How I became pro-life
I've been wanting to put this together ever since I read Abigail's touching post with the same title. I've been dabbling at this post for a few months, and finally feel ready to share it. I apologize that it is so long, I just couldn't figure out how to condense it without leaving out important details. I hope that you will find that it's worth your time to read the whole thing.
Who is human?
Back in college I remember reading about how in certain societies throughout history, I believe in this case it was the Greeks, it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them somewhere to die. It was so deeply troubling to me, and I could never figure out what was going on there: how on earth could this have happened?! I mean, I knew lots of people, and nobody I knew would do that! In fact, in our society you only hear about it in rare cases of people who are obviously mentally disturbed. How could something so obviously evil, so unthinkably horrific be common among entire societies?
Because of my deep distress at hearing of things like this, I found it really irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion as "killing babies." Obviously, nobody around here is in favor of killing babies -- and to imply that those of us who were pro-choice would advocate for that was an insult to the babies throughout history who actually were killed by their insane societies. We weren't in favor of killing anything. We simply felt like women had the right to stop the growth process of a fetus if she faced an unwanted pregnancy. It was unfortunate, yes, because fetuses had potential to be babies one day. But that was a sacrifice that had to be made in the name of not making women slaves to the trauma of unwanted pregnancies.
I continued to be vehemently pro-choice after college, and though my views became more moderate once I had a child of my own, I was still pro-choice. But as my husband and I were in the process of exploring Christianity, we couldn't help but be exposed to pro-life thought more often than we used to be, and we were put on the defensive about our views. I remember one day when my husband was in the middle of reconsidering his own pro-choice ideas, he made a passing remark that stuck with me ever since:
"It just occurred to me that being pro-life is being pro-other people's-life," he quipped. "Everyone is pro-their own-life."
It made me realize that my pro-choice viewpoints were putting me in the position of deciding who was and was not human, and whose lives were worth living. I (along with doctors, the government, or other abortion advocates) decided where to draw this very important line. When I would come across Catholic blogs or books where they said something like "life begins at conception," I would scoff at the silliness of that notion as was my habit...yet I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with my defense:
"A few cells is obviously not a baby or even a human life!" I would say to myself. "Fetuses eventually become full-fledged humans, but not until, umm, like six months gestation or something. Or maybe five months? When is it that they can kick their legs and stuff?...Eight weeks? No, they're not human then, those must be involuntary spasms..."
I was putting the burden of proof on the fetuses to demonstrate to me that they were human. And I was a tough judge. I found myself looking the other way when I heard that 3D ultrasounds showed "fetuses" touching their faces, smiling and opening their eyes at ages at which I still considered abortion OK. I didn't have any interest in reading the headlines at Lifesite. Babies -- I mean, fetuses -- seen yawning at 12 weeks gestation? Involuntary spasm. As modern technology helped fetuses offer me more and more evidence that they were humans too, I would simply move the bar of what I considered human.
I realized that my definition of how and when a fetus became a "baby" or a "person," when he or she began to have rights, also depended on his or her level of health: the length of time in which I considered it OK to terminate a pregnancy lengthened as the severity of disability increased. Under the premise of wanting to spare the potential child from suffering, I was basically saying that disabled fetuses were less human, had fewer rights, than able-bodied ones. It didn't sit well.
The whole thing started to really get under my skin. At some point I started to feel like I was more determined to be pro-choice than I was to honestly analyze who was and was not human. I started to see it in others in the pro-choice community as well. On more than one occasion I was stunned to the point of feeling physically ill upon reading of what otherwise nice, reasonable people in the pro-abortion camp would advocate for.
In reading through the Supreme Court case of Stenberg v. Carhart, I read that Dr. Leroy Carhart, an abortion advocate who actually performs the procedures, described some second-trimester abortions by saying, "[W]hen you pull out a piece of the fetus, let's say, an arm or a leg and remove that, at the time just prior to removal of the portion of the fetus...the fetus [is] alive." He said that he has observed fetal heartbeat via ultrasound with "extensive parts of the fetus removed." The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which presumably consists of well-educated, reasonable, intelligent men and women, opposed this procedure. Not for the reasons I thought -- because it was plainly obvious that this was infanticide in its most grisly form -- but because dismembered babies inconvenienced their mothers, and it was better to kill them outside the womb in a procedure they refer to as "D&X". In the College's words in its amici brief:
I read the Court documents from Stenberg v. Carhart in a state of shock. A few years ago a friend of mine had her baby very prematurely, and I had visited him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He was so beautiful, just like the full-term newborns I'd seen, only a little smaller. Seeing him and the other babies lying there so peacefully in their incubators (some of them with cute little notes written on their incubator tags like "Aiden -- mommy's big boy!"), I was overwhelmed with feelings of wanting to protect these precious, innocent little babies. I was thrilled to hear the my friend's son and all the other preemies who were in the NICU at that time did survive and go home with their parents. So I found myself in a state of cold shock and disbelief that I was reading of people -- not just fringe crazies, but the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and some Supreme Court Justices -- casually speak about the inconvenience of the skulls and bone fragments of dismembered babies ("fetuses") the same age as those babies in the NICU. The horrors continued when I read Gonzales v. Carhart [some excerpts here...warning: no photos, but the descriptions are extremely disturbing].
It took my breath away to witness the level of evil that normal people can fall into supporting. They were talking about infanticide, but completely refused to label it as such. It was when I considered that these were educated, reasonable professionals who were probably not bad people that I realized that evil always works through lies. I also took a mental step back from the entire pro-choice movement. If this is what it meant to be "pro-choice," I was not pro-choice.
Yet I still couldn't quite bring myself to label myself pro-life.
I started to recognize that I was no better than Dr. Carhart or the concurring Justices or the author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' brief, that I too had probably told myself lies in order to maintain my support for abortion. Yet there was something deep down inside, some tremendous pressure that kept me from truly, objectively looking at what was going on here. There was something within me that screamed that to not allow women to have abortions at least in the first trimester would be unfair in the most dire sense of the word. Even as I became more religious, I mentally pushed aside thoughts that all humans might have God-given eternal souls worthy of dignity and respect, because it got too tricky to figure out when we receive those souls, the most obvious answer being "at conception" as opposed to at some arbitrary point during gestation.
It wasn't until I re-evaluated the societal views of sex that had permeated the consciousness of my peer group, took a new look at the modern assumptions about the act that creates those fetuses in the first place, that I was able to let go of that internal pressure I felt, and to take an unflinching look at my views on abortion.
The contraceptive mentality
Here are four key memories that give a glimpse into how my understanding of sex was formed:
Sex could not have been more disconnected from the concept of creating life.
