Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer spoke to more than 1,000 attendees at the Greater Chicagoland Women's Center Annual Life Banquet in Chicago, Illinois.

Keynote Address: the Annual Banquet for The Women’s Center
of Greater Chicagoland
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, Human Life International
Sunday, February 9th, 2003

Introduction
    Deepest gratitude for the invitation to speak – Fr. Marx our Founder had been a speaker at same banquet some 6 or 7 years ago
    Fr. Marx: 82 years old and living in his monastery, but he is in pretty good health for his age – I had a chance to spend some time with him in Vienna, Austria in October – he is still traveling the globe – the Apostle of Life is still doing pro-life work, a true pioneer in the pro-life movement who planted the worldwide pro-life movement in the world’s cultures
    Most people think I work for Fr. Pavone, but I am with Human Life International, the world’s largest pro-life organization in the world

Gratitude to Hosts
    Thanks to Conrad Wojnar, Janet Miller and all the other workers and directors of the Women’s Center who have been valiantly working on the frontlines of the pro-life movement for almost twenty years – saved 24,000 babies – extraordinary
    I would like to thank you in the name of the babies saved and in the name of those you could not save but who recognize from heaven that you were there trying to save them in the circumstances – they will welcome you with open arms in to the kingdom of heaven
    Cardinal Cipriani of Lima, Peru (the one who told his priests that they should deny Communion to any so-called pro-abortion catholic politician) gave a Mass on the Feast of Christ the King last November and said the if the Gospel about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25) were being written today St. Matthew would have included the unborn in the list of those least brethren of Jesus Christ, and those of us who try to save their lives are performing the greatest works of charity for Christ Himself

Pro-Life Sermon (maybe you haven’t heard one of these in 30 years)
    Challenging – full of charity – but needs to be said
    Three basic points:
       Fatal flaw of the pro-life movement
       Likely outcomes for the future if we do not address the issue
       What we can do – practically –  to address it

Stories which lend insight as to how bad the problem really is:
    Teenager at FL abortion mill who was having an abortion because her friends were going to Disney World in six months, and she did not want to be the only one who could not go on the rides with them because she was pregnant
    Grandmother who brought her granddaughter to the abortuary told the sidewalk counselor: I am here to get rid of a baby – pursuing the matter with intensity and would not listen to the anything the counselor had to say
    Problem was not so much that they were there for the abortion: Abortion was the end stage of their decision-making process
    By the time they arrived at the clinic they had already decided to kill
    Trace the thinking back to its root, and there was something even more sinister behind their spirit of murder: a mentality that told them to get rid of babies when they were not convenient for them
    The beginning of the process was birth control – or rather its failure
    Both of the girls birth control failed – or if they were not using it they had completely absorbed the contraceptive mentality which led them to the abortion mill

The fatal flaw of the pro-life movement:
    Our refusal to recognize the connection between birth control and abortion
    In refusing to see it we address only the symptom of the problem and not the actual cause – in so doing we will never beat the problem – we can plan to spend many long years in front of abortion clinics in a last-ditch effort to save babies
    We are dealing with the ugly fruit of the culture of death but missing the root cause

Garden analogy: if we weed our garden and constantly break off weeds at the stem we will see the weeds grow back in a very short time because the root remains in the soil and produces another weed – in order to rid our garden of weeds we have to get our hands dirty, dig down into the soil and pull the weed up by the root – that same weed will not then grow back – others may grow, but not the one we uprooted
    Don’t get me wrong and think I am saying we should not fight abortion or be out there on the frontlines trying to snatch babies out of the grip of the abortion monster – far from it!

    Calling all people in the room to go to the many Calvaries in Chicago where the innocents are being killed and stand there in prayer and witness so that the babies do not die in vain – we must be there whenever such an injustice is being perpetrated on people

    I too have spent so much of my priestly career on the frontlines and will always go there because it is our vocation as Christians to confront evil

    Please don’t take my word for this birth control-abortion connection: many pro-life people who do not share our values think I am trying to preach Catholic doctrine

    The truth is that this is not Catholic doctrine – it is Planned Parenthood doctrine! Listen to the testimony of the pro-abortionists and various other hedonists about the birth control-abortion link:

Malcolm Potts, former Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF):
    As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.

