"This is the question: Are we working for a culture of life or for a culture of death?"
That is how Pope Francis characterized the central issue at a summit meeting held last month at the Vatican.
This summit was not about protecting babies from abortion. Its title was: "From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience" -- and both Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts spoke at it.
Both these governors promote transgenderism and abortion.
On May 31, 2019 -- five years before Newsom visited the Vatican to talk about climate change -- he put out a proclamation bragging about the availability of abortions in California, including for minors.
"California's right to privacy guarantees that young women do not have to secure parental or judicial consent in order to obtain an abortion," he said.
On March 22, 2022 -- two years before his visit to the Vatican -- Newsom put out a release with this headline: "Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Eliminate Out-of-Pocket Costs for Abortion Services."
"With this legislation," Newsom said, "we'll help ensure equitable, affordable access to abortion services so that out-of-pocket costs don't stand in the way of receiving care."
In September 2023 -- only eight months before his visit to the Vatican -- Newsom signed the Safe and Supportive Schools Act. It required the state Department of Education to develop "an online training curriculum to support LGBTQ cultural competency training for teachers and other certificated employees."
He also signed a law requiring schools to have "at least one all-gender restroom" that is "open to all genders and is unlocked, unobstructed, and easily accessible by any pupil."
In April 2023, more than a year before Healey traveled to the Vatican to participate in the climate summit, she announced she was "issuing an Executive Order confirming protections for medication abortion under existing state law."
"We will always protect access to reproductive health care, including medication abortion," she said.
In June 2023, 11 months before Healey traveled to the Vatican, the Daily Mail published a story about a new program she was promoting in Massachusetts schools. "Students as young as eight years old are set to be taught about the nuances of being transgender in schools in Massachusetts -- thanks to a proposed revision to the state's health and physical education framework," the Daily Mail reported.
"Our young people have experienced a real surge in documented mental health conditions and we owe it to them to empower them with resources, knowledge and the tools they need to be successful," Healey said at a press conference, according to the Daily Mail.
"These updates are also inclusive," Healey said. "They recognize gay, queer, trans students' identities and needs. That's important and it's not something we are going to shy away from."
Just five weeks before Newsom and Healey spoke at the climate summit, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration on "Human Dignity."
It stated the church's unambiguous rejection of "gender theory."
"Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into a competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel," said the declaration.
"Therefore," it said, "all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected: 'We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God's work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.' Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity."
As he ended his talk at the Vatican climate summit last month, Newsom thanked the attendees "for your faith and devotion to this cause."
"We look forward to maintaining our position of leadership," he said. "And we look forward to all of us bringing into our positions of formal authority, the moral authority that is needed and demands of this time."
Healey concluded her remarks by acknowledging "obligation" to "create a better world."
"But it's our obligation to those we serve and represent: To create a better world -- a more just, equitable world that provides opportunity for all -- and healing for our planet and our communities."
In his 1995 encyclical letter, St. John Paul II said: "The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined."
In 2022, when then-Attorney General Healey was running for governor, there were 17,757 babies aborted in Massachusetts, according to state Department of Public Health data provided to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
In 2023, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, the Guttmacher Institute determined there were 178,400 babies aborted in California.
Yes, the environment of our planet should be protected -- for the purpose of protecting human life, including the unborn.
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