The message I'd heard loud and clear was that the purpose of sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten about altogether. This mindset laid the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being closed to the possibility to life by default, I thought of pregnancies that weren't planned as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street -- something totally unpredictable, undeserved, that happened to people living normal lives.
Being pro-choice for me (and I'd imagine with many others) was actually motivated out of love and caring: I just didn't want women to have to suffer, to have to devalue themselves by dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Because it was an inherent part of my worldview that everyone except people with "hang-ups" eventually has sex and sex is, under normal circumstances, only about the relationship between the two people involved, I got lured into one of the oldest, biggest, most tempting lies in human history: to dehumanize the enemy. Babies had become the enemy because of their tendencies to pop up and ruin everything; and just as societies are tempted to dehumanize the fellow human beings who are on the other side of the lines in wartime, so had I, and we as a society, dehumanized the enemy of sex.
It was when I was reading up on the Catholic Church's view of sex, marriage and contraception that everything changed.
I'd always thought that those archaic teachings about not using contraception were because the Church wanted to oppress people by telling them to have as many kids as possible, or something like that. What I found, however, was that their views expressed a fundamentally different understanding of what sex is, and once I heard it I never saw the world the same way again. The way I'd always seen it, the standard position was that babies were a horrible burden, except for a couple times in life when everything is perfect enough that a couple might temporarily see new life as a good thing; the Catholic view is that the standard position is that babies are a blessing and a good thing, and while it's fine to attempt to avoid pregnancy for serious reasons, if we go so far as to adopt a "contraceptive mentality," feeling entitled to the pleasure of sex while loathing (and perhaps trying to forget all about) its life-giving properties, we not only disrespect this most sacred of acts, but we begin to see new life as the enemy.
To use a rough analogy, the Catholic Church was saying that loaded guns are not toys, that while they can perhaps be used for certain recreational activities, they are always to be handled with grave respect; my viewpoint, coming from contraceptive culture, was that it's fine to use loaded guns as toys as long as you put blanks in the chamber. Thinking of that analogy, expecting to be able to use something with incredible power nonchalantly, as a toy, I could see how that worldview had set us up for disaster.
I came to see that our culture's widespread use and acceptance of contraception had led to the "contraceptive mentality" toward sex being the default position. As a society, we'd come to take it for granted that we're entitled to the pleasurable and bonding aspects of sex even when we're in a state of being vehemently opposed to the new life it might produce. The option of abstaining from the act that creates babies if we're in a state of seeing babies as a huge burden had been removed from our cultural lexicon: even if it would be a huge crisis to get pregnant, we have a right to go ahead and have sex anyway. If this were true, if it was indeed a fact that it was morally OK for people to have sex even when they believed that a new baby could ruin their lives, in my mind, then, abortion had to be OK.
I realize that ideally I would have taken an objective look at when human life begins and based my views on that alone...but the lie was just too tempting. I didn't want to hear too much about heartbeats or souls or brain activity...terminating pregnancies just had to be OK, because carrying a baby to term and becoming a parent is a huge deal...and society had made it very clear that sex is not a huge deal. As long as I accepted that for people to engage in sex in a contraceptive mentality was morally OK, I could not bring myself to even consider that abortion might not be OK. It just seemed too inhumane to make women deal with life-altering consequences for an act that was not supposed to have life-altering consequences.
So this idea that we are always to treat the sexual act with awe and respect, so much so that we should simply abstain if we're vehemently opposed to its life-giving potential, was a totally new and different message. For me, being able to honestly consider when life begins, opening my heart and my mind to the wonder and dignity of even the tiniest of my fellow human beings, was not fully possible until I understood the nature of the act that creates these little lives in the first place.
The great temptation
All of these thoughts had been percolating in my brain for a while, and I found myself increasingly in agreement with pro-life positions. Then one night I was reading something, and a thought occurred to me, and from that moment on I was officially, unapologetically PRO-LIFE. I was reading yet another account of the Greek societies in which newborn babies were abandoned to die, wondering to myself how normal people could possibly do something like that. I felt a chill rush through my body as I thought:
I know how they did it.
I realized in that moment that perfectly good, well-meaning people -- people like me -- can support very evil things through the power of lies. From my own experience, I knew how the Greeks, the Romans, and people in every other society could put themselves into a mental state that they could leave a newborn child to die: the very real pressures of life -- "we can't afford another baby," "we can't have any more girls," "he wouldn't have had a good life" -- left them susceptible to that oldest of temptations: to dehumanize other human beings. Though the circumstances were different, it was the same process that had happened with me, that happened with the concurring Supreme Court Justices in Stenberg v. Carhart, with the abortion doctors, the entire pro-choice movement, and anyone else who's ever been tempted to dehumanize inconvenient people.
I bet that as those Greek parents handed over their infants for someone to take away, they remarked on how very unlike their other children these little creatures were: they can't talk, the can't sit up, and surely those little yawns and smiles are just involuntary reactions. I bet you anything they referred to these babies with different words than they used to refer to the children they kept. Maybe they called them "fetuses."
Who is human?
Back in college I remember reading about how in certain societies throughout history, I believe in this case it was the Greeks, it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them somewhere to die. It was so deeply troubling to me, and I could never figure out what was going on there: how on earth could this have happened?! I mean, I knew lots of people, and nobody I knew would do that! In fact, in our society you only hear about it in rare cases of people who are obviously mentally disturbed. How could something so obviously evil, so unthinkably horrific be common among entire societies?
Because of my deep distress at hearing of things like this, I found it really irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion as "killing babies." Obviously, nobody around here is in favor of killing babies -- and to imply that those of us who were pro-choice would advocate for that was an insult to the babies throughout history who actually were killed by their insane societies. We weren't in favor of killing anything. We simply felt like women had the right to stop the growth process of a fetus if she faced an unwanted pregnancy. It was unfortunate, yes, because fetuses had potential to be babies one day. But that was a sacrifice that had to be made in the name of not making women slaves to the trauma of unwanted pregnancies.
I continued to be vehemently pro-choice after college, and though my views became more moderate once I had a child of my own, I was still pro-choice. But as my husband and I were in the process of exploring Christianity, we couldn't help but be exposed to pro-life thought more often than we used to be, and we were put on the defensive about our views. I remember one day when my husband was in the middle of reconsidering his own pro-choice ideas, he made a passing remark that stuck with me ever since:
"It just occurred to me that being pro-life is being pro-other people's-life," he quipped. "Everyone is pro-their own-life."
