By Linda Granzow

I recently attended the movie, “The Help”, which is set in Jackson, Mississippi at the height of civil rights unrest. Pitting a young white woman, Skeeter, whose conscience is finally opened to the reality of the discrimination against blacks, against her long-time friend, Hilly, whose lifestyle and aspirations hinge on the status quo, the author portrays the intense division that occurred in this country when people began to question and fight for what was right, not what was merely legal.

It is difficult to watch the way injustices can be committed against a particular group of human beings just because of race or religion or identity. At the time, it was “legal” to discriminate against blacks and to treat them as something less than fully human. When we look back at that time period, we are appalled that something like that could have ever been tolerated—that a cultural and societal mindset could have ever trumped the natural law of the dignity of every human person. Barbaric acts of torture and murder were committed by one group of human beings against another. This is also what happened in Nazi Germany against the Jews and in Rwanda against the Tutsis and this is the same action that has been happening since the early 1970’s against unborn babies.

It is “legal” in this country to discriminate against an unborn baby and withhold the basic civil right to life, treating the baby as something less than fully human. Whether living inside or outside of the mother’s womb, a baby is a human person. Even so, a cultural and societal mindset currently exists that trumps the natural law of the dignity of every human person. Barbaric acts of torture and murder are committed at the whim of one person against another, and what could be more appalling or unnatural than for a mother to commit this act against her own child? It contradicts the very nature of motherhood in which a mother would do anything to protect or save her child from danger.

Someday, people will look back at this time period and will be appalled that something like this was ever tolerated. During the 1960’s, it took great courage by whites and blacks alike to break the societal mindset and fight for the civil rights of the black people. It will take great courage now to break the current cultural mindset and fight for the civil rights of the unborn. The intense division in this country will continue until the consciences of more people are finally opened to the reality of abortion and they unite to reverse what is merely  “legal” in a fight for what is right.