Respect Life Month
OPEN YOUR HEARTS TO LIFE!
“I came so that all might have life, and have it to the full.”
During the month of October, the Church in the United States honors Respect Life Month. This is a special time each year when we focus on the importance of the gift of human life from the moment of conception until natural death.
LEARN ABOUT THE ST. JOSEPH RESPECT LIFE COMMITTEE!
TEACHINGS:
USCCB-Life Matters. During this Respect Life Month, as we celebrate God’s great gift of life, let us pray and reflect on how each of us might renew our commitment and witness to “respecting, promoting and teaching the transcendent nature of the human person,” thereby shoring up the foundations of a society sorely in need of this guidance. The following pamphlets are published by the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities to call attention to numerous human life issues.
Abortion: The Church’s opposition to abortion—based on the inherent dignity and equal value of every human life—is the only moral choice, even for nonbelievers. (PDF: English / Español)
The Death Penalty: The death penalty no longer serves a useful purpose in protecting society, and it ends the offender’s opportunity for conversion, halting the action of the Holy Spirit on his soul for eternity. (PDF: English / Español)
Persons with Disabilities: “Every human person—no matter how vulnerable or helpless, …no matter how useful or productive for society—is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God” (Bl. Pope John Paul II). (PDF: English / Español)
Reproductive Technologies: Children have a right to be conceived through their parents’ act of love, not by a laboratory process that subjects them to quality control. While one in six couples has difficulty conceiving, today many causes of infertility can be corrected. Fertility clinics often begin with expensive IVF procedures, which involve risks to the embryonic children created by IVF—the majority of whom end up dead—and to their biological mothers. (PDF: English / Español)
Embryo Research: Destructive experimentation on human embryos violates the God-given right to life of very young human beings. It violates the Fifth Commandment, as well as the federal ban enacted by Congress every year since 1995, and the ethics rules of international organizations and U.S. agencies.
(PDF: English / Español)
Love and Marriage: Marriage is that safe place where couples and their children can flourish. In contrast, sexual intimacy outside marriage is a cheap and ultimately harmful imitation of the faithful and permanent, love- and life-giving, communion of body, mind, and soul that God designed marriage to be. (PDF: English / Español)
To the End of Our Days: The Church has always proclaimed the inherent value and dignity of life at every stage and condition. But today, rising healthcare costs and a growing cultural blindness to the sanctity of life are driving the promotion of assisted suicide and euthanasia. (PDF: English / Español)
Contraception: From the standpoint of women’s health alone—putting aside all the important moral reasons why contraception is wrong—there are many serious reasons to reject contraception: increased access does not reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions. Instead, it increases rates of STDs. Hormonal contraceptives also put women at higher risk of potentially fatal blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer. (PDF: English / Español)