It made me realize that my pro-choice viewpoints were putting me in the position of deciding who was and was not human, and whose lives were worth living. I (along with doctors, the government, or other abortion advocates) decided where to draw this very important line. When I would come across Catholic blogs or books where they said something like "life begins at conception," I would scoff at the silliness of that notion as was my habit...yet I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with my defense:
"A few cells is obviously not a baby or even a human life!" I would say to myself. "Fetuses eventually become full-fledged humans, but not until, umm, like six months gestation or something. Or maybe five months? When is it that they can kick their legs and stuff?...Eight weeks? No, they're not human then, those must be involuntary spasms..."
I was putting the burden of proof on the fetuses to demonstrate to me that they were human. And I was a tough judge. I found myself looking the other way when I heard that 3D ultrasounds showed "fetuses" touching their faces, smiling and opening their eyes at ages at which I still considered abortion OK. I didn't have any interest in reading the headlines at Lifesite. Babies -- I mean, fetuses -- seen yawning at 12 weeks gestation? Involuntary spasm. As modern technology helped fetuses offer me more and more evidence that they were humans too, I would simply move the bar of what I considered human.
I realized that my definition of how and when a fetus became a "baby" or a "person," when he or she began to have rights, also depended on his or her level of health: the length of time in which I considered it OK to terminate a pregnancy lengthened as the severity of disability increased. Under the premise of wanting to spare the potential child from suffering, I was basically saying that disabled fetuses were less human, had fewer rights, than able-bodied ones. It didn't sit well.
The whole thing started to really get under my skin. At some point I started to feel like I was more determined to be pro-choice than I was to honestly analyze who was and was not human. I started to see it in others in the pro-choice community as well. On more than one occasion I was stunned to the point of feeling physically ill upon reading of what otherwise nice, reasonable people in the pro-abortion camp would advocate for.
In reading through the Supreme Court case of Stenberg v. Carhart, I read that Dr. Leroy Carhart, an abortion advocate who actually performs the procedures, described some second-trimester abortions by saying, "[W]hen you pull out a piece of the fetus, let's say, an arm or a leg and remove that, at the time just prior to removal of the portion of the fetus...the fetus [is] alive." He said that he has observed fetal heartbeat via ultrasound with "extensive parts of the fetus removed." The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which presumably consists of well-educated, reasonable, intelligent men and women, opposed this procedure. Not for the reasons I thought -- because it was plainly obvious that this was infanticide in its most grisly form -- but because dismembered babies inconvenienced their mothers, and it was better to kill them outside the womb in a procedure they refer to as "D&X". In the College's words in its amici brief:
D&X presents a variety of potential safety advantages over other abortion procedures used during the same gestational period. Compared to D&E's involving dismemberment, D&X involves less risk of uterine perforation or cervical laceration because it requires the physician to make fewer passes into the uterus with sharp instruments and reduces the presence of sharp fetal bone fragments that can injure the uterus and cervix.
There is also considerable evidence that D&X reduces the risk of retained fetal tissue, a serious abortion complication that can cause maternal death, and that D&X reduces the incidence of a 'free floating' fetal head that can be difficult for a physician to grasp and remove and can thus cause maternal injury.
I read the Court documents from Stenberg v. Carhart in a state of shock. A few years ago a friend of mine had her baby very prematurely, and I had visited him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He was so beautiful, just like the full-term newborns I'd seen, only a little smaller. Seeing him and the other babies lying there so peacefully in their incubators (some of them with cute little notes written on their incubator tags like "Aiden -- mommy's big boy!"), I was overwhelmed with feelings of wanting to protect these precious, innocent little babies. I was thrilled to hear the my friend's son and all the other preemies who were in the NICU at that time did survive and go home with their parents. So I found myself in a state of cold shock and disbelief that I was reading of people -- not just fringe crazies, but the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and some Supreme Court Justices -- casually speak about the inconvenience of the skulls and bone fragments of dismembered babies ("fetuses") the same age as those babies in the NICU. The horrors continued when I read Gonzales v. Carhart [some excerpts here...warning: no photos, but the descriptions are extremely disturbing].
It took my breath away to witness the level of evil that normal people can fall into supporting. They were talking about infanticide, but completely refused to label it as such. It was when I considered that these were educated, reasonable professionals who were probably not bad people that I realized that evil always works through lies. I also took a mental step back from the entire pro-choice movement. If this is what it meant to be "pro-choice," I was not pro-choice.
Yet I still couldn't quite bring myself to label myself pro-life.
I started to recognize that I was no better than Dr. Carhart or the concurring Justices or the author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' brief, that I too had probably told myself lies in order to maintain my support for abortion. Yet there was something deep down inside, some tremendous pressure that kept me from truly, objectively looking at what was going on here. There was something within me that screamed that to not allow women to have abortions at least in the first trimester would be unfair in the most dire sense of the word. Even as I became more religious, I mentally pushed aside thoughts that all humans might have God-given eternal souls worthy of dignity and respect, because it got too tricky to figure out when we receive those souls, the most obvious answer being "at conception" as opposed to at some arbitrary point during gestation.
It wasn't until I re-evaluated the societal views of sex that had permeated the consciousness of my peer group, took a new look at the modern assumptions about the act that creates those fetuses in the first place, that I was able to let go of that internal pressure I felt, and to take an unflinching look at my views on abortion.
The contraceptive mentality
Here are four key memories that give a glimpse into how my understanding of sex was formed:
- When I was a kid, I didn't have any friends who had baby brothers or sisters in their households. One friend's mom was pregnant when we were twelve, but I moved before the baby was born. To the extent that I ever heard any of our parents talk about pregnancy and babies, it was to say that they were happy that they were "done," the impression being that they could finally start living now that that pregnancy/baby unpleasantness was over.
- In sex ed class we learned not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. After we were done putting condoms on bananas, our teacher counseled us that we should carefully decide when we might be ready to have sex based on important concerns like whether or not we were in committed relationships, whether or not we had access to contraception, how our girlfriends or boyfriends treated us, whether we wanted to wait until marriage, etc. I do not recall hearing readiness to have a baby being part of a single discussion about deciding when to have sex, whether it was from teachers or parents or society in general. Not once.
- On multiple occasions when I was a young teen I recall hearing girls make the comment that they would readily risk dangerous back-alley abortions or even consider suicide if they were to face unplanned pregnancies and abortion wasn't legal. Though I was not sexually active, it sounded perfectly reasonable to me -- that is how much we desired not to have babies before we were ready. Yet the concept of just not having sex if we weren't ready to have babies was never discussed. It's not that we had considered the idea and rejected it; it simply never occurred to us.
- Even recently, before our marriage was validated in the Catholic Church my husband and I had to take a course about building good marriages. It was a video series by a nondenominational Christian group, and in the segment called "Good Sex" they did not mention children or babies once. In all the talk about bonding and back rubs and intimacy and staying in shape, the closest they came to connecting sex to the creation of life was to briefly say that couples should discuss the topic of contraception.