Alfred Kinsey:
    At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortion in the group which, in general, most frequently uses contraceptives. I don't think it is entirely carelessness. As I pointed out before, you don't do anything -- putting on your clothes, or going to bed, or drinking, or eating -- with absolute regularity. And I think it is just too much to hope that we can ever have any contraceptive practice, outside of temporary sterilization, which is going to prevent this occasional slip that accounts for a high proportion of undesired pregnancies and abortions, especially among those of the upper socioeconomic levels.

    Alfred Kinsey, America's most famous sexologist, quoted in Mary Calderone, M.D. [Editor]. Abortion in the United States [New York:  Paul B. Hoeber, Inc., 1956], page 157.

Christopher Tietze:
    A high correlation between abortion experience and contraceptive experience can be expected in populations to which both contraception and abortion are available. ... women who have practiced contraception are more likely to have had abortions than those who have not practiced contraception, and women who have had abortions are more likely to have been contraceptors than women without a history of abortion.

    Christopher Tietze, one of the world's most experienced abortion statisticians. Abortion and Contraception" In Abortion:  Readings and Research [Toronto:  Butterworth & Co., 1981], pages 54 to 60.

Legal dimension (the Roe v. Wade connection):
    Frank Susman, the lawyer who represented the pro-abortion side in the United States Supreme Court's 1989 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services case, stated in his opening argument that the rights of abortion and contraception now actually merge:

    For better or for worse, there no longer exists any bright line between the fundamental right that was established in Griswold and the fundamental right of abortion that was established in Roe. These two rights, because of advances in medicine and science, now overlap. They coalesce and merge and they are not distinct. The most common forms of contraception today -- IUDs, low-dose oral contraceptive pills, which are the safest type of oral contraceptive pills available -- act as abortifacients.

And here is the wisdom of the Church on the same issue:

Mother Theresa:
    In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gifts of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.

Professor Charles E. Rice:
    If, through contraception, man makes himself the arbiter of when life begins, he will predictably make himself the arbiter, through abortion, suicide and euthanasia of when it ends.

    It is to be especially noted that the abortionists have a vested interest in the connection between birth control and abortion: they want nothing to interfere with it:

    It was recently revealed that in the 1960s retired US General William Draper who was the head of the International Planned Parenthood Federation offered the Vatican a bribe of literally millions of dollars if only the Vatican would change its position on contraception

    I too am optimistic that there is sort of a momentum shift in the political environment which bodes well for making some gains for the unborn, but it is not a foregone conclusion that the political process will actually restore protection to the unborn – nor is it inevitable that our culture will have a conversion of heart about killing babies even if we do change the laws

The Lord said that it was possible to drive out one demon and then he goes in search of seven other demons worse than himself who come back with him and find the house swept and tidied (Luke 11:24-26) making the last state of the man worse than the first

This could happen to our country! We could in time drive out the abortion demon only to have other worse evils come upon us belugas we have not had a true conversion of heart

    Romania example: in 1989 when they got rid of their Communist dictator Ceaucesceau they set up a new democratic form of government whose very first act was to legalize abortion!

    Now three out of every four pregnancies in Romania end in abortion

    And this is supposed to be better than Communism?

Likely consequences if the pro-life movement neglects or refuses to address the root cause of abortion:

    Consequence #1: the pro-life movement will be reduced to an anti-abortion movement, or more specifically, an anti-surgical-abortion movement and therefore offer no effective opposition to the agenda of the death peddlers:

    We could easily fall into the trap of being satisfied with marginal political gains or restrictions to abortion, accept some abortions as inevitable or a necessary evil and then settle down to an uneasy compromise with the abortion establishment

    We would never therefore actually UPROOT the abortion evil from out midst

    And what happens when the abortionists take abortion out of the killing centers and so privatize it through chemical means that we cannot even know who is having or performing abortions?

