How many people who call themselves pro-life have limited themselves to just one or two children? How many use some form of contraception? How many pro-lifers visit the sick or those in hospitals? How many know what the inside of a nursing home looks like? How many pro-lifers sought vengeance after the World Trade Center fell and how many support capital punishment?
There is more to being pro-life than just being against abortion. Being against abortion is a good thing. Conception is when life begins and needs to be protected from that point forward. Conception is not where pro-life begins however. Pro-life begins by recognizing the dignity in all people. All people have dignity because each and every person has been created in the image and likeness of God. Dignity is like God's fingerprint on the soul. Pro-life continues by being open to life as God sees fit to provide it. Many pro-lifers are only willing to be pro-life when it is on their terms.
When most people hear the term pro-life they automatically associate it with those who protest abortions. Life runs from conception to natural death. True pro-lifers support all life. Womb to tomb. The elderly living in a nursing home are just as important and just as much a life as an unborn baby. We often forget about those at that end of the spectrum. Nursing homes and care centers are full of people who were left there to die. They go on basically forgotten. Many never receive a visitor outside of their care givers.
To be truly pro-life also means to love and care for those who hate you. They are still created in the image and likeness of God and they all have the same dignity as we do. We are called to love, not hate, our enemy. To love means to will the best for someone. Jesus loved his scourgers even as they flayed his flesh with their whips. If Jesus could do that we surely can love those who wish us dead.
Being pro-life means to hold all life sacred, not just life that is dear to us. Being pro-life means to see the sacred in even the worst among us. Can you see the dignity in the serial killer on death row? Can you love him enough to pray for his soul and not rejoice when they execute him? If that serial killer murdered someone close to you are you pro-life enough to forgive him? That is what Jesus asks us to do.
My heart is full because the tomb is empty.