Sex could not have been more disconnected from the concept of creating life.
The message I'd heard loud and clear was that the purpose of sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten about altogether. This mindset laid the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being closed to the possibility to life by default, I thought of pregnancies that weren't planned as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street -- something totally unpredictable, undeserved, that happened to people living normal lives.
Being pro-choice for me (and I'd imagine with many others) was actually motivated out of love and caring: I just didn't want women to have to suffer, to have to devalue themselves by dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Because it was an inherent part of my worldview that everyone except people with "hang-ups" eventually has sex and sex is, under normal circumstances, only about the relationship between the two people involved, I got lured into one of the oldest, biggest, most tempting lies in human history: to dehumanize the enemy. Babies had become the enemy because of their tendencies to pop up and ruin everything; and just as societies are tempted to dehumanize the fellow human beings who are on the other side of the lines in wartime, so had I, and we as a society, dehumanized the enemy of sex.
It was when I was reading up on the Catholic Church's view of sex, marriage and contraception that everything changed.
I'd always thought that those archaic teachings about not using contraception were because the Church wanted to oppress people by telling them to have as many kids as possible, or something like that. What I found, however, was that their views expressed a fundamentally different understanding of what sex is, and once I heard it I never saw the world the same way again. The way I'd always seen it, the standard position was that babies were a horrible burden, except for a couple times in life when everything is perfect enough that a couple might temporarily see new life as a good thing; the Catholic view is that the standard position is that babies are a blessing and a good thing, and while it's fine to attempt to avoid pregnancy for serious reasons, if we go so far as to adopt a "contraceptive mentality," feeling entitled to the pleasure of sex while loathing (and perhaps trying to forget all about) its life-giving properties, we not only disrespect this most sacred of acts, but we begin to see new life as the enemy.
To use a rough analogy, the Catholic Church was saying that loaded guns are not toys, that while they can perhaps be used for certain recreational activities, they are always to be handled with grave respect; my viewpoint, coming from contraceptive culture, was that it's fine to use loaded guns as toys as long as you put blanks in the chamber. Thinking of that analogy, expecting to be able to use something with incredible power nonchalantly, as a toy, I could see how that worldview had set us up for disaster.
I came to see that our culture's widespread use and acceptance of contraception had led to the "contraceptive mentality" toward sex being the default position. As a society, we'd come to take it for granted that we're entitled to the pleasurable and bonding aspects of sex even when we're in a state of being vehemently opposed to the new life it might produce. The option of abstaining from the act that creates babies if we're in a state of seeing babies as a huge burden had been removed from our cultural lexicon: even if it would be a huge crisis to get pregnant, we have a right to go ahead and have sex anyway. If this were true, if it was indeed a fact that it was morally OK for people to have sex even when they believed that a new baby could ruin their lives, in my mind, then, abortion had to be OK.
I realize that ideally I would have taken an objective look at when human life begins and based my views on that alone...but the lie was just too tempting. I didn't want to hear too much about heartbeats or souls or brain activity...terminating pregnancies just had to be OK, because carrying a baby to term and becoming a parent is a huge deal...and society had made it very clear that sex is not a huge deal. As long as I accepted that for people to engage in sex in a contraceptive mentality was morally OK, I could not bring myself to even consider that abortion might not be OK. It just seemed too inhumane to make women deal with life-altering consequences for an act that was not supposed to have life-altering consequences.
So this idea that we are always to treat the sexual act with awe and respect, so much so that we should simply abstain if we're vehemently opposed to its life-giving potential, was a totally new and different message. For me, being able to honestly consider when life begins, opening my heart and my mind to the wonder and dignity of even the tiniest of my fellow human beings, was not fully possible until I understood the nature of the act that creates these little lives in the first place.
The great temptation
All of these thoughts had been percolating in my brain for a while, and I found myself increasingly in agreement with pro-life positions. Then one night I was reading something, and a thought occurred to me, and from that moment on I was officially, unapologetically PRO-LIFE. I was reading yet another account of the Greek societies in which newborn babies were abandoned to die, wondering to myself how normal people could possibly do something like that. I felt a chill rush through my body as I thought:
I know how they did it.
I realized in that moment that perfectly good, well-meaning people -- people like me -- can support very evil things through the power of lies. From my own experience, I knew how the Greeks, the Romans, and people in every other society could put themselves into a mental state that they could leave a newborn child to die: the very real pressures of life -- "we can't afford another baby," "we can't have any more girls," "he wouldn't have had a good life" -- left them susceptible to that oldest of temptations: to dehumanize other human beings. Though the circumstances were different, it was the same process that had happened with me, that happened with the concurring Supreme Court Justices in Stenberg v. Carhart, with the abortion doctors, the entire pro-choice movement, and anyone else who's ever been tempted to dehumanize inconvenient people.
I bet that as those Greek parents handed over their infants for someone to take away, they remarked on how very unlike their other children these little creatures were: they can't talk, the can't sit up, and surely those little yawns and smiles are just involuntary reactions. I bet you anything they referred to these babies with different words than they used to refer to the children they kept. Maybe they called them "fetuses."
Labels: Background, Catholicism 101, Contraception/NFP, Conversion, Family Size, Life Issues, Marriage, Motherhood, Secular Society
posted by Jennifer F. at 12:26 PM
77 Comments:
What an amazing post--I know lots of commenters have said it, but you've got to write a book! Thanks so much for sharing this with me!
--Elizabeth
Wonderful post, as usual. I have noticed a lot of pro-choice blogging recently and it just makes me sad.
I am very pro-life. I can under all the reasons why someone would want to have an abortion. I completely understand. But that doesn't make it right.
I am a mom of a very special needs daughter. I knew about her issues at 20 weeks. I was strongly encouraged to abort. Most parents probably would have. I didn't. She was supposed to survive birth, she wasn't supposed to live long. She is now 4 1/2. She is severely disabled. She will probably never walk or talk. And I never EVER thought I could handle such a child.
But she is one of the best things that ever happened to me. She has completely changed my life, in a very good way. She is an angel. And I don't mean that is just how she acts. I know she IS an angel on earth.
And I will never forget what a special needs teacher once said (way before I had her). "I don't feel sorry for these kids, they have a ticket straight to heaven.". And she is SO right. And she has every right to be here as I do.
Anyway, to me it is just so obvious that abortion is wrong. There is no way to say with complete certainty that there is an exact point in a pregnancy that a "fetus" has become a baby. And I feel, for abortion to be OK, there really has to be an absolute EXACT point. Since there never will be an exact point AFTER conception, that point absolutely has to be conception itself. No doubt about it. No question. Absolutely.
