Each year various lobbies do their best to loosen the fairly tight provisions of the present state law on abortions. This year, it’s called the “Georgia Citizens for Hospital Abortions.”

Each year those who oppose the loose provisions ask for public hearings so that the legislators (or at least, the Judiciary Committee members) can hear their objections. Last year, a number of citizen groups joined the Catholics in helping to get the House-approved (129-3) bill shelved until this session.

Senator Robert Smalley of Griffin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, holds no easy position in the controversy. He has honestly tried to proceed, in a legislative manner, to balance the two lobbies.

The Catholic Church has constantly upheld the stricter bill. In 1966, I testified with other citizens as follows:

“The emotions are again evoked to justify a bill that strikes at a moral principle. And again the Catholic Church is put forward as harsh and relentless.

“This is false, especially since the Church has always stressed the chief American right to life. For the state to claim the right to authorize abortion, is to assume for it a right which this nation has always accorded to the Creator alone.

“It is the medical cases that are flaunted--the mother’s health and the defective child. But hidden in this bill is the much wider use of direct killing as a social tool.”

(To Senate Judiciary, Jan. 1967.)

The heart of the issue is not the experience of foreign countries like Japan and Sweden. It is not the “back-street” practice of illegal abortions. It is not the protection of physicians before the law. It is not the playback of the Nazi government which started with abortion and sterilization and ended with the concentration camps.

The main issue is the human right of an innocent fetus. Can a physician, a judge, a social agency, a lobby, or even the state destroy that right, kill that life? Or should doctors give their skills to new research and better medical care for the needy? And lawmakers protect, not diminish the right of the unborn child? Should social agencies not provide fo the needs of the mother and the defective child or just seek an easy way out? Should our American nation continue to be a stronghold of justice and a safeguard against materialism? May God agree that it will.

A Constitution analysis (Dec. 22, 1967) ended with the words: “If the opposition to the bill is made up mostly of Catholics, it would seem likely it will pass the Senate.” The reason: “Catholics make up only 2 per cent of the population of Georgia.

We do not think that Georgians want to play a numbers’ game in this matter of life and death. Our opposition is based on two factors:

1) Regarding Catholics, it is our right and responsibility to clarify the moral core in this medical-legal-social issue.

2) Regarding all Georgians, it is our right and responsibility as citizens and as moral leaders to many to speak out. We believe they want to vote for the common good, and the legal rights of all people.

Accordingly, regardless of the outcome of the Senate bill, other analyses will follow in the Georgia Bulletin:

I—Is Abortion murder?

II—Will Legal abortion affect illegal abortion?

III—What happened in Japan and Sweden?

IV—The rights of the fetus and the doctor.

All law must be regularly reviewed to see if it fulfills its purpose. But the review should be to enforce the common good, protect the innocent, and work against a harsh, materialistic way of life.

We ask our legislators to review the new abortion bill in this light. It should be defeated, and the older version strengthened and clarified to protect parents, physicians—and unborn children.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta