Bishop Slattery's Address at the 6th Annual Tulsa March for Life

January 22, 2015 - At the brutal, hard core of violence, there is always the denial of truth.

Those who are violent, the murderers and the killers, always claim to have been provoked.The rapists and the abusers always deny the harm they’ve done. Those who silence the free speech of millions rather than offend another with the truth consistently hide behind the virtues of tolerance, diversity, and free speech.

And at the brutal, hard violent core of abortion is the claim that those who oppose abortion, those who fight against this profoundly disturbing cutting and dismembering, this sucking destruction of life, this utter violation of the right to life, are waging a terrible war against women.

This is the lie the abortionists tell. This is the lie the media repeats. This is the lie
that terrifies our politicians and silences thousands of good people.

But this is a lie!

The fight to protect life is not a war against women.

It is true that like an army we march in the thousands and across the country in the hundreds of thousands - but we bring no arms. Like a movement organized in rebellion, we protest and pray and endure the indifference of the media and the ridicule of the opposition, but we carry no weapons. We propose no violence and never speak of vengeance. We march tonight - but we march in silence.

And when we speak - as we must speak tomorrow and the next day - we speak only of life.

We speak of life and of our right to life and of the tragedy beyond telling of the 56 million and more lives that have been snuffed out in the abortion mills of this country by the smiling supporters of Planned Parenthood and with the complacency of those who profit by murder.

We speak only of life and of the incomprehensible idea that one in four children conceived in America this year will destroyed in their mother’s wombs; that our families have been devastated by abortion’s violence, our neighborhoods ravaged and our country’s moral integrity broken.

We who are in the right to life movement wage no war against women.
But we ask hard questions…

• How is it possible that with its own DNA, its own genetic pattern and perfection, scientists can still claim that the unborn foetus is not a child?
• How is it possible that though scientists agree that at the age of twenty weeks an unborn child can already feel pain, that no steps have been taken to protect these innocent children against the pain of a brutal murder?
• How is it possible that a country of educated and sophisticated people allows 90% of children diagnosed with down’s syndrome to die by the butcher’s scalpel?

There is a war going on in America, but it is not a war against women. It is a war
against life.

This is the truth. And because we know the truth, we will continue to pray, we will continue to protest at abortion clinics, and we will continue to march for life. We know that abortion kills life, and because we know this, we will continue to speak out against it every opportunity we get.

We will not go away and we will not be silent. We will work for an end of abortion and pray for an end of abortion. We will shiver in the cold, pray through the night, picket through the week, suffer the rude stares and condescending remarks, as long as it takes, and if it takes all this to save one life, to save one child, then it is worth it.

And when tomorrow comes, we will do it all again. And again.

Until every child that is conceived is born; and every child that is born is loved and protected; and every child that is loved, can live in holiness and peace.

Now let us march!