Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle B

1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19
1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Jn 1:35-42

The most powerful way to draw the pro-life theme from today’s readings is to build on Paul’s declaration to the Corinthians, “You are not your own” (second reading). The battle cry of “pro-choice” is “my body, my life, my decision” – in other words, the idea that we are indeed our own. The idea is that we are each the captain of our own ship, and nobody can tell us what to do.

Christianity changes and challenges all that. Because of what Jesus Christ did, we are no longer our own. He owns us – yet not to oppress or enslave us, but to incorporate us into His Body. Nobody owns himself, and nobody owns anyone else. In Christ, we go beyond merely the natural concept of the “common good” (which also challenges the “pro-choice” mentality). Rather we enter into a new humanity and a level of love and unity with one another (including the unborn) that could never be achieved by human effort alone.

A striking contrast to this teaching is the way the late Dr. James McMahon, an abortionist from Southern California who performed partial-birth abortions, answered the question posed to him by the American Medical Association news regarding how he justified doing what he did. He said, “After 20 weeks (4-½ months) where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it. ... On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is: 'Who owns the child?' It's got to be the mother." -- Abortionist James McMahon, interview with American Medical News, July 5, 1993.