    At that point they will just call it contraception which is what they are already doing with the so-called emergency contraception which is nothing more than abortifacients birth control by another name

    If we do not on principle oppose this type of contraception we will not really be opposing abortion at all

    They will still be killing as many unborn babies, and we will end up countering only about 30% of their overall agenda – in other words: no effective opposition at all – why should they take us seriously?

    The culture of death still reigns supreme


NEVER FORGET:  these abortion revolutionary organizations like PP and NARAL will not stop at anything to implement their deadly agenda – they have an almost infinite capacity to morph themselves into whatever is socially acceptable:

American Birth Control League (1920s)--Planned Parenthood (1942)

    Agenda: Nazi-style eugenics--birth control--family planning--sex education--abortion--infanticide (most of which they swore they would never endorse)

    NARAL: National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws-- National Abortion Rights Action League--National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League--NARAL Pro-Choice America

    Consequence #2: Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) will be drawn into a form of material cooperation with evil by teaching promiscuous youths about Birth Control as a lesser evi” to abortion – all the while they are doing exactly the same thing as Planned Parenthood

    In actual fact this is already happening in the US: I had a conversation with a lady who was an executive in an organization which runs a large chain of CPCs in the US, and she admitted to me that they readily hand out information on birth control to their clients

    I asked her where the girls will go when their birth control fails them: she was dumbfounded – apparently she had never countenanced the idea that birth control could fail!

    Nor did she ever come to terms with the fact that she could be furthering Planned Parenthood’s agenda by teaching birth control

    For this organization sexual responsibility simply means no more (unwanted) babies – how are they different from Planned Parenthood?

    As the trend in the US moves toward making CPCs into full medical clinics, organizations like the one above will undoubtedly end up dispensing birth control and thus make their work indistinguishable from that of Planned Parenthood except for the fact that CPCs will not be performing surgical abortions


    Chemical abortions will be dispensed through the vast network of CPCs that good pro-lifers set up to counter the abortion agenda

    Consequence #3: The pro-life movement will not be able to stop the death peddlers from EXPORTING the culture of death to the rest of the world

    If we don’t address the birth control-abortion connection the pro-life movement will lose a strategic advantage of depriving the death brigades of their most potent weapon (contraception)

    Like David we could hit Goliath between the eyes with the smooth stone of the Truth and then take his own sword away from him and use it to dispatch him to the nether world where he belongs

Fr. Marx’s constant message: every society on the face of the earth which has legalized abortion has first legalized contraception, and those societies which legalized abortion first did so as a form of contraception and population control  (such as Russia and Japan)

Since 1974 official US policy in the Kissinger Report has been to keep the populations of the Developing Countries low so that they do not challenge us for political hegemony or cut off our access to the resources that we need to run our war machine or to sustain our lifestyles – sad but true

And now, wherever in the world abortion is not yet legal, guess who is there softening up the population to the idea of abortion and changing the life- and family-affirming values of the culture with contraception – Planned Parenthood and their cronies

Family Planning enters a culture and fundamentally alters society’s ideas of family, marriage, sexual responsibility, etc.

Tanzania example: HLI affiliate Pro-Life Tanzania (director Emil Hagamu) sponsored a conference that I attended in September 2002 – our director invited anti-lifers from the Ministry of Health, Education and National AIDS commission of his government – why? He wanted to show the pro-life attendees the stark contrast in the two positions

    Minster of Health: after her presentation Emil said thank-you and invited Fr. Tom to speak:
       Madame Minister, your presentation was very well-prepared, but it was almost taken verbatim from presentations that were made in the US forty years ago by the abortionists: they too said condoms would lower the unwanted pregnancy rate and safeguard against abortion, they too said that abortion was not a method of family planning, etc. But now we have 1.2 million abortions per year in the US, 42 million babies killed by abortion in 30 years, etc.,

    Minister of Education: after her presentation Emil said thank-you and invited Fr. Tom to speak:
       Madame Minister, your presentation was very well-prepared, but it was almost taken verbatim from presentations that were made in the US forty years ago by the abortionists: they too said that sex education would lower the unwanted pregnancy rate and not lead to promiscuity, they too said things like ‘well, they are going to have sex anyway we might as well protect them’, etc. And now in the US we have 1 million teens pregnant out of wedlock, 30 new sexually transmitted diseases, and a completely promiscuous youth culture

