Notes from a Catechumate

Just for giggles, read the preceeding extract from Baghdad Burning... and then follow up with this:

"Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator".

- Evangelium vitae

Read this document. It applies as much to poverty or Iraq, in their way, as to abortion. (Although I don't buy the statement that "they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury..." See preceeding note on how to make a terrorist.)