First Things: On the Square >> We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest (Fr. Richard John Neuhaus)
The late Father Richard John Neuhaus was a devoted champion of LIFE. In his memory, FIRST THINGS will publish this speech each year on the date of the Roe v. Wade decision . We would do well to read it in its entirety. “We the People” have not and will not ratify the lethal logic of Roe v. Wade . That notorious decision of 1973 is the most consequential moral and political event of the last half century of our nation’s history. It has produced a dramatic realignment of moral and political forces, led by evangelicals and Catholics together, and joined by citizens beyond numbering who know that how we respond to this horror defines who we are as individuals and as a people. Our opponents, once so confident, are now on the defensive. Having lost the argument with the American people, they desperately cling to the dictates of the courts. No longer able to present themselves as the wave of the future, they watch in dismay as a younger generation recoils in horror from the bloodletting of