Praise for heroes who opt for life

Guest Column by Archbishop Timothy Dolan

I guess you have all heard of Tim Tebow, the college quarterback who has been called Florida's superhero, the first sophomore ever to win college football's highest award, the Heisman Trophy.

	Guest Column Archbishop Timothy Dolan

Actually, his life has been heroic and somewhat miraculous from the start.

His folks, Pam and Bob, were devoted Christian missionaries in the Philippines. They prayed for a baby, and became pregnant in 1987. Unfortunately, she contracted severe dysentery from toxic water, and was administered the strongest medications while in a coma. Her physicians warned her that her baby would be severely damaged, and urged her to abort.

Pam reports that her sense of reason, justice - and faith - would not allow her to do that.

On Aug. 14, 1987, she gave birth to Timothy Tebow, the greatest college sophomore quarterback yet.

	Related: from January 11, 2008 issue: • List of pro-life events January 18-23

Not too long before the Heisman Trophy awards ceremony, at the White House, President Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our country's highest civil award, to Cuban physician Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez.

Unfortunately, Dr. Biscet could not be there to accept it, as he is locked in a Cuban prison, in solitary confinement, where he is regularly beaten and tortured, for cogently promoting the Culture of Life in a country, Cuba, where six out of every 10 pregnancies end in abortion, often coerced by the Marxist state.

"Oscar's only crime has been speaking out against abortion and the death penalty," his wife, Elsa, reported. "He has grounded his journey, defending human rights on defending the first human and civil right, that of life itself."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the protection of innocent, fragile, tiny human life in the womb, terribly at risk in this abortion-on-demand culture of death, is the premier civil right and social justice issue of our time.

And there's no better time to repeat that than on Jan. 22, the gloomy 35th anniversary of the morbid decision of the Supreme Court unleashing the abortion license.

As much as the abortion lobby and the elite in the media, entertainment, and government try to convince us otherwise, the right to life movement is not a "Catholic," "Evangelical," "Orthodox Jewish," or even theological issue; it is not even a "moral" issue in the narrow sense of that word.

It is a matter of biology and civil rights.

We learned that abortion was wrong not in religion class, but in sophomore biology class, where we were taught that from the moment of conception, the fetus, the embryo, the baby is a unique human being.

We learned that abortion was contrary to all that is good and decent, not in theology class, but actually in American history class, as we were taught that our republic was founded on the presumption of certain inalienable rights, with that to life itself listed first.

Actually, we did not learn that abortion was madness at all. Rather, we discovered that truth, as we found it deep down in a heart and mind that tells us that the termination of the life of a baby in the womb is contrary to the wisdom that reason and nature have imprinted within us.

I can't give out the Heisman Trophy or the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I can praise those brave women and men who opt for life when faced with a terribly difficult pregnancy, and those generous people for whom "pro-life" is not just a bumper sticker but a loving vocation as they help struggling pregnant women and their babies, pre-born and born.

It's worth it. Ask Pam Tebow.

Archbishop Dolan of Milwaukee serves as apostolic administrator of the Green Bay Diocese.