(Oregon Right to Life) — Oregon Archbishop Alexander Sample last week published a strong pastoral letter responding to Governor Tina Kotek’s public celebration of abortion providers, expressing first a sense of “stunned silence” at “just how far a culture can drift from reality,” and then reaffirming the sanctity and dignity of every human life, both born and unborn.
Governor Kotek signed the official proclamation declaring March 10 to be “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day” last week, generating vehement pro-life pushback. Archbishop Sample published a pastoral teaching just days later on March 13. In it, he decried “[t]he idea that those who make a living ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honored.”
“This isn’t just moral confusion,” Archbishop Sample wrote. “It’s something deeper. A kind of spiritual blindness so thick that what should be self-evident – the sheer wonder and worth of a human life – is obscured entirely.”
“The language of ‘rights’ and ‘freedom’ in these conversations sounds noble. But strip away the rhetoric, and what’s left? A world where the strong decide the fate of the weak. Where those with power have permission to eliminate those without it. Where human worth is conditional – based on ability, autonomy, wantedness,” he said. “A return to humanity’s oldest, darkest impulse: might makes right.”
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Archbishop Sample leads the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, which serves a population of over 430,000 Catholics. Sample was appointed bishop by Pope Benedict XVI in December 2005, and led the diocese of Marquette in Michigan until becoming the eleventh Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Portland in 2013. During that time, he has been an outspoken advocate for the unborn, and has addressed pro-life advocates numerous times at Oregon Right to Life’s annual Oregon March for Life.
In his March 13 letter, Archbishop Sample urged Oregonians to reject the worldview in which “the strong decide the fate of the weak,” and instead “choose life. Not just biologically, but spiritually.”
“Choose to see reality as it truly is. To embrace the mystery, the beauty, the wonder of existence itself,” he said. “Because life – every life – is a gift. And a world that forgets that is a world that has lost its soul.”
Concluding, Sample said the call of Jesus is always to “[s]tep out of the lie and into the light.” He also extended the offer of grace and redemption, noting that “the gospel is not about condemnation. It’s about invitation. Even for those who have celebrated abortion.”
READ: Pastoral Teaching on the Sanctity of Life
Archbishop Sample’s letter comes as Governor Kotek triggered outcry from pro-life advocates in Oregon and across the country for her March 10 proclamation.
In a press release, Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson called her actions “unsurprising but appalling.”
“There is nothing to celebrate about an industry that profits from taking advantage of vulnerable women and ending the lives of innocent human beings under the guise of ‘health care,’” Anderson said. “Oregon Democrats’ continued obsession with abortion until birth is honestly disturbing.”
As Oregon Right to Life has highlighted, abortion providers end the lives of unborn human beings through either surgical or chemical means. Surgical abortions are carried out using suctioning, induced cardiac arrest, poisoning, or dismemberment, then using metal tools or vacuums to remove the body from the womb. Chemical abortions are carried out by starving the fetus of the growth hormone progesterone, then inducing contractions in the mother.
Oregon abortion providers at facilities like Portland’s “Lilith Clinic” and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) – representatives of which attended the signing of Kotek’s proclamation last week – perform abortions well past fetal “viability.” Abortion is currently legal up to the moment of birth in Oregon, with no gestational limits, mandatory waiting periods, or even parental notification requirements for girls as young as 15.
In 2023, a total of 10,075 abortions were performed in Oregon, up 16.2% from the 8,672 performed in 2022. More than two and a half times the number of late-term abortions (abortions performed at or after 23 weeks) took place in 2023 compared to 2022. The number of women traveling to Oregon from other states for abortions jumped 60% in 2023 compared with the prior year.
“Under Governor Kotek’s watch, late-term abortions have more than doubled in our state,” Anderson said in the press release. “Abortion ends the life of a growing human being and places women at risk of serious mental, emotional, and physical health outcomes. That’s not health care.”
Oregon Right to Life believes in the sanctity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Abortion ends the life of a genetically distinct, growing human being. We oppose abortion at any point of gestation. In rare cases, a mother may have a life threatening condition in which medical procedures intended to treat the condition of the mother may result in the unintended death of her preborn baby. At the same time, ORTL recognizes that modern medical practice has and will continue to increase the ability to save both the life of the mother and the baby. Read this and all our position statements here.
