Occasionally we report from this blog about events which take place in Europe but are central to Catholic Culture. Below is a moving pro-life piece I picked up from the Europe4Christ center; the details are below:
Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King jr., spoke on June 22nd 2010, at a meeting of the Working Group on Human Dignity, in the European Parliament in Brussels.
Please read her thoughts on the role of civil rights movements and the protection of life, which is a main topic of interest for her.
Martin Luther King's Dream Today - Thoughts by his Niece
Dr. Alveda King
“The message I share comes from my heart, from love of life and family, and from an inherited sense of duty to defend the most vulnerable in society. My talk today and my work as a civil rights activist are based on threevery simple truths –
* that every human being is worthy of respect by virtue of his being human;
* that at no time does anyone’s life become less human or more human;
* that each human life begins at its physical beginning
As a result of these three propositions, every single human being, born or unborn, has rights and those rights should be respected by society and protected under law. Repentance is the first step in a soul being saved; it’s also the first step in a culture being changed. I know this because I have seen my culture, my America, change in my lifetime. So much bloodshed and heartache happened because some people in the United States thought that African Americans were not worthy of respect. We were spat upon. We were clubbed and beaten. And we were lynched. We were killed because we were regarded as less than fully human. So it is with the lives of unborn babies – who are womb-lynched today.
But racism not only oppressed African Americans, it seared the consciences of the oppressors. People found that the fabrications of racists made their own lives more comfortable, more convenient, and they became invested in those falsehoods. They depended on those falsehoods. And so they believed, what they knew in their hearts to be untrue. So it is with the lies of abortionists today. Today’s unborn are yesterday’s blacks – best kept out of sight and out of mind lest they remind us of the injustices we commit.
The problem for abortionists and their supporters, though, is the same problem racists and segregationists faced: reality. Unborn babies won’t go away. So the work of the abortion industry has been to deny the humanity of those they exploit and discriminate against. But what if, like the Texas abortion clinic director who recently quit her job when she saw the ultrasound image of the baby she was helping to abort, we can no longer rationalize away what we’ve been doing all these years?
What if the truth becomes so clear and so compelling that society
simply can’t go on being indifferent or complicit in the big lie? Well, that’s when we have to do what is against our nature – we have to humble ourselves, admit our wrongs and change our ways. And that, in fact, is what my country did because of the civil rights movement. America changed because Americans were touched in their hearts – hearts that the Bible tells us are inscribed with God’s law. We can try to deny our consciences, indoctrinate or medicate our minds so that we can’t or won’t think, but a sense of right and wrong has been given to
each and every one of us. It is that very moral awareness that changed America’s culture on racism. I believe it is that same moral awareness that can change any culture on abortion. It won’t happen overnight. But it is already happening. In our hearts, we know this. For too long, though, we have looked the other way. We have not wanted to get involved. We have convinced
ourselves that people will never change when it comes to abortion. I’m here to tell you that this is not true. I have seen change, in myself, in others, and in my nation. What happened with slavery and racism is now happening with abortion. Those in power who can speak up for the
persecuted must do so, we are our brothers’ keeper and what happens to
him, happens to us.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from a jail cell, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Whether a child is aborted in Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, England, that abortion is an assault on what my Uncle Martin called the Beloved Community. My Uncle Martin had a dream. He dreamt that we would live out that which is self-evident – that all men are created equal. He called on America to admit our wrongs and turn from them.
Today, I call on all of us, regardless of nationality, race or religion, to admit our wrongs and turn from them. I believe that the denial of the right to life is the greatest injustice we face in the world today. There is no compassion in killing. There is no justice in writing people out of
the human race. I only ask: How can such a dream live on - the dream of equality for all -
if we kill our children? How can the dream live on if we deny others
their basic human dignity and respect? How can the dream live on if we do
not act on their behalf?”
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