We are made in the image and likeness of God. Created as humans with soul and body, will and intellect, we are not animals or machines, rather children of a loving Father who has bestowed affectionate love and precious dignity as the gifts of divine adoption. Yet, how are we like God, how could we, flawed and imperfect, ever resemble the all-perfect God? On the sixth day of the fruitful week of creation, God said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness.” Beautiful and incredible as they are, He did not create birds, beasts, plants, nature, or the cosmos in His likeness; no, for all these lack a soul, the main source of likeness of God. With the infusing of a soul, the first human being, Adam, received incomparable dignity and the vocation of perfect happiness and true greatness. Since human beings have a soul and intellect, they are elevated above the animals and their brute nature, and rather than groveling and abasing themselves before God, are chosen to be sons and daughters of God and to be truly great and perfectly happy at the end of their earthly span. From recognition of this divinely conferred dignity in the soul comes our respect and reverence for human life, ‘from the moment of conception until natural death.’

Although our souls are limited and often weak, they still contain likeness and similarity to the Supreme Being. Man’s soul is immortal, has the potential to be virtuous, noble and holy. God is, was, and always will be perfectly good and holy, all-knowing, and all-powerful. If our souls hopefully anticipate heaven and desire it as the fulfilling of God’s will for us and our supreme felicity, then we can make the choices between good and evil that will lead us to God. This is another trait of our likeness to God, our free will to choose right or wrong, sin or virtue, God or the devil, heaven or hell. We can decide for our own eternal glory by following the narrow and difficult path to paradise, or our own downfall by straying to the broad and easy road.

We are pro-life because we believe that life is sacred, and that the safeguarding of dignity in every person should be our first care, whether a helpless, unborn child, a person with disabilities, a lonely and suffering elderly person. Why do we believe this? Through creation in the image of God as a human being with an immortal soul, every person obtains the rights of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ An animal has life, may be free of human harness, and be ‘happy’ to a certain extent but it does not have dignity as God has instilled in us, it is not loved by God as a dearly beloved child, nor can it find joy in the knowledge of One who has infinite affection for it. Because we have the divinely given dignity no other creature possesses, we alone have the rights of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ No person, however poor, insignificant, sinful, or hurt, is worthless or useless; just the fact of their dignity exalts their position and sanctifies the gift of their life. They exist to love and be loved, not to be hated or be abused or hated; they are beautiful in the eyes of God.