NY Cardinal Dolan Assails ‘Toxic’ American Abortion Culture

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In a message for “Respect Life Month,” New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan has decried the state of U.S. culture where “the baby in the womb can be sucked out and left dead.”

“Am I wrong to wonder especially about the toxic effect that the unlimited abortion license has had on the Republic founded on self-evident truths, and the right to life?” Dolan asked.

“When what should be nature’s safest sanctuary, the mother’s womb, becomes the most perilous place for the most innocent and fragile life, should we be shocked when any life deemed ‘in the way’ is in hunting season?” he added.

The Cardinal’s message was meant to set the tone for October as Respect Life Month, but also comes in the midst of fierce political debate regarding the place of abortion in American society.

Political lines have been clearly drawn for the upcoming presidential elections, with the Democratic platform defending “unlimited abortion license,” while the Republican ticket has declared itself to be pro-life.

In Wednesday’s presidential debate, Hillary Clinton defended her vote against a “ban on late-term, partial-birth abortions” by saying that the government has no business “stepping in” to outlaw the brutal practice.

“I will defend Planned Parenthood,” Clinton said in Las Vegas. “I will defend Roe v. Wade, and I will defend women’s rights to make their own healthcare decisions. We’ve come too far to have that turned back now.”

Earlier this month, Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila told Catholics that life issues—and especially opposition to abortion—must take absolute precedence in deciding whom to vote for in November’s elections.

“Catholics in good conscience cannot support candidates who will advance abortion,” he wrote in the diocesan newspaper, The Denver Catholic.

In a point-by-point comparison between the two parties, Aquila said that the “most important” change to official party platforms this year has been the Democrats’ push to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which “prohibits federal taxpayer money from being used for abortion.”

The Democrats’ platform is “aggressively pro-abortion, not only in funding matters, but in the appointment of only those judges who will support abortion,” Aquila warned. They are even trying to repeal the Helms Amendment, which “prevents the U.S. from supporting abortion availability overseas,” he said.

On the other side of the aisle, “the Republican party platform is supportive of the Hyde Amendment and just this year strengthened its support for life by calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, banning dismemberment abortion and opposing assisted suicide,” he said.

In his message for Respect Life Month, Cardinal Dolan noted that Saint John Paul II constantly preached two essential values without which civilization cannot endure: “the dignity of the human person, and the sacredness of human life,” two values that are now under attack.

“If the baby in the womb can be sucked out and left dead, with health care workers coerced to perform the hideous procedure and all of us forced to pay for it…” he said, “well, then, human life is treated as rubbish, which can be eliminated to suit our preferences.”

The Cardinal said that “the sacredness of human life, from the instant of conception to the holy moment of natural passing” is “to be defended vigorously rather than diluted and then discarded.”

Noting with gratitude that the two principles of the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of human life are “at the foundation of our Republic,” the Cardinal urged “patriotic Catholic citizens” to be vigilant against all that threaten them and fully committed “to promote and defend them.”

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