As you pointed out, how can some parents do everything in their power to keep their tiny premature infant alive in the NICU, while another mother, whose baby is the exact same age, can literally rip the baby in pieces and say that is her "right".
How can we say abortion is OK, but if you murder a pregnant mother, you can be convicted of 2 murders!
It just doesn't make sense.
This is really powerful writing. I've been reading your blog for a few weeks - Amy at Untangling Tales linked to you, and I'm hooked.
I'm (currently) a Protestant who is becoming more and more a firm believer in the Catholic position on life and sex the longer I work in the pro-life movement. I'm the education coordinator for Rhode Island Right to Life, and my recent work has been giving interactive presentations on abortion to confirmation classes.
I always feel a little bit awkward in teaching Catholic theology as a Protestant - the way you've put things on your blog has really helped me out.
This is an amazing post, Jen. Thank you so much for writing about your journey.
This book notes that of the 600 families whose family trees were inscribed at Delphi, only 1% raised more than one girl. Clearly, female infanticide was rampant. Your post sheds light on this phenomenon. Like you, I never understood it. But I think you have hit the nail on the head.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262083256/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Outstanding!
"I realized in that moment that perfectly good, well-meaning people -- people like me -- can support very evil things through the power of lies."
Yes. And not only do good, well-meaning people (typically on the left) support abortion, but good, well-meaning people (typically on the right) support other things I'd refer to as evil, such as (unjust) war (which we're currently involved in).
The factors involved in abortion aren't the only lies, for sure.
Jen,
Your conversion - not only to pro-life but also to Catholicism - resonates with me very much. My background and experiences are very similar. I love the way you lay out your interior thought process on these issues, because I find many of the same flash points in my own course of thinking.
It hasn't been easy. As you correctly point out, the culture peddles the idea that sex is not a big deal, and even thinking outside this box is difficult because it's such a pervasive idea. It's only when we realize that we've been sold a bundle of lies that the truth comes home. The headwinds against the Church's position are strong.
A case in point: Some friends of ours (not Catholic, but nominally Christian) recently invited us to dinner. They just had a baby, their second child, and the father announced that their dinner invitation was the same day as his vasectomy operation. He even joked about there being a discount on the second operation if I was also interested. I laughed it off, but inside it was eating at me. I knew that if I said the things I really believed to be true, I would be labeled old-fashioned, a prude, a reactionary... Not that I wouldn't defend the truth if taken to task, but there was no need to make waves over it at this time.
It helps that you write about your personal process of becoming pro-life, because I feel that in some small way I now have a little bit more confidence in explaining my own discovery on these things. And maybe even another ally, too. Let's face it: the world thinks we're nuts. For much of my life, I probably would've agreed with them.
Thanks again for your post.
My pro-choice to pro-life background and conversion was quite similiar to yours. The genesis of my becoming pro-life started with a converstation with a good friend (very religious and very pro-life - it was kind of strange that we were such good friends because I was the complete opposite!) in high school. We were discussing gestational development, and as I was going through the whole thing I referred to the baby as a fetus through the entire 9 months. At the point when labor started, I was still calling the baby a fetus, and my friend remarked rather sarcastically, "don't you think you could start calling the child a baby at this point?" I was somewhat startled out of my monologue and ever since that moment (what was that, 16 years ago?) that question haunted me. For awhile I tried to ignore the fetus/baby question, because in my mind (and many other pro-choicers as well, I think) a fetus is something you can abort, whereas a baby is a child who deserves care. If I could just call the baby a fetus for as long as possible, then it didn't matter what happened... because it was just a fetus.
As I became more religious this question kept coming back to me... and as I started thinking about the point of viability and other questions I began to realize that it just doesn't matter. A baby is a baby is a baby. At first I didn't even want to think about being pro-life either, but gradually I grew to embrace that label. Last Tuesday I did the first outwardly pro-life thing in my life - I went to the pro-life Mass at the Cathedral in my diocese. It was powerful experience, and I plan to do it every year - although I hope that at some point in the not-so-distant future I can go to Mass on this day in celebration rather than lamentation.
This is beautiful, Jennifer. I had my third child (a girl) almost 20 days ago. As you might understand, I skipped over the more vivid sections of this post. The thought of abortion literally sickens me -- especially right now, as I watch my daughter sleep and see her little fingers clench and unclench and listen to her tiny sighs.
I understand abortion is a decision often made in desperation, and I know it's a decision many (if not most) women ultimately regret deeply. But what a terrible, terrible thing it is. You so clearly articulated the way our society chooses to shut its eyes and ears to the babies rather than face up to the horror.
Jen,
This is beautiful and insightful, you've hit the nail right on the head. This article desperately needs to get into more people's hands, I'll definately be sending readers your way. Are you published yet?
Jen, Bravo, You said what I can never say and i thank you. How about this lie-Which I believed-Life is ruined by an unwanted baby.How about the truth-Life is ruined by abortion. More than one life, i'm afraid.
Thank you for saying so eloquently what is in my heart.
I'm not Catholic, but I do hold the same beliefs as the Catholic church on these issues. I'm thankful to my Catholic brothers and sisters for holding the line while so many Protestants have acquiesed to the culture.
Thank you.
You are one of my choices for Excellent Blog Award - as a Catholic convert myself I really enjoy your writing about journey, but also I love your style of writing!
For details check out my blog.
Jenny in Australia
WOW! FANTASTIC! Don't feel self-conscious about having a long post on this subject. I was hanging on every word.
I loved this part:
"The message I'd heard loud and clear was that the purpose of sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten about altogether. This mindset laid the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being closed to the possibility to life by default, I thought of pregnancies that weren't planned as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street -- something totally unpredictable, undeserved, that happened to people living normal lives.
Being pro-choice for me (and I'd imagine with many others) was actually motivated out of love and caring: I just didn't want women to have to suffer, to have to devalue themselves by dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Because it was an inherent part of my worldview that everyone except people with "hang-ups" eventually has sex and sex is, under normal circumstances, only about the relationship between the two people involved, I got lured into one of the oldest, biggest, most tempting lies in human history: to dehumanize the enemy. Babies had become the enemy because of their tendencies to pop up and ruin everything; and just as societies are tempted to dehumanize the fellow human beings who are on the other side of the lines in wartime, so had I, and we as a society, dehumanized the enemy of sex."
That's a feeling I've haven't seen put so clearly in words before. Great Job Jen!
Your post shows a lot of humility, which is exactly what we all need to ‘see’ our way out of this mess. One would expect that science and technology would help us as we view more clearly the tiny life within the womb…and yet to use your words; we ‘just keep moving the bar’. We don’t want the Truth…to the contrary we run away from the Truth or say there is no Truth.
