President's Message: Finding life's value

The newspaper editorial headline screamed: "Where is the value of life?" As I read further, I found that the editorial was not about the destruction of life through abortion or assisted suicide. But it is a question that I repeat too often. "Where is the value of human life?"

It seems like every day there is a new assault on what we value: the cloning of human beings for body parts or the use of spare embryonic humans for research purposes. But through all of these attacks on life, we are called to be faithful and persevere in defending the intrinsic value of all human life.

A few weeks ago I sat in the gallery of the Michigan State Senate and watched the debate over H.B. 4655, a measure to try to separate abortion funding from family planning funds. Presently Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, receives federal and state tax dollars for family planning services. Now with the passage into law of H.B.4655, future state family planning funds will go first to those organizations that do not perform or promote abortion. Of course, Planned Parenthood was lobbying voraciously against the bill because it has the potential of denying them millions of tax dollars.

As the debate continued on the floor, one Republican Senator chided prolife Senators saying that Roe v.Wade is the law of the land so just give up, get use to it, and move on. He then went on to praise Planned Parenthood and their founder Margaret Sanger.

His remarks were countered by a fellow Republican, Senator Joel Gougeon, who so admirably defended our position. Senator Gougeon, in part, said,

"The issue that I want to deal with is why this bill and why do we keep having bills dealing with abortion and abortion rights. I want to present a few comments on the other side about why we keep fighting. ...but I will tell you that this side values human life. That is why we keep doing it. One side says that an unborn human being is simply a piece of meat to be dispensed at the will of the mother and the doctor attending her. The other side says that it's a human being from the time of conception. We value human life from the time of conception. That's why we keep fighting.

We'll go on, and I will tell you now—there will be many of us who will continue the fight today, tomorrow and forever. This fight will never be done as long as this nation and state is divided on the issue of valuing human life."

Our prolife movement has been fortunate to have many valiant men and women state legislators speaking out and voting for life. But many of these prolife lawmakers, including Senator Gougeon, are now being forced to leave the legislature due to term limits.

Our experienced prolife legislators will be greatly missed. We must work hard during this election cyle, first this August 6th primary and then the November 5th general, to replace them with women and men who will stand strong for life. It is our duty and privilege to cast our informed votes in these important elections. Through the endorsement ballots included in this issue of the RLM News and additional mailings and phone calls, we will be notifying our supporters of those candidates who will not waiver in their stance against abortion.

It will take all of us working together to elect public officials who will represent our values. As Mother Teresa said,

"We must remember that God has no other hands but ours, no other feet but ours, no other mouth but ours. Therefore, God is still going to work miracles of love, miracles of freedom and liberation through people like you and me."

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