About this issue . . .
. . . Our special 50th Anniversary issue weaves together powerful new essays, expert research, and archival gems, and includes a special section in honor of those peaceful protestors now serving prison time, victims of an unjust Department of Justice.
These pages resonate with both triumph and terrible loss. We rejoice that the Human Life Review has outlived its primary enemy, Roe v. Wade, and that the pro-life movement has grown immensely in size and diversity. Yet we grieve the unimaginable body count. We cry out in frustration that fifty years of Roe have so damaged the culture that once-accepted principles of morality are considered archaic. Put simply, the value of a human life now largely depends on the wishes or agenda of the individuals and institutions who exercise power. We are drifting on dangerous seas without the anchor of the Judeo-Christian morality that once—as new contributor (and homeschooled teenager) Blake Schaper reminds us—reformed an ancient culture where child sacrifice was the norm (“Casting Them Away: The Forgotten Rebellion against Abortion in the Early Christian Church” p. 87). Nevertheless, we are called to persevere and to hope, even if we have to go back to square one. As longtime contributor Donald DeMarco assures us:
Life is to be shared. Abortion set itself against this sharing of life. Therefore, it represents a moral problem that cannot be ignored. Words can enlighten. Love can accept. We live by a hope that is not discouraged by difficulty. Each human life is of infinite importance. How much good each of us can accomplish in our brief hour is known only to God. But we find joy and meaning as we never cease striving.
We are pleased to welcome two more new contributors to the Review: Josephine Tyne, with “Us Too: The Untold Struggle of Post-Abortive Women” (p. 51); and Katrina Furth, “Marveling at the Creator: Human Heart and Brain Development” (p. 35), both presenting fascinating new science that further illuminates the truth about fetal life and the consequences of its destruction. The important book reviewed on p. 115, Pity for Evil: Suffrage, Abortion and Women’s Empowerment in Reconstruction America by Monica Klem and Madeleine McDonald (sisters whose parents raised them with the Human Life Review!), is available from Encounter Books. Bravo to the ingenious humorist Nick Downes and the cartoon he created for our anniversary (p. 34). And special thanks and prayers go to those courageous voices from prison: Joan Andrews Bell, Will Goodman, Lauren Handy, and John Hinshaw.
My heartfelt thanks to all who have made the Review possible these five decades! Our dedicated staff, brilliant contributors and editors, generous donors, and faithful readers. And fond remembrances of all who have gone on to their rewards, including our founders, my parents J.P. and Faith McFadden, and my dear brother Robert, a pro-life lobbyist who died at just 34 years old—you may read his story and inspiring words in our archives, “Why My Brother Won” (Spring 1995).
In 1974, my father wrote his first introduction to this journal on his trusty old Royal typewriter; today, we have a vibrant website (www.humanlifereview.com) and hope soon, with your support, to add podcasts and audio files of our archives, which provide, in one place, a historical record of the pro-life movement told by the greatest-ever defenders of life. The Human Life Review will go on, keeping up with the times—yet insisting on the changeless truths we have proclaimed from the beginning.
Maria McFadden Maffucci
Editor in Chief
