St. Patrick’s Day, also referred to as St. Paddy’s Day, began on March 17th, 461 A.D. with the death of St. Patrick. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland although he was not born an Irishman. The day has been celebrated in Ireland for over one thousand years. Although he was not born an Irishman, but was British, St. Patrick and the celebration of his day as a National Holiday in Ireland; and as a day of celebration for the Irish and all things representing the Irish in the United States can be attributed to his years of service to the Irish in Ireland in which he converted the predominantly “pagan” people to Catholicism. “Pagans” are people who either do not believe in God, or those who worship false gods. St. Patrick believed in the Trinity comprised of God-the-Father, God-the-Son, and God-the-Holy Spirit.

The story of St. Patrick is an interesting one. He was born in 385 AD in either Scotland or England. Patricius Maewyn Succat was his given name at birth which was shortened to Patrick. His father, named Calpurnius, was a Roman-British Army Officer. One day, as he was playing in Great Britain with a group of other children, he was kidnapped by pirates who sold him into slavery in Ireland.

For most Republicans the history of abortion extends back no further than the Supreme Court’s 1973 judgment in Roe v. Wade that struck down state laws banning the practice. A better sense of where we came from might help us understand where we are and why we have been unable to reach a legislative compromise on this issue.

Abortion has been practiced for millennia and we have literary evidence of it going back to ancient Egypt and India. Classical doctors and philosophers wrote about abortion and the early Christian Church wrestled with the practice. It has been variously banned, approved, encouraged and curbed at different times and among different cultures.