I understand that many are hoping for a political showdown and wanting changes in laws and such: but that is a side battle. This is truly a SPIRITUAL battle first and foremost. Consider what St. Paul says…"What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God. "But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control…And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires. The Spirit has given us life; he must also control our lives." [Galatians 5: 19-25]
And this from the Gospel…(Then the disciples came to Jesus and said…’why couldn’t we drive out this demon’…Jesus said, ‘this kind requires prayer and fasting.’ - cf. Matthew 17:19,21) So Jen, I think the Holy Spirit is setting all of us up for a real noteworthy Lent.
In fact, I’m wondering how you’re contemplating your first post baptismal Lent. You know we Franciscans are really big on Lent and Penance. Please come to my blog ‘Perfect Joy’ and hit the label marked ‘Penance’. Only three posts on the subject but I think you’ll get a burst forward. Start with the bottom post (oldest) first and move up. I’ve promised someone else I would do one more which will get done as soon as the Holy Spirit gives me what I need.
Another great post - thank you!
I am currently expecting my third baby in less than three years and was somewhat horrified to find the number of health professionals I encountered in the first few months of my current pregnancy (i.e. everyonen from my doctor to the nurse who did a blood test) asking me if I was 'serious' about 'keeping this one'. When I asked what they meant by this, I was told (more or less) 'well, you've already got two - a boy and a girl - and they are so close together, why have a third one? You've got one of each, so perhaps you should just terminate the pregnancy and make your life easier'.
The concept of abortion has never sat well with me but especially for what were such flipant reasons! It makes me wonder how many other women in similar positions are given this same 'advice'.
I am a protestant who many years ago heard a sermon in which we were shown that the idols of today are the gods of affluence and personal convenience. We cringe when we think of the babies in the Old Testament given to the fire for Molech, but our culture also sacrifices infants to their idols.
I went home and thought a lot about that sermon and how true it was. That was what abortion was all about! I was already very pro-life. But then I thought, "How is my use of birth control any different? Isn't it all about affluence (finances) and personal convenience?"
So I went to the Bible, starting at the beginning, and looked to see what God said on the topic. It became very clear that children were a blessing from the Lord, and that it was the Lord who opened and closed the womb, and than barrenness was a curse, not a blessing. Who was I to act like God's blessings were a curse, that pregnancy was a disease to be avoided?! It changed the way I looked at my life, my marriage, my body, my priorities and of course, my children.
I cannot say I have not struggled with giving God this much control. To do so I have had to really trust Him, even when I don't understand or like His timing or what He has given me to do. But being in that place has brought me closer to Him, and given me more intimate knowledge and confidence in His ways than I could ever have had otherwise.
Children are indeed a blessing from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb a reward.
well thought out and well written...keep them comin'! I've always been pro-life and when I read anything on someone being pro-choice or the # of abortions or how they are done, I literally feel sick to my stomach! ESPECIALLY since Tulip's birth. Keep writing... *elizabeth
Wow! What a powerful statement. You're so right about the dehumanizing language. I was reading something about 1960s abortion activism (written from a pro-choice perspective), and though the author (not surprisingly) didn't make note of it, I realized that the activists quoted actually used the words "child" and "baby"--not "fetus" or "embryo" or "tissue." I guess before the use of those dehumanizing terms it was hard to gain widespread support . . .
Brilliantly written. The truth shines out from your post. I went through a similar "conversion" from pro-"choice" to pro-life, and haven't been able to articulate it well.
Keep blogging!
Great post! Very thoughtful and humble. I love reading your blog.
This story and others like it are great gifts to the pro-life movement. I was taught the evil of abortion when I was young enough to respond: Who would do such a thing?!!and that attitude has remained with me throughout my life. My children also learned of it at a very early age and responded the same way. I think it is important to have that attitude towrd abortion, but I have to admit that it makes it difficult to communicate with others who are pro-choice. How could you think that?? just isn't very convincing! As you point out, many pro-choicers are good people who think that their position is a compassionate one. I learned early in my adult life that I was not prepared to enter into peaceful dialogue on this issue. But I pray very hard for the conversion of hearts and minds, and have since learned to view pro-choicers I encounter as people who are somewhere in the conversion process, on the way to the Truth. Your perspective and experience give you a gentle persuasive strength in the discussion with those who have NOT YET been fully converted in heart and mind to the evil of abortion. Though I do not know you, I thank God for your conversion as an answer to prayer. Please continue to share your story with as many people as you can! Theresa
Powerful, thank you. I agree with the book comment below. Your manner of conveying thoughts is quite unique, I would not hesitate to purchase something penned by yourself.
Thanks for explaining in such detail. We disagree, but I deeply admire the way you have thought through your position and the way you live by it.
I am pro-choice because I believe that criminalizing abortion saves neither lives nor souls, but I encourage everyone I know to use their sexuality responsibly so that abortion never becomes a consideration. When people do choose abortion, that is between them and God; it is not my role to stop them, only to pray for them. I believe that the soul of an aborted fetus returns to God's loving care.
I have a question about Catholic belief on one issue: You mention "God-given eternal souls". In at least three other Catholic blogs, I have seen phrases suggesting that PARENTS create souls FOR GOD. I had never seen this idea prior to the past year and am puzzled by it. Is that sloppy writing, or is it true that Catholics believe that souls are made by people rather than God???
Judy, I'm sorry you've been treated so insensitively. It's sad that there are people who think of themselves as "pro-choice" who don't realize that urging a woman to abort is just as coercive as urging a woman to give birth! Duh!!
Isn't it funny how we've had to "open our minds" so much. I never knew how closed-minded I was back when I was "open-minded, free-spirited" agnostic.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such an amazing post! Too bad we can't fit all your words on a handy little sign for the pro-life marches.
You words on sex, contraception have been a huge revelation to me.
I am pro-choice, for some of the reasons you listed that you used to be and a couple others as well.
I read this post today holding my 12 hour old son, realizing that he was perfectly made and such a little miracle from the moment the sperm and egg met. There will never be another human just like him in the history of humankind. It is amazing to look at his physical perfection while also learning about his own unique personality, already sp clear and present.
It is hard to justify abortion when you witness firsthand the sheer miracle of pregnancy and new human. I will probably look back at this comment and laugh at how obviously hormonal I am, how emotional, but I hope I don't.
My high school (public school) also did not include "are you ready to be a parent?" as part of the "whether to have sex" guidelines. But there was a girl in my class who was pregnant already, and who sat there with us through the discussion of how teenage parents have all sorts of terrible outcomes. I know that helped the rest of us see that parenthood was a possible outcome (although I have always felt bad for her.)
