By Kevin Chiri

If you drive down West Fifth Street by St. Joan of Arc church and school, you can’t miss the white crosses erected on the front grounds.

It is part of the school’s annual service project, which includes many aspects of remembering the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court 35 years ago.

Roe v. Wade was the court case many years ago that essentially legalized abortion in our country. Since then, it is estimated there have been 50 million abortions.

The eighth grade class at St. Joan of Arc has a project each year which includes raising money for a needy mom-to-be, praying for the unborn and the women who may be considering abortion, taking part in a mass to remember those who have died through abortion, and then erecting the crosses on the front grounds to remind people about the tragedy of abortion.

Whether you are for the right of a woman to choose, or you are against abortion entirely like me, I am sure no one thinks it can be a good thing for any reason.

Yes, I have to respect the right of others to make a decision about abortion themselves, but it is one issue in this day and age that I make no apologies about, when making it clear how I feel.

When Roe v. Wade was first backed all those 35 years ago, abortion supporters tried to claim that it wasn’t really a human that was being killed. Technology was still not so good that we could present such strong scientific evidence about the life which had begun.

But now, there is little argument that from the time of conception, there is a live human being who has been formed, and quickly shows more and more attributes of a child who will soon be born.

When I first heard about abortion I was probably like a lot of people, especially younger people, who were simply ignorant about whether this was truly a life or not. I mean, it just seems like a blob of cells, right?

At least that was always the argument.

And yes, a human life does begin as one cell, then two, then four, and on and on.

But as I began to research the life of the unborn child many years ago, I could see so, so early how quickly that little boy or little girl was growing. It was all it took for me to form a strong opinion about how wrong it was to kill this child.

Now, 35 years later, the debate rages. And incredibly, we have seen 50 million babies aborted before they could be born. The issue has gotten so bad that now we have areas of this country where late term abortions are also done, and babies are aborted right up until the time of delivery. Many people don’t believe that could be true, but go online and Google “late-term abortion” and you will see the truth of it all.

But even long before the final months, these babies are alive and so able to live.

Even in the past month it was proven so clearly to me again. Here was my daughter Chrissy suddenly being rushed to the hospital, pregnant and only 28 weeks along, and then delivered her baby 12 weeks prematurely. Little Jerry Scott was only a little over 2 pounds. But you should have see him. He was a feisty, strong little fellow from the beginning, and now they are actually telling us he may come home far earlier than we expected, perhaps as early as two weeks from now.

Jerry Scott will only weigh a little over 4 pounds, and yet he is considered so healthy that he will be coming home to begin his life just like any other newborn boy or girl. Yet imagine that babies born far later than he was are still allowed to be aborted.

The issue of abortion has gotten a little lost in the past 10 years. For a while it was the top issue of the presidential race, but even in this coming election it is far down the list of those issues getting much attention.

Yet each year at this time it is a good reminder to us of how important it is. Thankfully students like those kids at St. Joan aren’t forgetting, and they are doing what they can to remind the world that the 50 million babies that have been aborted have not been forgotten.

I know there are many out there right now who completely disagree with me about this issue, and for them all, I just hope you will come to the same revelation that I did many years ago.

No matter how inconvenient a pregnancy may be, no matter that a baby was formed from something so terrible as rape, no matter what the reason, the right answer is still never going to be to kill an unborn child in his or her mother’s womb.

Hopefully our great technology will help us figure out a better answer to this problem before we add another 10 million babies to the list.

Good news for all you couples who like to fight.

You’re going to live longer!

A good friend of mine sent me an e-mail pointing out how good it was for a person to not suppress their anger with their spouse.

The study was pretty comprehensive. It tracked 192 couples for 17 years and found out that couples who suppressed their anger had a mortality rate twice as high as those in which at least one partner stood up for themselves in a dispute.

The study went on to say that suppressing anger increased heart disease and high blood pressure.

So the next time you have one of those smug couples brag up how great they are for the fact that “we never fight,” you have a little something to add to them.

At least you will be alive, and fighting with your spouse, long after they are gone!

Kevin Chiri is Publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at (985) 652-9545 or at kchiri@bellsouth.net