The heart of the abortion problem, therefore, is not merely whether or not to choose abortion, but whether or not to establish loving, godly, face-to-face relationships with other persons.

Abortion is the delayed consequence of human faces having hardened into façades (courtesy of Helena Rubenstein, Max Factor, Calvin Klein, GQ, or the Wall Street Journal).

The effort to reverse abortion through political persuasions is, of course, both needed and urgent.

But this effort must be accompanied by advising, inspiring, and teaching others about the irreplaceable origin of morality in the loving look on the countenance of the other.

A special effort to achieve this, natural though it is, will be needed given our situation in an impersonal, technological world.

We should take heart, however, in the words of personalist philosopher Jacques Maritain: “As individuals, we are subject to the stars. As persons, we rule them.”

We need not be victims of our environment.

The primary responsibility, then, of every human being is being human.

In that act of being human one finds his authentic personhood as a dynamic integration of individual uniqueness and social responsibility, and as a creative fusion of love and generosity.

 ~ Professor Donald DeMarco