Roe reversal a call to help moms, babies

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is “tremendously important” for the nation and the cause of life, but it’s not “a day simply for celebration,” said the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“As happy as we may be over this decision,” Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said, “I think it is also important for us to recognize our need, our obligation to redouble our efforts to help women in difficult pregnancies.”

The archbishop made the comments in an interview via Zoom shortly after the court handed down its ruling June 24. In a 5-4 vote, the high court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.

The reversal is something many “worked very hard for and prayed very hard for” over the last nearly 50 years, the archbishop said.

Another challenge that remains in a post-Roe society is changing hearts and minds about abortion, said Danielle Brown, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. She called the Roe reversal “a historic moment” and “just like our country was able to move away from the devastating and horrific” slave trade, the nation can “move away from the culture of death.”

“We have to understand and agree the death of a person is a tragic and sad situation. We are not made for death, we are made for life,” Brown said. 

“We believe in conversion, conversion in Christ,” she said. Bringing people to “a conversion of the heart” can be “a long journey” but “we know that conversion can happen.”

Echoing Brown, Lori said, “It is a day to ask for God’s help in winning minds and hearts to understand and to accept the precious gift of life from the moment of conception onward and to create the kind of conditions in society where no mother feels she has to choose between her future and the life of her child.”

Dr. Kathleen Raviele, a retired OB-GYN, thinks “many women will be relieved now that abortion is not on the table as one of the options they have to consider when they’re in an unwanted pregnancy or an unplanned pregnancy.”

“Women really have been deceived over the last 50 years, but since it (abortion) was legal, they thought that it was OK, and now they’re being given permission to actually be a mother and have their children,” she said.

The nation “will go through a very difficult period” and “there is already a great deal of anger” among opponents of the court reversing Roe, Lori said.

“It’s a moment for us to remain calm and loving and focused on mothers and their needs.”