“She encouraged each of them in the language of their fathers. Filled with a noble spirit, she fired her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and she said to them, ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,’” (2 Mac 7:21-23).[1]

Today is the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. As a creative action of the Father, every life is a gift from God, worthy of dignity. [2] As Pope Benedict XVI said in an address to the Archbishops of Rwanda, “Work tirelessly so that the Gospel will penetrate ever more profoundly in the heart and life of believers, inviting the faithful to assume increasingly their responsibility in society, in particular in the field of the economy and politics, with a moral sense nourished by the Gospel and the social doctrine of the Church.” [3]