Tuesday, January 20^th, 2009, marks an historical day for our nation. The first African-American became President of the United States of America. That would never have been possible had the Supreme Court decision of 1857 (Dred Scott v. Sanford) remained intact. The ruling declared that no black person, whether free or slave, could ever vote or be elected into public office. Their very personhood was denied by this infamous decision. Fortunately, people of faith and good will worked arduously and pressured Congress to pass the 13^th amendment in 1865 which abolished slavery and the 15^th amendment in 1870 which recognized African-Americans as full citizens and eligible to vote in all elections. The irony is that two days after the first black President is inaugurated, the nation remembers another Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade (1973). That ruling declared the unborn child to be a non-person and subject to indiscriminate death by abortion. The Supreme Court was WRONG in 1857 and it was WRONG in 1973. It was wrong to uphold slavery and it was wrong to uphold abortion. Both crimes unjustly punished innocent human persons. Whether black or white, born or unborn, human beings have inalienable rights from God and they are protected by the Constitution, chiefly the RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Slaves had no freedom and the lives of unborn children are endangered by abortion. Just as it took men and women of good will and of religious faith to found the Abolitionist movement, likewise, those same kind of people fought the injustice of racial segregation. Today, the civil and human rights of the unborn CRY and SCREAM for justice. People of faith and good will MUST respond as they did before. Slavery and Segregation were eradicated only because the immoral laws were changed. That happened only because the majority of Americans (who are good) finally spoke up and spoke out and defeated the evil that had entered our land. Evil does not need large numbers of followers; it merely needs a lot of good people to keep quiet and inactive. When good people of faith remain silent and do nothing to stop or even diminish evil, then it is a sin of omission of the highest proportion. Many of the United States Bishops are asking pastors to place post-cards in their bulletins this month addressed to US Senators and Representatives. How many parishioners will actually take the few minutes to sign, stamp and mail this card? It is a public disavowal and repudiation of the pending FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) legislation. That bill will unravel and undo all the progress made since Roe v. Wade (much by the late Henry Hyde). If you and I are too busy to send a post-card and too busy to pray that either our new President will veto this bill or that our Congress will kill it beforehand, then shame on us. It took an amendment to the Constitution to undo the evil committed by the highest court in the land when it denied legal personhood to African-Americans. It may very well take another amendment to undo the evil of Roe v. Wade and recognize the personhood of every unborn baby in the womb. Whether they are called embryos, fetuses, zygotes, et al., they are genetically HUMAN (not animal and not plant). The DNA is not only human but it is DISTINCT and UNIQUE from the mother’s DNA. Yet, the oxymoron ‘pro-choice’ (irrational nomenclature since the unborn is given no choice to stay alive) crowd wants to treat the baby in the womb as a non-person just as slave owners did to African-Americans a century and half ago. FOCA needs to die before it ever becomes law. Men and women, white and black, Christian and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, all people of faith and of good will need to protect the most vulnerable and most innocent of our human race, the unborn. Saint Gianna sacrificed her own life to save the life of the unborn child within her when others would have easily ‘terminated the pregnancy’ (a.k.a., aborted the baby). Bishop Robert Vasa of the diocese of Baker said it succinctly “those who profess to love God, but back abortion, are liars.”