"I bet you anything they referred to these babies with different words than they used to refer to the children they kept. Maybe they called them "fetuses.""
I wrote about this recently on my blog, actually. I'm not sure about the Greeks and Romans; but later European societies, even Christian ones, used the word "changeling" to achieve this kind of emotional distance. There is a plethora of folktales and fairytales about changeling children or stolen children.
The way they were able to bring themselves to kill their children was to convince themselves that their child had been stolen by the fairies or by the devil and a soulless creature had been left in its place. Thus it was no sin to kill the changeling because it wasn't really the child they had carried for nine months and given birth to.
Jen, thanks for this. Growing up Catholic, I always connected sex and babies. This was a real eye-opener for me. I of course have some understanding of and experience of the contraceptive mentality, but I don't think I fully realized the extent of the mental disconnect that exists in the majority of American society.
The thing that bothers me about the vast majority of pro-life campaigners is the way they skip right over the desperation. The desperation is the crux of the matter; not questions about when a child becomes a child. To pull the roots of this desperation we'd have to do something about our culture's view of sex (probably nearly impossible as long as birth control remains an option) and all the ways society penalizes women who have kids, especially out of wedlock. Unfortunately, dealing with abortion at that level isn't nearly as glamorous as participating in marches and rallies. It also doesn't give one the warm glow of self-righteousness that you can work up by denouncing anyone who has ever had an abortion.
Jon
"The thing that bothers me about the vast majority of pro-life campaigners is the way they skip right over the desperation. The desperation is the crux of the matter; not questions about when a child becomes a child. To pull the roots of this desperation we'd have to do something about our culture's view of sex (probably nearly impossible as long as birth control remains an option) and all the ways society penalizes women who have kids, especially out of wedlock. Unfortunately, dealing with abortion at that level isn't nearly as glamorous as participating in marches and rallies. It also doesn't give one the warm glow of self-righteousness that you can work up by denouncing anyone who has ever had an abortion."
My, my Jon. Looks like someone else is a bit self-righteous at the moment, and it isn't Jen. In fact, I doubt you even read her posts. Believe it or not, she never once denounced someone who had an abortion. Neither have I, and the same is most likely true about the vast majority of pro-lifers. *Gasp* how shocking!
Hmmm...desperation. Yes, I'm sure that's why people abort, or at least that's what they tell themselves. Heck, desperation is also the leading cause of murder, theft, rape, suicide, war, etc...why don't we stop focusing on all those byproducts, and start focusing on the "real" cause? (sarcasm)
Jon, thank you for espousing one of the most radically lacking theories of morality ever uttered by human lips. I think I shall refer to it as "desperationism." Now, with the wave of a magic moral wand, everything becomes okay, or at least less evil, as long as you're desperate.
...actually, the excuse "I was desperate!" is usually formulated after a human does something wrong. In fact, it's a leading indicator that they know it was wrong, and they're trying to rationalize it away.
For instance...
Why did you kill your husband? I was desperate. Why did we go to war with Iraq? They had WMDs, and we were desperate. Why did you rob the bank? I was desperate.
However, the most intriguing aspect of desperation is that it rarely exists. When you ask the woman why she killed her husband rather than going to a shelter, when you ask the President why he went to war instead of double-checking his intelligence department, when you ask the theif why he didn't apply for SSI or ask a church for help...when you ask a woman why she had an abortion rather than consider adoption or enroll in a program, such as project Gabriel, that provides free housing, food, schooling, indeed everything..."desperation" suddenly dissipates like the smokescreen it often is.
Human nature is quite complicated. We have a will for complete autonomy, and ironically, this drives us to violently rebel against all help. We have what I call a "death urge."
We deceive ourselves, we keep it secret...but it screams, prowling in the dark backalleys of our soul. Sometimes, the thought flashes through our mind. We feel the urge to scream a cuss-word, veer off the road, snap our newborn's neck, or throw ourself down a staircase. We all have such thoughts.
The "death urge" laughs, maniac-like, repeating the mantra by which it was birthed, "ye shall be as gods!" Wronged from the beginning, deprived of all hope as we thrust off our sinful nature, this half-being, this fallen demon within the dark corners of our heart, seeks to drag us down into its own inevitable oblivion in the fires of hell.
Thus, deep within, the urge throbs within us, seducing us...calling us to remain alone, and to die. To kill, and to laugh about it as our essence decays into absolute nothingness.
"Desperation!" is the battle-cry of oblivion itself. It is the dark transubstantiation by which hell becomes truly present in the heart of man.
The worst mistake of the 20th century was to assume the best in other people.
To Jon- You said, “The thing that bothers me about the vast majority of pro-life campaigners is the way they skip right over the desperation.”
My question: Are you similarly bothered that those who work to prevent a suicide are insensitive to desperation?
Thanks for this post! Once when I was visibly pregnant with my 4th child, I walked into a Victoria's Secret store (with my 5 y.o., 3 y.o. and 2 y.o. in tow) and asked them where their maternity section was located. They gave me a strange look and said they didn't have one. I looked stunned and while motioning with my hands said, 'If you provide this, don't you think you should provide that?'
I'm always struck by the disconnect between sex and pregnancy.
Thanks for your insights.
Unfortunately, dealing with abortion at that level isn't nearly as glamorous as participating in marches and rallies. It also doesn't give one the warm glow of self-righteousness that you can work up by denouncing anyone who has ever had an abortion.
Jon - I'm not sure if that comment was directed at me or the pro-life movement in general, but in case it was the former, I'll just throw out that many of my dearest friends and family members have had abortions; also, my husband was raised by a single mother who was so poor that she struggled to simply put food on the table and often couldn't run the heat in the winter. So, a) I am sympathetic to the plight of single mothers, and b) I am very, very familiar with the things that lead women to have abortions, and am not focused on denouncing the women themselves as much as denouncing the act. Obviously, none of them think they're killing "babies". Otherwise they wouldn't do it. But, again, maybe your comment wasn't directed to me.
I would also throw out that most people I know who go to marches and prayer services in front of abortion clinics also donate time and money to causes to support women in crisis pregnancies.
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts.
Wow. Please write that book. Every word was powerful. Thank you!
I live in Aurora, IL, and have been fighting the largest abortion clinic in America. This made national news this summer, and while the news has cooled, the fight here in Aurora hasn't. In the process of bringing the horrors of abortion to the public square, we have had many, many conversations with pro-abortion folks, and while we have attempted to stay charitable and loving, there is a real disconnect between our motives. Your post today is a real bridge between that disconnect. I thank you, and appreciate this post more than I can say. I was just out at the Planned Parenthood clinic today, praying, and paying particular notice of the employees there. I got the distinct impressiong that they were not evil people, that they were there out of concern for women in crisis. So was I. How do we stop seeing each other as enemies, and work to truly improve the lot of women in crisis? I do not know the answer, but I think posts like yours will go a long way to assisting in that goal. Thank you so much, and you can bet I will be referring to this post in the future, as we continue our fight here in Aurora to protect the lives of babies and their mothers. Thank you, again.
