Arlington Bishop Decries Overturning of Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 6/9/05)

Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde responded to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision on June 3, 2005, to strike down a Virginia law banning partial-birth abortion in the following statement:

“Citing the need to protect ‘personal liberty,’ a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a ban on partial-birth abortion passed in 2003 by the Virginia General Assembly. Sadly, this decision accentuates a frequently encountered chasm between two radically different views of human freedom. While some consider liberty to be nothing more than unbridled personal autonomy, we as Catholics — joined as well by persons of goodwill and of other religious traditions — have a different understanding: genuine freedom is always rooted in and ordered to the good of the human person, created in the image and likeness of a loving God who endows every individual, no matter how young or how small, with an inherent dignity and fundamental right to life. As members of the one human family, we too are called to love as God loves. Loving our neighbors who have not yet been born means affirming their dignity and protecting their rights.

From the vantage point of jurisprudence rooted in objective moral principles, it is also abundantly clear that wrongly decided cases, such as Roe v. Wade, often spawn more wrongly decided cases, such as the present matter. Just as one wrong turn can lead a driver to stray completely from his original path, Roe and its progeny show how a bad decision begets more bad decisions.

The unspeakably gruesome procedure of partial-birth abortion has taken the lives of innocent children — just inches from birth and full protection by the law — unable to speak in their own defense. I ask Catholics and all people of goodwill to continue pursuing a ban to this procedure and a restoration of legal protection to all unborn children, and I ask your prayers for all those who work to promote a culture of life in our Commonwealth and our nation.”

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