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"Believe me, I'm just as angry as you are. And I want to take that outrage...and turn it into action," wrote Cecile Richards in a recent email to abortion activists. "If we join together, we can still stop the Stupak ban and other efforts to undermine choice."

You know you've done something right if you've angered Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, the na-tion's largest abortion provider. Her response came after the House of Representatives re-fused to pass healthcare reform that included federal funding of abortion.

Who was the focus of her anger? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), whom she accused of "an unconscionable power play."

Our bishops, by supporting the Pitts-Stupak amendment that prevents our tax dollars from paying for abortions, were acting according to conscience. Recently, the USCCB mailed a letter to America's 19,000 parishes urging the laity to take action.

As they wrote in their 2008 document, "Faithful Citizen-ship," the bishops hand on the Church's moral and social teaching while the laity must carry it out. To wit: "The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed."

If anyone should be accused of a "power play," it's Planned Parenthood and the entire "culture of death." The effort to make abortion part of healthcare reform was inserted into the massive bill, possibly in the hope that no one would notice it amid so much verbiage. It stipulated that women who couldn't afford an abortion could procure one without cost, and that abortion providers could then bill the federal government for reimbursement.

This gambit aimed to circumvent the Hyde amendment that has prevented federal funding of abortion since 1976. If passed, it would have undoubtedly in-creased the number of abortions in our nation.

Abortion provides Planned Parenthood with its largest source of revenue. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised much when the group pledged support of his candidacy. Now, they expect payback.

However, when the bishops and others supported the Stupak ban, the underhanded strategy of the pro-choice lobby was the only thing that got aborted.

Now, Planned Parenthood is taking their fight to the Senate and they will mobilize significant resources to get their "blood money" back. The Church must not only continue, but step up our fight. Contact your legislators and tell them that you support the Pitts-Stupak amendment. In other words, tell them that abortion is not health care. Please pray earnestly and often for the unborn. Go further by using the spiritual weapon of fasting, as some of us do. As Christians, we're not limited to secular strategies, as important as they might be.

In his encyclical, "The Gospel of Life," Pope John Paul II wrote, "Let us therefore discover anew the humility and courage to pray and fast so that power from on high will break down the walls of lies and deceit, the walls which conceal from the eyes of so many brothers and sisters the evil of practices and laws which are hostile to life."

Abortion might very well resemble the demon in Mark's Gospel, whom Jesus told His disciples would "only be driven out through prayer and fasting."

Could the challenge - and the path to victory - be any clearer?

(Glenn Smith is a member of Holy Family parish in Albany and lives in Schenectady.)[[In-content Ad]]

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