By Dave Andrusko

As is our custom, following immediately after Christmas, today we begin posting new stories and the finest of previous posts in anticipation of the anniversary of the January 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions.
As the first choice for 2018/2019, I selected a column written by Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, which ran in the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Philly in 2014.
Please read his stirring message which you can find here.
I would like to draw on two paragraphs in particular because they speak so directly to those pro-lifers who have labored faithfully year after year, in many cases, decade after decade. While Archbishop Chaput is addressing Catholics specifically, there are tremendous lessons to be learned by people of all faiths.
There’s a very old Christian expression that goes like this: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”
And
The opposite of hope is cynicism, and cynicism also has two daughters. Their names are indifference and cowardice.
Anger without the kind of courage Archbishop Chaput is alluding to is a dead end, pragmatically and spiritually. People whom I love and deeply respect occasionally marvel that an ordinary guy like me has never been enveloped—consumed even—by the loss of so many babies’ lives and the devastation suffered by so many families.
I have answered these inquiries (which are usually made between the lines) by saying what good what that do, either for me or for the babies or for their families? Your task and mine is to plow ahead, in season and out.
Consider how privileged we are, blessed with the opportunity to work for the most defenseless among us, never forgetting for a moment we could not possibly carry the day in our strength alone.
In one sense, the courage here could be described as an utter and complete unwillingness to give into discouragement.
Think about the weeks and months leading up to the November 2016 presidential election. What if—as all the experts were telling us would be the outcome—Hillary Clinton was elected president?
Even if the political prognosticators were at least partially reading their own preferences into the polling data, it was a real possibility that Clinton would defeat pro-life Donald Trump.
Like you, I refused to give in. Like you, had this genuine pro-abortion extremist prevailed, I would have doubled down and worked even harder to minimize the human wreckage Clinton would leave in her wake.
We can do all this because pro-lifers ascribe to the vision outlined by Roger Crawford: “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.”
Quote #2 from Archbishop Chaput’s 2014 column.
The opposite of hope is cynicism, and cynicism also has two daughters. Their names are indifference and cowardice.
To which I would add a third name: “apathy.”
We live in a time when cynicism operates like a kind of default lingua franca for many people. They are so lacking in hope, have so little in common with the rest of us, that their approach to life is to speak in a language that insists (indeed boasts) that life is pointless, a kind of sick joke.
The only “sin” for them is not to be cynical enough. They often dress this up in the language of “realism.”
However this kind of “realism”/cynicism is as anathema to pro-lifers as it is unintelligible.
Indifference to the unborn child’s suffering and pain and abandonment?
Cowardice / apathy in the face of a woman’s or girl’s unplanned pregnancy and all the attendant fears, apprehensions, and anxieties?
Not possible.
Will we often be disappointed? Of course! Consider the assets of the pro-death forces.
Our response, borrowed from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.”
But we also have so much reason for hope, so many assets that don’t show in ledgers. Our assets start with being truly, genuinely on the right side of history—on the side of kindness, gentleness, and respect for those who cannot save themselves.
