Protecting life and the integrity of the medical profession

One of the kinds of uniforms we are all used to seeing are those of medical professionals who care for our needs – doctors, nurses, other medical specialists. They go by different colors, and yet all of them, for so many of us, inspire confidence. We literally put our lives in their hands and sometimes receive back from their hands God’s gift of life anew.

I recently had more interaction with them than usual as I went through open heart surgery for a mitral valve repair, necessitated by a congenital condition (for whichI had no symptoms). I was cared for in Orlando by Advent Health, whose motto is “To Extend the Healing Ministry of Christ.” And what a fabulous job they did. Each doctor, nurse, and medical assistant in the unit wore a heart-shaped pin that said, “I care for you like I care for _____” and then had the name of someone dear to them: a parent, grandparent, spouse, child, or other special person.

The whole experience was a great reminder of the dignity of life as well as the dignity of the medical profession. On the day of surgery, I told my doctors that I had the easiest job of all: they had to do the hard work, those close to me had to do the hard waiting, but I just had to go to sleep and get all the benefit.

After surgery, during which I was on a heart-lung machine for a time, I told the doctor that two times in my life, my heart has started beating. One was 18 days after conception; the other was a few hours ago.

Life indeed is a gift, and so is medicine. That fact that someone can hold my heart and fix it to work better than before is amazing. And it raises the question of why we still haven’t set the medical profession free of the stain and shame of killing babies by abortion. Babies at their most dependent and vulnerable stage of life continue to be snuffed out legally by the thousands each day in our country.

This not only compromises the moral condition of our culture, but it also compromises the dignity of the medical profession itself.

We are making tremendous progress against abortion. One such step has been the federal protection offered to children against the partial-birth abortion procedure. In the very text of that law, signed in 2003 by President George W. Bush, the motive of protecting the integrity of the medical profession itself is explicitly mentioned in the following words:

“Partial-birth abortion also confuses the medical, legal, and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life, as the physician acts directly against the physical life of a child, whom he or she had just delivered, all but the head, out of the womb, in order to end that life.”

This indeed is a motive today as well for ending all abortion, and for our efforts to protect babies born alive after a failed abortion. I praise God for the efforts of each one of us in the pro-life movement.

When I awoke from anesthesia after surgery, as one of my Priests for Life associates approached me, the first words I said were, “For the unborn!” We reaffirmed to one another that this is the motive for which we are doing what we do each day. And the protection of human life is also the motive for which so many men and women wear those awe-inspiring uniforms that represent the medical profession.

FATHER FRANK PAVONE is one of the most prominent pro-life leaders in the world. In 1993 he became National Director of Priests for Life. He is also the president of the National Pro-life Religious Council, and the national pastoral director of the Silent No More Campaign and of Rachel’s Vineyard, the world’s largest ministry of healing after abortion. He has served at the Vatican assisting the Church’s pro-life work under Pope St. John Paul II. More can be found at www.FrFrankPavone.org.