Day 17: Life is a Gift from God

Some may wonder, why does the pro-life movement seem to include only religious people? After all, other human rights issues such as capital punishment and racial discrimination, though often spearheaded by religious groups, also attract large numbers of non-religious people. When life begins is a scientific, not religious, question and people generally seem to value human life. What are we to make of the general apathy, or even hostility, towards the pro-life movement by the secular population?

The answer can only be found in belief in God, since that is the primary difference between the two groups. But how does belief in God change our understanding of the value of human life? As Pope John Paul II writes in The Gospel of Life, our life--indeed all human life--is a gift from God and belongs to God:

For the Jewish people, as for many peoples of antiquity, blood is the source of life. Indeed "the blood is the life" (Dt 12:23), and life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself (para. 9).

Like any other gift, the value is not only in the gift itself, but also as displaying the love of the giver. Imagine a father giving his son a car when he turned 16. Years later, the car, despite being taken care of, is in need of repair. If he tried to sell it, he would be lucky to get anything for it. More likely it would be sold as scrap. For the son, though, the value of the car is derived from more than transportation. It was a precious gift from his father. So, too, our lives are precious in themselves, but even when life is hard and full of suffering, it is still precious because it is a gift from our Father in heaven.

We are exactly 9 months away from Christmas, the due date of Jesus Christ, which makes today the traditional date of conception of Christ, the day that the Holy Spirit entered into Mary when she said "Yes" to God's plan for her. Please pray that all those who are carrying a child within them will similarly say "yes" to God's plan for their lives and choose life.

This past Tuesday a pregnancy care center was robbed and vandalized in Bronx, New York. You can read about it below (and you can donate at the link at the bottom of the story):

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-york-city-pregnancy-center-virtually-destroyed