God created humanity out of love. He made each of us to share in His joy and abundance and, as Augustine once wrote, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. The value of a human life is priceless because God's love is priceless. All bear His likeness. Every life, no matter how confused or broken, is valuable.
Life is a gift.
It's ours to take care of but not to throw away, and never to take from another. No matter how enlightened a nation's economic and social policies may seem, unless the right to life is respected at every stage of human development, the structures of community life are built on sand. We are not powerless. We are citizens. And in America, this means that we are the architects of our experiment in governing for the common good.