As with any parish, I have a hotchpotch of parishioners. I have the very elderly and babes in arms, as well as school children and workers. We celebrate new births, and we mourn the deaths of the grey-haired. Each is viewed as precious—and so they should be.
However, what are the criteria that advocate when one of those lives is understood as “disposable”?
I cannot understand how a hidden child, held securely in a womb; or a person battling with an uncontrollable, pain-filled illness; or an innocent living in a war-ravaged country, are deemed different—less precious—than you or I.

I want to use my “blogosphere pulpit” to ask why, when someone stands up for the rights of people to live—whether the unborn, the pained dying, or the innocent avoiding shells and missiles—they are labelled “fundamentalist” or accused of “not living in the modern world.”

Life has no demarcations.
No one is conceived and born with a label that gives a “sell-by date” or “best before.” Life is a gift, and is seen as something so exquisite that, if it is willingly extinguished, it breaks a commandment from God. Life is so priceless that Christ blessed it with eternity when He was made incarnate and later rose from the dead. That “precious” life begins at conception and continues to the very last natural breath.

Life should be respected with love—not turmoil and hunger.

Is war, assisted dying, or the termination of the unborn a better option than advocating for peace and respect across all cultures, investing in good palliative care, and providing proper support for mothers-to-be?
And yet, this respect for life is seen as something “old-fashioned” and somehow as disrespecting the “humanitarian” values of the modern age. It’s linked to the crazed ravings of a Bible-basher, or someone who would prefer women be chained to the kitchen sink.

But the values of life should never be seen as fundamentalist—they are sensible truths, integral to our identity as humans.

Perhaps we “fundamentalist,” “old-fashioned,” “Bible-bashers” need to remind the “modern-day humanitarians” that respect for life also advocates debt relief by richer nations, the end of poverty, the right of workers to a fair wage, respect for all—whether male or female—and care for creation.

Sometimes the stronger apricots have to fight for the weaker ones.