Washington, DC: In response to the latest denial of the Federal courts to save the life of Terri Schiavo, Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, issued the following statement: "No court, either in the United States or anywhere else, has the authority to authorize the starvation of a human being. Exactly ten years ago today, Pope John Paul II issued the following words in his document "The Gospel of Life": ' Laws which authorize and promote …euthanasia are … completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. …A civil law authorizing … euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law' (#72)."The Terri Schiavo case has demonstrated that we are being governed by unelected judges, and that the legislative and executive branches of government lack the will to stand up to them when they authorize acts of violence. The matter, therefore, now rests with the people. When government fails to protect life, the people must do so directly. Today must mark the beginning of a new era of civil disobedience and conscientious objection, with simultaneous, determined efforts to curb the authority of the courts and restore government to the people through their elected representatives."
Against laws that contradict the laws of God, YES.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
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