Pope Francis often decries a modern society that destroys unborn babies, threatens the poor and does not protect those caught in the crossfire of war. In response to the Holy Father’s call to build a culture of life, especially for those most vulnerable, Georgetown University hosted a recent panel discussion on “Resisting the ‘Throwaway Culture:’ Protecting Human Life and Dignity.”
John Carr, director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, welcomed scholars on pro-life, immigration and refugee issues. He moderated the forum in which experts explored the causes of the “throwaway culture” and vigorously defended life at all stages. More than 250 members of the Georgetown University community attended the nearly two-hour event on April 12.
Panelists included: Helen Alvare, professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, former spokesperson for the U.S. bishops’ pro-life efforts and founder of WomenSpeakforThemselves.com; Charles Camosy, associate theology and social ethics professor at Fordham University and author of Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation; and Missionary of Jesus Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley and organizer of the Sacred Heart Immigrant Welcome Center on the U.S.-Mexican border.
President John J. DeGioia offered opening remarks, while defending the nation’s oldest Jesuit university’s Catholic identity and commitment to the “consistent ethic of life.” ?
“Tonight, we are blessed by the presence of four colleagues who will enable us to engage ever more deeply the moral commitments that animate the vision at the heart of our university,” said DeGioia, without directly addressing the controversial decision by a Georgetown student group to invite Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, to speak on campus on April 20. Planned Parenthood performs more than 300,000 abortions per year in the United States.
The decision to invite Planned Parenthood’s president to speak on Georgetown’s campus has drawn severe criticism, but DeGioia insisted that the university, while “authentically Catholic” must engage the culture and confront ideas and speech at odds with the Church’s vision of “human sacredness.” He said the school must uphold academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression.
“Engaging this tension is among the great challenges that shapes the history of this university,” he said.
In his remarks, Carr noted the rampant disregard for human life in the District of Columbia, where Georgetown University is located and violence is prevalent, especially among young people. He said one-third of the city’s children “never see the day of their birth because of abortion.” In the world at large, migrants and refugees – including many Christians – are fleeing persecution and are the victims of atrocities, he noted.
As the “voice of the voiceless,” the Catholic Church has consistently affirmed life, said Carr. “No matter rich, poor, nationality, race, disability or not, we resist the ‘throwaway culture,’” he said.
Alvare predicted that the head of Planned Parenthood in her Georgetown talk would most likely argue that abortion is integral to women’s health and autonomy. For a woman to kill her unborn child “pushes so clearly against the tides of reason and natural inclination” of mothers in caring for their children, Alvare said, countering the argument that abortion is a health issue for women.
Rather than make abortion more and more accessible, as Planned Parenthood seeks to do, women and mothers would be really helped by better addressing issues such as a living wage, childcare and paid maternity leave, said Alvare.
Alvare said that when sexual union and procreation became separated, society accepted abortion and “lost a sense of the transcendent.” “Materialism and consumerism that Pope Francis speaks of are part of a resistance to children,” she said. “Having children is having to give things up and is making way for somebody else.”
In her work on the border, Sister Norma said seeing the families in need compels her to work tirelessly to help them with food, clothing and shelter. Prior to the Holy Father’s U.S. visit in September, the pope participated in an ABC television network teleconference from Rome in which he thanked the nun for her work with immigrants, telling her, “I love you.”
“It was amazing. It was like God came down and embraced me,” she recalled. “It was the best gift.”
Sister Norma said immigrants, especially women and children, are fleeing violence in Mexico and are seeking safety in the United States. If Americans could see firsthand the suffering she sees on a daily basis at the border, Sister Norma said she firmly believes that people would want to do everything to help.
Citing statistics that indicated 70 percent of Americans are against abortion after the first trimester, Camosy said he was hopeful that the next generation of young people would be more pro-life.
When the pope speaks of the “throwaway culture,” Camosy explained that those being thrown away are “anyone our culture finds most inconvenient...precisely because their dignity is most inconvenient.”
Alvare said when videos were released exposing Planned Parenthood’s financial relationship with companies that buy and sell fetal parts, that “caused shock waves.” She said the video in which a Planned Parenthood worker callously says, “It’s another boy” was especially chilling because it “acknowledged common humanity.”
To combat the abortion industry, she urged pro-lifers to offer care for women in crisis pregnancies and to “shut down the (abortion) industry.” Alvare noted that the crisis in the family, the growing assisted suicide movement, and the contraceptive culture are other significant factors in the “throwaway culture.”
Camosy said he looked forward to the discussions Georgetown University will be hosting in the upcoming week, adding that perhaps a more fruitful debate sponsored by the university would have been Helen Alvare’s staunch defense of human life up against Cecile Richards’ anti-life positions. “We’d take that in a heartbeat,” he said.
In closing remarks, Carr said he too was moved by two recent chilling images - the photo of the 3-year-old refugee boy whose body washed up on a beach after fleeing Syrian violence and the undercover videos revealing Planned Parenthood’s atrocities.
“I was with my family on vacation when I saw the video of ‘another boy.’ We had a grandchild on the way, a boy. The only the thing different between him and that boy in the video was (my grandson) had the right to be born...We have to see firsthand and think of them as our children and grandchildren,” Carr said.
To counter the speech by Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood at Georgetown University, the university’s pro-life group Georgetown Right to Life is hosting several events to promote the culture of life. Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood executive who is now a leader in the pro-life movement, was scheduled to speak on April 20, the same evening as Richards’ address. Last week, Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty advocate, delivered a lecture on campus. On April 19 – after this week’s print editon of the Catholic Standard went to press – U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and a panel of women’s health experts were scheduled to discuss, “Life-Affirming Alternatives to Planned Parenthood.”
