Welcome back to this still-new weekly look at life in America. If you don’t already receive this in your inbox, sign up here.
Have a Heart. It’s Life Month
Now that Target jumped the shark last year with a few too many Pride Month items for children (including trans-friendly swimsuits), the identity of the month may be in some flux. Traditionally among Catholics, June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A few years ago, Princeton’s Robert P. George came up with an idea for Fidelity Month, to celebrate something different than what is, yes, considered to be a deadly sin in the world of non-radical ideology. Some pro-life groups are also urging that June be known as Life Month, since it was on June 24 three years ago that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision ended Roe v. Wade. (June 24 happened to be the moving feast of the Sacred Heart that year.) You don’t have to cast a vote, though, to continue to the national diaper drive that Students for Life/Sidewalk Advocates for Life/Pro-Love Ministries and some others are running later this month.
Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
Live Action is sold out of a Rosie the Riveter–inspired magnet that has us ending abortion. So I don’t have the magnet to hand out to people, but I can share this thought: What if, for starters, we did something other than vote “right” and buy a magnet to end abortion? Life Month or not, what are you doing? What am I doing? Sorry, K-Lo, not even writing some words gives you cover. You’ve bothered to read this far in this newsletter, so do something concrete today to build and cultivate a culture of life and a civilization of love, as the late Saint Pope John Paul the Great would put it. Once you’ve done it, send me an email and I’ll report back with a top-five or top-ten list of readers’ action items to inspire others.
Speaking of This Newsletter, Would You Spread the Word?
We’d like to make something of this. So that it’s not just another thing in people’s inboxes, but a motivator and inspiration in itself. I ran into the president of a university the other night in New York who told me he had followed my suggestion on social media recently: He signed ten friends up for the newsletter. (He told me that he went to Catholic school, where he had learned obedience!) I’ve not got you under any kind of vow, but you are free to make just this little one. Sign people up here. I’m not going to hit anyone up for money, just encourage the good out there and shine a light on truth — which may be ugly, but there’s beauty, too. A lot of you are doing some amazing things out there. Consider this a place that lets people know about it.
Planned Parenthood Is Disgusting
The latest Live Action undercover video from Planned Parenthood is just gross. Yes, it’s outrageous and maddening, but also disgusting. One of the many reasons we shouldn’t be giving federal taxpayer funds to the abortion giant is that Planned Parenthood is putting ideas in kids’ heads about anal whipping. Yes, you read that right. And it gets worse. Feel free to not click through — it put images in my head I didn’t want there. But I provide the link above, which is edited so you don’t have to hear all the gory details. Senators, defund this gravely dangerous mess — to lives and souls.
We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest
The late Father Richard John Neuhaus, the editor of First Things and religion editor here at National Review, gave a speech in 2008 at the National Right to Life Committee convention. The aforementioned Professor George once dubbed it “the greatest pro-life speech ever given.” I’m not aware of anyone outdoing it yet, in part because we have not yet had a moment to rest:
We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life’s course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along the way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person — of every human person.
Read it all here.
William F. Buckley Jr.: What a Life for Life
You may have heard that the long-awaited Sam Tanenhaus biography of Bill Buckley has been published after 25 years of anticipation. I was grateful to Matt Continetti in his Free Press review of it, noting WFB’s commitment to the unborn as something the book is missing. I was grateful, too, for Helen Andrews mentioning in her Compact review the pain of ectopic pregnancies and future infertility that the Buckleys suffered. Thanks be to God for their talented treasure Christopher, but their blessed life together was not without its intimate sorrow. Many know the experience all too well.
WFB was a fan of his friend John Noonan and gave away copies of a pamphlet of Noonan’s advice on how to argue about abortion.
Noonan wrote, in part:
The proponent of abortion is invited to consider the organism kicking the mother, swimming peacefully in amniotic fluid, responding to the prick of an instrument, being extracted from the womb, sleeping in death. Is the kicker or swimmer similar to him or to her? Is the response to pain like his or hers? Will his or her own face look much different in death?
The column in which he offers to send you one was reprinted here.
‘My Body, My Choice’ Is So Completely Out of Control
It always has been, but consider this. New York, as you may know, may be on the verge of legalizing assisted suicide. It’s not over until Kathy Hochul makes a terrible decision, and some of us pray for miracles. (She selectively calls on her Catholic upbringing; may this be a time she does, and it saves lives.) On Friday night, a Communion and Liberation-sponsored panel addressed the matter. Dr. Lydia Dugdale from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, the author of The Art of Dying Well, explained that (1) increasingly the doctors and nurses she trains want to know why we have any “stigma” at all about suicide (she says this has increased since Dobbs) and (2) recently a young woman asked her about assisted suicide as a solution for the loneliness epidemic.
Yes, you read that right.
And the worst thing is that I didn’t find either of those things surprising. The more life becomes about convenience, the more we are compelled to eliminate the inconvenient — even if, or especially if, what’s “inconvenient” are people.
Illinois, by the way, looked to be on the verge of legalizing assisted suicide last week at this time. It did not. There is hope even for the Empire State.
Around National Review
‘Broken’ Euthanasia Activist Dead by Suicide
The Callous Cruelty of Canadian Euthanasia Illustrated
Bad Therapy Tanked the Birth Rates
Do You Trust AI to Decide When You Die?
Cardinal Dolan: New York, Stick with the George Washington Bridge Instinct When It Comes to Suicide
Do You Trust Suicide? Well, If You’re Looking for Someone to Be Dead, You Are
Nice Job!
Our Haley Strack got the Washington Post to make a correction on an abortion-related piece last week.
Your Life Is Worth Living
“Your life is worthy, and [God’s] wish is to help us discover this,” Pope Leo XIV said at his weekly Wednesday audience this week. And therein lies the solution to abortion, loneliness, and assisted suicide. It’s not all about politics. In fact, it mostly isn’t.
Leo prefaced that by saying:
I would like to look at one of Jesus’ parables again. Also in this case, it is a story that fosters our hope. Indeed, at times we have the impression that we cannot find meaning for our lives: we feel useless, inadequate, just like the labourers who wait in the marketplace, waiting for someone to hire them to work. But sometimes time passes, life goes by, and we do not feel acknowledged or appreciated. Perhaps we did not arrive in time, others appeared before us, or problems held us up elsewhere.
The metaphor of the marketplace is very appropriate for our times too, because the market is the place of business, where unfortunately even affection and dignity are bought and sold, in the attempt to earn something. And when we do not feel appreciated, acknowledged, we risk selling ourselves to the first bidder.
We sell life short all too often. It’s why Scotland is eliminating Down syndrome, for example. (Abortions for Down syndrome there are up over 80 percent in three years.)
So What Exactly Are We Going to Do About Abortion?
If you can still put up with me, here’s my syndicated column this week.
There is so much more to cover, but I’m trying to keep these on the shorter end. Send in your news and ideas and feedback to klopez@nationalreview.com.
Have a wonderful life . . . until we meet again.