By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

"The United States has the most unrestricted, abortion-on-demand laws in the western world," Father Jack Cuddigan, S.J., told those gathered at St. John the Baptist Church in Spearville for the Jan. 22 pro-life Mass, which falls each year on the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand.

"Why are we doing this to our unborn children?" Father Cuddigan asked. "From the moment of conception until the child is three-fourths outside the womb, it is now lawful to kill the child with cruel methods that are forbidden by law in every animal slaughterhouse in this country."

In 1973, then pregnant 21-year-old Norma McCorvey — the "Jane Roe" in the Roe v. Wade court case — was a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to overturn a Texas law prohibiting abortions except where the mother’s life was in danger. Ironically, the court’s decision to throw out most state restrictions on abortion came after McCorvey gave birth to her child, who was subsequently placed up for adoption.

Today, she, other former abortion supporters, and Sandra Cano, who, although pro-life, was the plaintiff in a court case that resulted in abortions being legalized through all nine months of pregnancy, are fighting to have the 30-year-old decisions overturned.

"I was never told what an abortion would do," McCorvey told Catholic News Service. "I’m glad I didn’t have an abortion. My baby is alive — somewhere."

Father Cuddigan, who is filling in at the Spearville parish through January, said that being anti-abortion isn’t only a matter of faith, but is a matter of science.

"Abortionists claim the unborn are only ‘potential life,’ a part of the mother’s body that can be removed like an appendix," Father Cuddigan said. "Medical science disagrees. Doctors can now detect life’s beginnings from conception. By the twelfth week of pregnancy, what abortionists claim is ‘merely a group of cells’ to be disposed of at will, can kick its legs, turn its feet, curl and fan its toes, move its thumbs, make a fist, bend its wrists, turn its head, squint, frown, open its mouth and suck its thumb, swallow fluid, and make inhaling and exhaling motions.

"It is now legal in this violent land of ours," Father Cuddigan added, "to destroy this human life for any reason, at any time, right up to birth and even after the baby is partially born."

Attending the special Mass and the reception that followed were people of all ages, from the elderly, to families filling an entire pew, to infants peering behind their parent’s back as they were held, eliciting smiles from the people sitting behind them. Concelebrating the Mass was Father Nicanor Ferangco, and assisting was Deacon Dwaine Lampe.

In Father Cuddigan’s homily, he spoke of how language is used to disguise what is occurring in abortion.

"Notice how this is done," he said. "A doctor examines an expectant mother. He listens to the little heartbeat in her womb. He tells her: ‘Your baby is coming along nicely.’ Only when she has decided that she does not want the baby does it become something different. It becomes a ‘fetus,’ an impersonal ‘it’ to be disposed of at will."

Father Cuddigan said that as pro-life Catholics addressing abortion, we must "never resort to violence of any kind, such as harming abortionists or damaging their property. Such conduct is contrary to all pro-life values and is a grave moral evil. … Secondly, we should not compromise our Catholic moral values trying to call our- selves some kind of pro-choice Catholic. A pro-choice Catholic is a contradiction in terms."

He said that the easiest and "extremely effective" way of battling abortion is to vote for pro-life candidates.

"So let’s all put in our political two-cents worth on voting day," he said. "It all adds up. And the results can be life-saving."