    Head of the Tanzanian AIDS commission (a retired army general):
       General, your presentation was very well-prepared, but it was almost taken verbatim from presentations that were made in the US twenty years ago by the abortionists: they too said that condoms were the solution to AIDS, and not only have they not solved our AIDS problem, but they have actually exacerbated it – not only that, but condoms have not solved Tanzania’s AIDS problem either: in 1983 there were only 3 cases of AIDS in Tanzania, but since then the condom-pushers came on the scene and distributed more than 180 million condoms, and Tanzania now has two million cases of AIDS, in a child-bearing population of only about 15 million!

    The conference simply pointed out to all in attendance that Africa was one big condom-fest – they have no other solution to their problems than to throw birth control at them

    Contraception is killing the Third World like a sword that the abortionists wield with deadly precision, and we will not be able to fight them effectively if we do not address the link between contraception and abortion

What we can individually and collectively do to address this fatal flaw in the pro-life movement:

    The 1930s essay contest by a London newspaper – answer the question “hat is wrong with the world?

    The winner was GK Chesterton who had a two word essay to answer the question What is wrong with the world? – I am!

    Points out the fact that all true change in the world begins with individual change and conversion of heart

Solution #1: personal conversion on the issue of birth control

    We must rid our lives, our marriages and our families of this scourge

    We can “evangelize” with this basic teaching of the Church which is nothing other than Humanae Vitae

       If I have a chance to start a religious order of men who would exclusively work in the pro-life field I would call the order after that encyclical because that is what needs to be evangelized most

       Priest evangelization on this point is critical, but we cannot leave the job to priests – married people are the best witnesses

Communicate the right messages to your kids and grandkids too

This is a tough, truly countercultural message, but what else it Christianity if not countercultural?

We will see many red martyrs for the pro-life cause in the future

Right now we are seeing white martyrs for the cause who are making incredible sacrifices for human life

    Joe Scheidler and his 16 years of litigation in the cause of life

    (Joe received a standing ovation from the crowd – appropriate!)

    Pro-Life Action League is very clear on the connection between birth control and abortion

    I too know how bad this persecution can get: I have had people walk out of my Masses and threaten to have me removed for daring to preach on Birth Control (that may be why my bishop sent me out of the diocese to work in Human Life International!)

Solution #2: make all of our pro-life organizations birth control free
    Don’t avoid the issue when it comes up in conversation

    You may be saving someone’s soul from mortal sin

    If they do not share our Catholic faith on the issue introduce them to the organization called Protestants Against Birth Control who have a great ability to make the case from scripture and Protestant traditions

    And support only those organizations that have a zero tolerance for birth control and keep that connection before the eyes of people so as to uproot the cause of abortion

Solution #3: get on your knees and ask God to uproot the culture of death from our society and to change our hearts

    It really will take an act of God to do this – birth control is so much a part of the fabric of our society that only God can really accomplish this uprooting

    The spiritual solution together with our activism will give the world what is needed to free us from this evil

    The teenager and the grandmother that I spoke about at the beginning of the talk were at the abortuary because they did not have conversion of heart on the most basic issue of respect for life and the transmission of life

Our society as a whole supports the greatest offenses against life, and we literally need a Savior to rescue us

In time prayer will achieve the results – in every parable and teaching about prayer of Jesus He always counsels us to “persevere” in our prayer

Conclusion
    Think ahead 100 years when there will be no more abortion

    Someone will write the story of what we at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century have done to eradicate this evil from our society

    They will read our names and the names of our organizations – they will read about our blood, sweat and tears to uproot this evil

    And they will read that we refused to compromise with the culture of death and went to the very root of the problem so as to free our society and our future generations from this scourge

    They will see our light shining down through the ages just as the light of all the Church’s glorious martyrs shines down the ages to us, and they will be grateful that we persevered to very last breath and to the very last drop of our blood to uproot the culture of death – with the help of Almighty God!

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!