Therefore the Court's abortion

  decisions deserve only to be condemned, repudiated and ultimately reversed.

  As United States citizens, we deplore the fact that our nation is at risk

  of forgetting the promise made to generations yet unborn by our Declaration

  of Independence: that our nation would respect life as first among the

  inalienable rights bestowed on us by our Creator. To uphold that promise,

  the nation's founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred

  honor. We must do no less.

  We recommit ourselves to the long and difficult task of reversing the

  Supreme Court's abortion decisions -- Stenberg v. Carhart as well as Roe v.

  Wade itself, which laid the foundation for a right to take innocent life.

  We invite people of good will to explore with us all avenues for legal

  reform, including a constitutional amendment.

  Building a culture of life in our society will also require efforts

  reaching beyond legal reform. We rededicate our Church to education, public

  policy advocacy, pastoral care, and fervent prayer for the cause of human

  life, as articulated in our Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities. In so

  doing, we hope to help bring an end to the abortion culture in our society.

  In the words of Pope John Paul II, we hope and pray "that our time, marked

  by all too many signs of death, may at last witness the establishment of a

  new culture of life, the fruit of the culture of truth and of love" (The

  Gospel of Life, 77).

  ZE00111621