Every human life is beautiful, Every human life is precious.
‘Choose Life!’ is the theme for this year’s Day for Life message in Ireland on 7 October. It promotes respect for human life from the moment of conception. For 2012, the Day for Life also marks the beginning of a special Month of Prayer dedicated to the theme ‘Choose Life!’ and which concludes on the Feast of All the Saints of Ireland.
Visit the dedicated Choose Life 2012 website
See below to download the Day for Life 2012 Pastoral Message, Choose Life!, in English, Irish and Polish and to download an A4 poster and a special Prayer for the Child in the Womb.
Life is precious
Amidst all the rich variety of life on earth, human life is cause for special wonder. We alone can contemplate the beauty around us. We alone can create art and music and literature to express this beauty. We alone can love one another.
Each human being has the capacity to experience and express this beauty and love in a unique way and, in doing so, to enrich others. We know that we did not create the beauty and the love around us. We know that we did not create ourselves.
When we say that human life is sacred we are recognising something that is sensed not only by religious people but by everyone who appreciates the wonder of human life. As human beings we depend on one another and so others have the right to expect something from us – it is the right to be recognised and respected and never to be treated as less than he or she is. That is true at every moment of our life – from its first beginnings to its natural end.
Our call to all: Choose life!
Our public representatives now face a critical decision. They can preserve current medical practice which guarantees necessary treatment for women in pregnancy while respecting the right to life of the baby. Or they can choose to introduce abortion to Ireland for the first time, with all the tragic consequences this will have.
Faced with this decision, we ask our public representatives to make a positive choice. Every human life is beautiful, every human life is precious and every human life is sacred: Choose life!
Summary of key points from Choose Life!
- From the moment of conception, every human life is beautiful, every human life is precious and every human life is sacred.
- Government does not have to provide for abortion in Ireland to comply with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.
- Legislating for abortion denies the humanity and dignity of the child in the womb and violates the most basic human right of all – the right to life.
- It is never necessary to target the life of the baby in the womb to save the life of the mother. Ireland, without abortion, is consistently one of the safest countries in the world in which to be pregnant.
- Many women who have had abortions speak of their deep regret, and research also confirms the harm that abortion can cause women.
- International experience shows that once abortion is legalised, even in apparently very limited situations, it becomes more widespread than was first intended.
Day For Life Pastoral Message in Irish