The horror of Oregon’s ‘Abortion Provider Appreciation Day’

As an Oregon Catholic currently resident in the UK, I read Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample’s recent response to the Governor of Oregon’s designation of 10 March as “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day” with great interest. 

Having now returned to Oregon for a visit home I have since heard two homilies from Oregon priests reflecting on the Archbishop’s wise words.

Under the headline “The Celebration of Death”, Archbishop Sample’s teaching opens with the following line:

“There are moments when words fail, when the mind stares into the abyss and finds no bottom. When all that’s left is a kind of stunned silence – the kind you feel when you realise just how far a culture can drift from reality.”

Oregon is a very beautiful place and the stunning natural features of the state are among the best and most diverse the United States has to offer. For those unfamiliar with Oregon’s vast pine forests, rugged snow-capped mountains and wide flowing rivers, it should suffice to mention that the state provided inspiration both for Star Wars’ forest moon of Endor and Frank Herbert’s expansive desert world of Dune. 

Anyone interested in hiking, fishing, skiing, or any other of a myriad of outdoor activities would be well-advised to plan a holiday to my home state. With this in mind, it is even more disturbing to note the depths of despair that this state and her government have fallen into. 

Despite being constantly surrounded with poignant reminders of the glory of God’s creation, the governor has decided to reject truth, beauty and goodness in favour of the nihilistic worldview that power and utility determine worth. The Archbishop continues:

“This is what happens when a culture loses its sense of the sacred. When it stops seeing existence as a miracle, as something given, something to be received with gratitude. Instead, life is reduced to a transaction. A commodity to be managed. And, when necessary, discarded…. [This marks] a return to humanity’s oldest, darkest impulse: might makes right. But followers of Jesus have always stood in the way of that tide and simply said, No. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the ones with no power at all.” 

One is reminded of the life of Austrian Catholic Franz Jägerstätter, executed by the Nazi government in 1943 for his status as a conscientious objector. The 2019 film depiction of his story A Hidden Life does an excellent job of juxtaposing the beauty and peace of the surrounding countryside with the horror and anger of the Nazi worldview; a worldview similarly based upon the commodification of human life. 

While the government of Oregon is not sending Catholics and other people of goodwill to the guillotine for their objection to its policies, the celebration of what Archbishop Sample calls the “theology of death” represents a striking advance down the slippery slope towards totalitarianism with which the citizens of mid-20th century Austria would be all too familiar. 

Archbishop Sample writes that the modern worldview has built “an entire system – legal, medical, ideological – on the premise that some lives matter more than others. That some are expendable. That the strong can dictate the terms of existence”. 

The modern, secular worldview does not believe in the principle of equality before the law – does not believe that all men were created equal. In other words, it has rejected the founding principles of the American experiment and those which have resulted in the United States’ long-standing moral status in the international order. 

Further, it is not what we as Catholics believe. Our Lord came to this earth to “preach the gospel to the poor… to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind (Luke 4:18-19)”. No life, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is considered unimportant to the Lord who knows each one of his creatures so intimately as to have numbered each of the hairs on their heads (Luke 12:7). 

The more reasonable of those who hold the euphemistically-called “pro-choice” position would consider abortion a necessary evil, the sacrificing of a human life for some greater good. While we as Catholics do not subscribe to this position, believing that no material or temporal good can warrant the ending of an innocent human life, the position of Governor Kotek falls even further from truth and reality. In this perverted worldview abortion is not just a necessary evil, but something to be praised, celebrated, sought out.

The Archbishop writes: “[It is] not just the act of abortion itself, but the celebration of it. The idea that those who make a living ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honoured. Thanked. Applauded. This isn’t just moral confusion. It’s something deeper. A kind of spiritual blindness so thick that what should be self-evident – the sheer wonder and worth of a human life – is obscured entirely.” 

The governor’s proclamation represents a worldview that is so dark – so far from reality – as to be almost inconceivable. She has declared a day of celebration for those who make a living from death. In her view abortion is not just an unfortunate or regrettable necessity, but an occasion for joy and worthy of thanksgiving. It is no wonder, then, that the state she governs – the state which has for decades continued to re-elect her and people like her – demonstrates the depths of darkness to which it has sunk in many other ways than just “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day”. 

Oregon is not a happy place. According to recent polls the rate of depression and suicide is among the highest in the United States. From anecdotal evidence, I can report that my own high school of approximately 1,000 students experienced a suicide nearly every year I attended.

The rates of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse are nearly beyond belief. The shuttered homes, vacant businesses and broken glass in the streets paint a picture of a society without hope, based on rage. On the slightest of pretexts, the people of Portland, Oregon’s largest city, erupt in violent riots and destruction – most notably in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in 2020. The government’s response is to further hamstring the police force, decriminalise drug usage, and even provide the populace with access to dangerous and illegal drugs on the taxpayers’ dollar. “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day” is only a further symptom of the vast moral decay and growth of hopelessness that has plagued Oregon for decades. 

Thankfully, the situation is not irreversible – salvation, even for Portland, is still possible. As Christians we know that the battle for truth and goodness has already been won by Our Saviour Jesus Christ through his death upon the altar of the Cross. Ave Crux spes unica, as is engraved over the gates of the University of Portland, can still be a motto in which the people of Oregon can reject the nihilistic and angry worldview espoused by those who rejoice in the governor’s proclamation. Archbishop Sample understands this well. His pastoral letter ends by reminding us that evil never “gets the final word”.

The gospel is not about condemnation. It’s about invitation. Even for those who have celebrated abortion. Even for those who have profited from it. Even for those who have convinced themselves that this is somehow a moral good. 

Grace is still available. Forgiveness is still possible. 

Because life – every life – is a gift. And a world that forgets that is a world that has lost its soul.

Pray for Governor Kotek, pray for Oregon, and pray for all of those who have suffered from the lies of the abortion industry. Rather than give thanks for those who end human life, let us give thanks to God for Archbishop Sample and other voices of clarity shining the light of Christ through the gloom of our fallen culture. May they continue to have the courage and wisdom to stand up to tyranny with grace and charity, and may they inspire conversion in those who subscribe to the “theology of death” and culture of despair. There remains a lot of work to be done, but through Jesus Christ all things are possible.

Photo: one of the advents for ‘Abortion Provider Appreciation Day’. (Screenshot from abortioncarenetwork.org.)

The post The horror of Oregon’s ‘Abortion Provider Appreciation Day’ first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post The horror of Oregon’s ‘Abortion Provider Appreciation Day’ appeared first on Catholic Herald.