The Journal Gazette, reporting on the 38th annual March for Life (Jan. 29) coordinated by the Allen County Right to Life, noted that Mayor Tom Henry officially proclaimed the march as “a day to recognize the sanctity of life.”
I doubt neither the expediency nor the good intentions of the mayor’s proclamation. But the rally belied its stated purpose and stoked instead a narrow view of life that is dangerously partisan. “Sanctity of life” is a common cause worthy for all to cherish. Yet when glazed with a toxic blend of religious zeal and political extremism, It becomes life denying. A lot of folks get left out.
The cheerleader for the March for Life, Peter Heck, illustrates the peril of being narrow. In Heck’s world, there is little room for sanctity of life outside a woman’s womb. He has berated President Obama, whom he considers a “disgrace to his ancestors” for his support of reproductive choice. He has castigated Hillary Rodham Clinton, our secretary of state, and charged her with leading a worldwide “sexual anarchy crusade.” Heck has additionally judged all involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement as misguided and a public nuisance. In Heck’s version of good society, all non-heterosexuals are excluded, including their supportive family and friends.
Need more to grasp the peril of being narrow? Heck has been a public defender of Michele Bachmann and a public prosecutor of Lady Gaga. And he is a courted friend of the Indiana Family Association, whose parent group, the American Family Association, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The March for Life has been a fixture in Fort Wayne and Allen County for years. March organizers are unquestionably sincere and clear: They are intent upon restricting reproductive choice, reintroducing the criminalization of abortion, limiting the availability of contraceptives and hampering the access of women to any reproductive health services faintly associated with Planned Parenthood. Under the banner of “sanctify of life,” they would restrict choice in the bedroom, the physician’s office and the local pharmacy. However popular the march may be, it trumpets a narrow agenda detrimental to public health and mistrusting of women to make decisions in the most profound and personal moments of life.
The march merits reporting. But its moral treachery, intent upon curbing life’s liberty and diversity, should not go unnoticed. The peril of being narrow fails the test of serving the common good.
REV. JOHN P. GARDNER
Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
