As the Democratic National Convention (DNC) unfolded in Chicago, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers of St. Louis took an outrageous step in its relentless and demonic campaign to normalize the culture of death. By operating a mobile health clinic that offers free medication abortions, vasectomies and emergency contraception, Planned Parenthood was not merely engaged in insidious contempt for innocent human life but was revealing just how far our society has moved from the Christian moral norms that once held politicians of both major parties to a higher standard.
Once upon a time, the Democratic Party held to Bill Clinton’s mantra that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” This was a position that, while still unacceptable, at least acknowledged the moral gravity of taking an unborn life. It was a recognition that abortion, even under legal protection, should not be celebrated or its legal boundaries expanded but should be only a last resort. It suggested a shred of humility and humanity, recognizing the gravity of abortion.
A major shift at the DNC
But today, that stance has all but disappeared. During the DNC, we witnessed a radical shift toward abortion extremism, where the procedure is not just defended but actively promoted as a positive good. Now, any effort to place reasonable limits on it is met with ferocious opposition. Today, abortion is celebrated as a pillar of progressivism, a litmus test for political candidates and a rallying cry for activists.
This shift in the Democratic Party’s approach to abortion (echoed in less radical changes to the Republican Party’s platform this summer that took that platform farther from Catholic teaching and in Senator J.D. Vance’s recent remarks to Meet the Press opposing a national abortion ban) should alarm all people of goodwill, but especially Catholics. Our faith calls us to defend the dignity of all human life, from conception to natural death. We must speak out against injustices, particularly those perpetrated against the most vulnerable members of our society — unborn children.
The witness of the National Eucharistic Congress
This political embrace of the Culture of Death stands in stark contrast to the spirit of the National Eucharistic Congress, which recently gathered Catholics from across the nation for a time of catechesis, service and worship. While Planned Parenthood’s mobile clinic was preparing to terminate lives, the Eucharistic Congress was busy sustaining them — preparing meals for those in need in partnership with the Indianapolis-based Million Meal Movement. Congress participants packed 150,120 meals for those in need. The contrast could not be more profound: one event dedicated to the destruction of life under the guise of “choice,” and the other dedicated to the preservation and reverence of life in all of its stages.
These two major gatherings, and the events surrounding them, offer two different, irreconcilable visions of freedom.
The congress had its own auxiliary support: Instead of free abortions and vasectomies, 24-hour Eucharistic adoration was made available at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. The church, situated across the street from the Indiana Convention Center, where the National Eucharistic Congress was held, was open to all. St. John’s offered intimate moments of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the duration of the congress. While Planned Parenthood’s mobile clinic offered a tragic imitation of freedom in the form of sexual license, St. John’s offered true freedom: an encounter with the living Christ.
In Chicago, the mobile Planned Parenthood site was marked by an 18-foot-tall inflatable intrauterine device (IUD) called “Freeda Womb.” In Indianapolis, the square outside St. John the Evangelist boasted a 22-foot-tall sculpture depicting the crucifixion of Jesus titled “This is My Body.”
These two major gatherings, and the events surrounding them, offer two different, irreconcilable visions of freedom. Pope St. John Paul II cautioned in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae that “Freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth.” Society needs truth, the truth of who we are. We are made for the worship of God and for loving service. The purpose of our freedom is to fulfill those duties for the glory of the one who made us. Rejection of the truth will, as St. John Paul II points out, only lead to the mutual rejection of one another.
