On March 10, 2025, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed a proclamation in support of Abortion Provider Appreciation Day reaffirming her administration’s commitment to maintaining unrestricted abortion access throughout all stages of pregnancy in the state.
According to finalized 2023 Oregon Health Authority (OHA) records, there has been a dramatic increase in abortion rates across multiple categories:
There are moments when words fail. When the mind stares into the abyss and finds no bottom. When all that's left is a kind of stunned silence - the kind you feel when you realize just how far a culture can drift from reality.
"Abortion Provider Appreciation Day" is one of those moments.
Not just the act of abortion itself, but the celebration of it. The idea that those who make a living ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honored. Thanked. Applauded.
This isn't just moral confusion. 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 modern world is a master of euphemism. We don't say "killing." We say "choice." We don't say "ending a life." We say "reproductive freedom." The words are carefully chosen, not to reveal, but to obscure. Not to tell the truth, but to make the truth more palatable.
Because deep down, we know. We know what abortion is. We know what it does. And we know that no amount of slogans or legal jargon can make a wrong thing right.
And yet, modern culture insists on turning tragedy into triumph. It demands not just tolerance for abortion, not just legal protection, but celebration. It must be honored, enshrined.
Why? Because modernity has exchanged the wonder of life for the pursuit of power. If a baby is inconvenient, it must go. If it interferes with autonomy, it must be sacrificed. A life is no longer a gift. It is an obstacle, a burden, a problem to be solved.
This is what happens when a culture loses its sense of the sacred. When it stops seeing existence as a miracle, as something given, something to be received with gratitude. Instead, life is reduced to a transaction. A commodity to be managed. And, when necessary, discarded.
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.
That's not progress. That's collapse. A return to humanity's oldest, darkest impulse: might makes right. But followers of Jesus have always stood in the way of that tide and simply said, No. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the ones with no power at all.
Make no mistake - this is a spiritual issue. It always has been. Because at its core, abortion is not just about politics or law or even ethics. It's about how we see reality itself.
Is life a gift? Or an accident?
Is a baby something to be received with awe? Or something to be discarded at will?
Is love the foundation of the universe? Or is it simply power?
Modernity has chosen the latter. It has built an entire system - legal, medical, ideological - on the premise that some lives matter more than others. That some are expendable. That the strong can dictate the terms of existence.
And yet, the truth lingers. It cannot be fully erased. The unborn child is not just tissue. Not just an inconvenience. But a presence. A reality. A life.
And that's why, no matter how loudly abortion is celebrated, something feels… off. The need to frame it as a social good, as a moral necessity, reveals the guilt just beneath the surface. If abortion were truly nothing, no one would need to justify it. No one would need to celebrate it. The fact that it must be ritualized as progress is itself an admission of its darkness.
But here's the thing about darkness - it doesn't get the final word.
Because the gospel is not about condemnation. It's about invitation. Even for those who have celebrated abortion. Even for those who have profited from it. Even for those who have convinced themselves that this is somehow a moral good.
Grace is still available. Forgiveness is still possible.
The call of Jesus is always the same: Repent. Open your eyes. Step out of the lie and into the light.
And most of all - 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.
Because life - every life - is a gift. And a world that forgets that is a world that has lost its soul.
Every human person is created as an "Imago Dei," an Image of God, with a sanctity and dignity that can never be denied. Out of the profound reverence due to every human person, the Church provides support to build a culture of life and advocate for the most vulnerable.
Practices that undermine the value of ALL human life - such as abortion, assisted-suicide, the death penalty, racism - have no place in a just society. We are pro-life for the whole life - womb to tomb - from conception to natural death.
Every parish, in collaboration with Archbishop Sample, seeks to transform Oregon into a sanctuary where every human being is deeply valued and protected.
Archbishop Alexander K. Sample was born on November 7, 1960, in Kalispell, MT, to Alexander K. Sample, Jr., and to Joyce V. Sample. He graduated from Bishop Gorman High School, Las Vegas, NV, in 1978. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Metallurgical Engineering in 1982 and a Master of Science degree in Metallurgical Engineering in 1984, both from Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI.
He completed studies in Philosophy at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, in 1986. He then studied at the Pontifical College Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, OH, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree in 1990. He was ordained a priest at St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette, MI, on June 1, 1990.
Father Sample served as Associate Pastor at St. Peter Cathedral from 1990 until 1993. From 1993 until 1994 he served as Pastor at St. George Parish, in Bark River, MI, at Sacred Heart Parish in Schaffer, MI, and at St. Michael Parish in Perronville, MI. He studied Canon Law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome from 1994 until 1996 when he received his J.C.L
From 1996 – 2006, Father Sample served in the Diocese of Marquette as Chancellor, Director of Ministry and Priest Personnel, as member of the College of Consultors, and as Executive Director of the Bishop Baraga Association. Other offices held in this time period were: Director of Ongoing Formation of Priests, Defender of the Bond in the Diocesan Tribunal, Promoter of Justice for the Diocesan Tribunal, Judge for the Tribunal, Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Bishop Frederic Baraga, Diocesan Chaplain to the Knights of Columbus and as a Member of the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. From 1996 – 2006, Fr. Sample was also the Canonical Pastor of St. Christopher Parish in Marquette.
He was appointed Bishop of Marquette on December 13, 2005, by Pope Benedict XVI, and was ordained a Bishop on January 25, 2006, at St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette.
He was appointed the eleventh Archbishop of Portland in Oregon on January 29, 2013, and was installed at a Mass of Installation on April 2, 2013, held at the Chiles Center on the campus of the University of Portland.
Archbishop Sample's episcopal motto is Vultum Christi Contemplari- "to contemplate the face of Christ."