Not too many years after abortion was legalized in the U.S. by the Supreme Court January 22, 1973, child abuse became an epidemic. An estimated 2 million children are abused every year, about 2 million are aborted. If we add to this figure the 8-13 million more that die by means of abortifacient contraceptives, the death toll becomes even more staggering. Other types of violence have also increased. For the most part the victims are children, women and the elderly, even though men are sometimes also victimized by women. However, in this talk I will address specifically, violence against women.

Domestic violence should be a pro-life concern. It is a threat to the dignity of human life and even to life itself, as our Holy Father John Paul II has told us in his magnificent encyclical Evangelium Vitae: "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person...whatever insults human dignity...where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator."

Most people believe that only physical abuse constitutes violence. However, now we know that's not so. There is another type of violence that also inflicts damage on human beings : verbal or psychological abuse. I am referring to psychological or verbal battering which destroys a person's self-esteem through insults, criticisms, rejection and/or abandonment. The damage inflicted - though invisible - can leave deeper scars. Moreover, this type of abuse generally precedes physical violence and for the most part goes undetected and unreported.

When a woman is pressured to abort (which is an act of violence against an innocent unborn child), to use harmful contraceptives and/or abortifacients or to destroy her fertility and mutilate her body by sterilization, all these are also acts of violence.

Many women remain in an abusive relationship for a variety of reasons. Those that are being verbally abused believe that type of violence is not serious enough to try to stop it. Some fear they won't be believed because often the abuser has a good public image. Others don't have the emotional and/or material means to face life on their own or their life has been threatened by the abuser. Yet others are codependent, and codependency is an emotional illness that requires treatment by a psychologist or psychiatrist. The children of a dysfunctional family where abuse is taking place, are usually victims themselves. Even those that are not physically abused suffer emotional damage that sometimes does not surface for many years. That damage, if it's serious enough, could lead the male children to become victimizers or even criminals. The girls for the most part end up being victims themselves. This is another reason why domestic violence should concern the pro-life movement.

Violence and discrimination against women have existed since antiquity. That is why the feminist movement started in the XIX century in the U.S. Those women pioneers knew about the discovery of conception in the XVII century. They defended the same rights for the unborn that they were defending for themselves: life, justice, equality, etc.

Unfortunately, beginning in the 1960's the feminist movement deviated from its worthy ideals. Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique" sparked that departure. This book stated that being a housewife and mother was the most degrading and oppressive job a woman could have. For women to reach self-realization, Friedan said, they had to free themselves from the "burden" of motherhood and seek their fulfillment outside the home.

This new feminism believes in the total and absolute equality between women and men, without any distinction, not even those laws that are for the protection of women.. Therefore, since the biggest difference between men and women is motherhood, it was rejected. This gave way to the promotion by the radical feminist movement of contraception, sterilization and abortion --and eventually of lesbianism, too, all of which have been accepted by a large segment of our society.

This tragic shift of the feminist movement has resulted in the death of many millions of unborn children in the US and abroad. It has damaged countless women both physically and psychologically. In many cases women have died from so called "safe legal abortions". They have also been harmed by the terrible side effects of contraceptives and sterilization. It is the women, not the men, who are dying and have had serious medical complications because of the "sexual liberation" the new radical feminist movement helped to bring about. And they call this "equality"? Perhaps for irresponsible playboys who seek to use women as sex objects this is true, but not really for women. "Sexual liberation" has enslaved women more than ever. The use of contraception with abortion as a back-up, leads both men and women to wrongly believe that premarital sex has no serious consequences either physically, emotionally or spiritually. Then the man becomes even more irresponsible and often times he is the one that pressures the woman to abort. And they call this liberation?

Now, after being "liberated", in addition to suffering in their bodies and in their souls because of abortion, contraception and sterilization, the consequences of sex without any commitment; women carry the heaviest burden in the work force. They not only work outside the home, but also inside the home --specially when they are divorced or separated. It is a known fact that the poorest sector of the U.S. is comprised of divorced or single mothers and their children. This sector has grown tremendously, thanks to the mistaken ideas promoted by radical feminists.

This twisted "liberation" of the feminist movement has also taken root in Latin America and in other parts of the world. There is a proliferation of radical feminist organizations that receive a lot of money from their governments or from other powerful governments, like the U.S., from the UN or from foundations in this country.

There is another type of feminism that is also radical but its purpose is to change the teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, the priesthood, etc. These radical feminists want to totally transform religious institutions. They have decided to remain inside the church, in order to try to change it from within.

The most insidious of the so called "Christian feminist groups" is "Catholics for a Free Choice" (CFFC), a Washington, DC-based pro-abortion feminist organization that calls itself "Catholic", and that has branches in a number of Latin American countries. It has received millions of dollars from some 30 powerful U.S. foundations for the purpose of subverting Catholic teaching in Hispanic countries. CFFC has joined dissenting groups like "We Are Church", in order to try to change the teaching of the Catholic Church on the above mentioned issues. CFFC has videos and books in Spanish which it distributes throughout Latin America and Spain, along with the Spanish language edition of their newsletter, ironically titled "Conscience". In Mexico, CFFC distributes a comic booklet called "And Mary Was Consulted on Being the Mother of God", which features an image of the Blessed Mother and a young woman praying to her and asking her for advice on her unwanted pregnancy. CFFC officials in Latin America have declared that the unborn child does not become fully human until the woman accepts her pregnancy. In this comic book CFFC claims that because God gave the Blessed Mother the freedom to choose whether or not she wanted to have Jesus, God gives all women the same right to decide whether or not to abort, so that "motherhood can be voluntary." One of CFFC's videos titled "My Life, My Conscience, My Rights", which promotes contraception and abortion, starts with a procession in honor of the Blessed Mother.

We could ask ourselves why are both the lay feminist movement and the so-called Christian feminist movement so intent on rejecting Judeo-Christian values, such as life, marriage, the family and even the normal attraction to men. The answer lies partly, in the sad fact that machismo, which is the equivalent for men of radical feminism for women and is something which is specially characteristic of Latin America, has created the conditions for this kind of reaction. Not that radical, anti-life feminism could ever be ethically justifiable. It is not. But we can understand how the rejection felt by many suffering women at the hands of violent fathers and/or husbands have led them to throw everything overboard. The resentment they feel is in many cases, overpowering. A lot of healing is needed. It is also necessary to refute the mistaken ideology of the radical feminist movement, which hurts women more than it does anyone else.

It is time for a new feminism for a new millennium, as His Eminence Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo - President of the Pontifical Council for the Family - said, a feminism which is rooted in the original feminism and its pro-life values. We need to promote the true rights of women, especially those women who are pregnant and/or are victims of domestic violence. And we need to make them aware of their great dignity and value, which is equal to man's. How can a woman value her unborn child, if she doesn't even value herself?

We also need to make women and men - especially those who claim to be Catholics- aware of the fact that the Catholic Church is not the enemy of women, as organizations like CFFC would have us believe. Quite to the contrary! The Church condemns contraception, sterilization and abortion, not just to protect the unborn and the fountain of life but also the physical, emotional and spiritual integrity of women and of their marriage. This is the reason why the Church promotes natural family planning methods which do not harm women's internal ecology and which require from men a small sacrifice too. They need to abstain from sex during their wife's fertile period, and treat her as a fiancee. And what woman wouldn't want to be treated this way, at least for a few days every month?

Only when women again value their femininity, their special and unique characteristics, and the gift of motherhood, will we be able to have a more compassionate society, a culture of life. For, as the women go, so goes the country. May our Blessed Mother always be our model.

God bless you.