But to say that is not only to make a statement about that particular child being killed. It is to make a statement about how we treat the vulnerable, the inconvenient, the burdensome. It is a statement about family responsibility, specifically to the youngest members of the family. Studies on post-abortion phenomena increasingly reveal how it weakens present and future family bonds and even is a contributing factor to violent activity on the part of teenagers who have grown up in a society that taught them that they were born not because of their inherent dignity, but because of a choice that, after all, could have also gone the other way. Ironically, as we have shown that the words This is my body reveal the core meaning of love, the bond of a strong family and society, so we see the same words used to justify the very opposite of love, the act of abortion.
Religion enables the family to transcend itself.
The family as a community is called to give itself in the service of the wider community of the Church and society. One of the fundamental images of this reality in Christian revelation is the teaching of St. Paul on the Church as the Body of Christ. Each member belongs to all the others. Those are strong words. The teachings that religion brings again, as we saw in the beginning, clarify for us our own identity.