It is no coincidence that when Pope Pius IX in 1869 changed canon law to eradicate the discrepancy in gravity of sin and canonical penalties between killing an unborn baby before, and after, quickening, abortion laws in America changed as well. At that point in history, when Pius IX added automatic excommunication for any Catholic who procured an abortion at any stage of development, abortion from the moment of conception became universally banned. The Church’s ecclesial alteration, perhaps assisted by modern scientific discovery, was in large part the impetus that brought together faith, reason, science, and law to protect the lives of our most vulnerable, unborn children, from the moment of their coming into being at conception.

A century later, with the re-introduction of legal child-killing in several states beginning in the 1960s, the Catholic Church officially remained consistent in her condemnation. Meanwhile, the integration of reason, science, and law had dis-integrated due to a growing subjective ideology that stems from modern philosophy, which ironically contradicts modern science (and the Catholic faith). The new “progressive” ideology put aside the objective standard of natural law in favor of a redefinition of freedom to match subjective (selfish) desires.

Practically speaking, second-wave ‘feminism’, which then had recently been masculinized (and sterilized) due to ‘the pill’, got its way, as Eve did with the forbidden fruit. In contradicting human nature and the delicate complementary balance between the sexes, women were led to find their fulfillment elsewhere, other than their own feminine, fruitful, and nurturing nature. This, of course, was futile. The inevitable descent into unhappiness and further societal decay was made possible by embracing modernity’s new forbidden fruits: contraception and abortion.