Contrary to what breathless Breaking News reports would have us believe, COVID-19 is not the leading cause of death in the U.S. or the world. Neither is it terrorism, war, AIDS, or famine. The leading cause of death world-wide is ignored by mainstream media because it is abortion. When it comes to abortion, most people talk a good game but then do nothing. For many years, one of these was me.

Involvement in pro-life efforts like 40 Days for Life, quickly makes one thing abundantly clear—that the perspective of men is often unwelcome. Abortion is not, however, a woman’s issue as many have been deceived into believing. Nor is it a legal issue. It’s a moral issue—a spiritual battleground over which evil has prevailed for the past forty-eight years to our national shame.

Said one poor woman who calls herself a Christian, “I believe that abortion is wrong. But that men should tell women what they can do with their own bodies, How dare they!” Setting aside the medical and scientific fact that a fetus is separate and distinct from the body of its mother, isolated by the placenta, the belligerent arrogance of such a protestation is difficult to fathom.

In reality, it was nine men on a Supreme Court bench who treacherously obliterated the Constitution and deceived millions to mindlessly commit child sacrifice under the banner of reproductive freedom. How? By persuading them that killing one’s own children is a viable civil right, protected under the founding document of the United States. As a result, many now consider that secret sins, up to and including murder, are innocuous and without consequence as men and women indulge in reckless brutality to their own unending misery.

The Roe versus Wade betrayal and the succession of abortion decisions that followed, were decided with errant reasoning and human arrogance. Lies were offered as facts and a novel right to privacy was infused ex post facto into the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Since 1973, American women and men have been systematically duped into believing that abortion rights empower them, but it’s a crapulous and beastly fallacy. The availability and acceptance of abortion have instead, compelled women to bear nearly all of the responsibility for dealing with unwanted pregnancies. There is rarely ever an unplanned pregnancy. Apart from violent crime, conception requires positive action by two adults. It requires forethought—that is, planning.

Woe to us if we ever again assign to a committee of nine judges, the moral authority to supplant the eternal truth of God. Inconceivable horrors lurk in the flawed idea that civil law can serve as a suitable standard of right and wrong. The great lie of liberalism is that one can play in the fires of sin and not be burned. That inexplicable feeling of impending doom is a messenger of the inviolable law of cause and effect.

For all its faults, the Catholic Church has consistently maintained a position on the battlefront of abortion since the dreadful Roe v. Wade decision, defending voiceless children marked for death and offering alternatives to anxious women in the compassionate love of Christ. To our embarrassment, Protestant churches have often ignored the slaughter of innocents in order to appease liberal members.

If a foreign invader to the United States commanded men and women to kill the 63 million children that have been put to death at the hands of abortionists, would we so passively accept the decree? The enemy has come, and he has persuaded millions to do this very thing, causing millions to endure physical scarring, unending guilt and eternal regret.

“Public virtue,” declared John Adams, “cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” Abortion is America’s most pervasive and self-destructive public policy. It stands out as a repugnant rejection of the most fundamental human right—the right to live. Abortion is without defense in any situation. The time to repent and end this ghastly ignoble practice is now.

Moral authority in America legitimately belongs to the Church, not the state. But for the past 50 years, the American Church has largely ceded its authority and its power to politicians and a godless government. It’s time to take it back from unworthy and unfaithful rubes.

The spring 40 Days for Life campaigns begins on Ash Wednesday, February 17 at the Planned Parenthood “clinics” all across the United States. Volunteers will fast, pray, and stand as solemn witnesses for the right of babies to live. I will be among them. You can to. Find a campaign near you at 40 Days for Life.com.

The Church can no longer simply curse the darkness, we must shine the light of truth. 40 Days for Life is a unique ministry of love for life that draws people together from all denominations, races, classes, and nationalities for one unifying purpose—to seek God’s power to turn the hearts of men and women back to children. This ministry saves lives. Over 17,000 children have been saved, countless hearts have been renewed and lives restored.

Few things in this life are as thrilling as standing for a righteous cause, and this is one. In the effort, God does something amazing and unexpected as a secondary benefit. He knits the hearts of His people together and to Himself.

Now is the time for us to decide how we will answer when the Lord asks, “Where were you?”