Geoffrey, that was a fantastic response to Jon. Though I do think he made somewhat of a good point, however clumsily he may have made it. It’s true that many women who have abortions are in very bad situations. Of course, no situation, no matter how bad it is, justifies killing an innocent child. But it is true that merely making abortion illegal is not enough (though that is certainly a goal of the pro-life movement). We also need to address the things that cause women to feel like they have no other option but to kill their own child. I like the philosophy of the group Feminists for Life, which says that a society in which a woman feels like she has no other option but to have an abortion is a society that has failed women.
However, Jon, I don’t think you’re too familiar with the pro-life movement. As Jen said, the majority of pro-lifers not only attend marches and rallies but volunteer or donate to crisis pregnancy centers, which seek to address the needs of pregnant women who may otherwise feel like they have no option but to have an abortion. I always think of the pro-life movement as a three-pronged approach: there’s political action and rallies; there’s praying at abortion clinics, for women who have had abortions and who have crisis pregnancies, and for the conversion of those who support abortion; and there’s counseling women in crisis pregnancies and giving practical help to women in need.
It’s ironic how so many people call themselves “pro-choice,” yet they fail to grasp that so many times women who have abortions feel like they have no choice at all. After all, why should society help a pregnant woman in need when she can just have an abortion? How many women and girls are pressured into having an abortion by their boyfriend, husband or parents? As long as abortion remains legal, it becomes easy for society and families to abdicate their responsibility to help women in crisis pregnancies.
BTW, Jen, this was an awesome post!
Jen,
I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and your story truly resonates with me. I am currently a Protestant, but have been thinking about converting to Catholicism for quite some time. I also used to be pro-choice, but lately I've been going through the same thought process that is bringing me to the pro-life side. I think your post was the final nail in the coffin.
Wow. I miss reading your blog for a couple of days and miss a great post like this. The evolution of your view on abortion is very similar to mine. I'm not quite with you on contraception yet, but I'm leaning that way. Thanks for the wondeful and thought provoking post.
Did Jon not read your blog? Did he skip the observation made by your husband that being pro-life is being pro someone else's life? This has to be the best argument I think I've heard re: the debate. I'm so tired of being depicted by prochoicers as old, uneducated , meddlesome and judgemental. I'm none of the above. And like many, I've only lived in a post Roe v Wade world. I should be all for it but it has always horrified me and I wonder about people who will go to the mat for this anti-woman, anti-human act.
Could someone please answer my question about who creates souls?
Geoffrey wrote:
However, the most intriguing aspect of desperation is that it rarely exists. When you ask the woman why she killed her husband rather than going to a shelter, when you ask the President why he went to war instead of double-checking his intelligence department, when you ask the theif why he didn't apply for SSI or ask a church for help...when you ask a woman why she had an abortion rather than consider adoption or enroll in a program, such as project Gabriel, that provides free housing, food, schooling, indeed everything..."desperation" suddenly dissipates like the smokescreen it often is.
The fact that desperation is ILLOGICAL does not mean that it DOES NOT EXIST. When a person is experiencing it, it is quite real to her. She needs your compassion and gentle guidance toward the help that is in fact available to her--not your disdain and sarcasm.
Could someone please answer my question about who creates souls?
We believe that God creates souls.
Also, anon, please choose a name for further discussion. You don't have to sign in, but write in a name. It is difficult to have conversations with "anonymous" people since you don't know who/how many people you're talking to.
“Abortion is not a sign that women are free, but a sign that they are desperate.”
- Frederica Mathewes-Green, (who also has an amazing conversion story from pro-abortion to pro-life)
People in the pro-life movement do understand the feeling of depseration experienced by women choosing to have an abortion. If you or someone you know is pregnant and scared go to priestsforlife.org and click on Abortion Alternatives. There is hope and you have choices -- lots of choices and lots of help! Help with money, legal help, help finding a local pregancy reseource center, pregnancy testing, adoption services -- you name it. Priests for Life is connected with people all over the country who can help you with anything you need.
-T.H.
"You mention "God-given eternal souls". In at least three other Catholic blogs, I have seen phrases suggesting that PARENTS create souls FOR GOD. I had never seen this idea prior to the past year and am puzzled by it. Is that sloppy writing, or is it true that Catholics believe that souls are made by people rather than God???"
That would be sloppy writing, or perhaps poor understanding of Catholic doctrine on the part of the writer. We might correctly say that parents participate in or cooperate in the creation of new life. We are properly speaking co-creators with God of a new person. But God creates the soul.
this is THE BEST analysis of a pro-choice to pro-life conversion I've ever read!!! Many pro-lifers fail to make the contraception connection - they can't "go all the way" so to speak. But we MUST go all the way if we are to eliminate the desire to abort from our culture, We cannot simply make abortion illegal - that will never solve the real problem - the contraceptive mentality. Without this understanding (a general grasp of JPII's Theology of the Body would be best) we're just spinning our wheels. I hope you can articulate these lessons to your friends and family and anyone else who'll listen. Great stuff!!
Jennifer, sorry I wasn't clearer. I wasn't primarily trying to critique your post. I was trying to critique the pro-life movement as a whole; especially as represented by some of the other commenters.
Tausign, if it is true I would be. I would also expect that insensitivity to tend to lead to more suicides rather than less. Of course I'm assuming that suffering with those who suffer should lead us to try to change the rules by which society plays (when we focus on the society rather than the individual) more often than we try to make people conform to society's rules and hope they're not too uncomfortable. What do the crisis pregnancy centers do to try to change the world in which single mothers have lived for generations? What do they do to convince the broader society that adoption is a good option for kids and those that want kids and can't have them for one reason or another? The language of rights certainly doesn't change the rules; it's also the hardest point on which to win, especially now with the increasing willingness to do something on a wide variety of social issues.
From where I sit it looks like we only need a relatively simple two prong attack to eliminate abortion. First, the media blitz. Show people a good life and tell them how adoption can be a better part of that than things like in vitro. Ditto for how life could be for single mothers with enough support. Second, make sure that the advertised reality is the reality people experience. This will take work to increase the availability of things like high quality, affordable child care and medical insurance. Child welfare might need some reforming as well; it will certainly need to have an eye kept on it.
Jon
Jon,
truth must go both ways. Desperation is measured not against truth but lies. It is necessary to unmask the lies, and I do think that Jen's post helps with that.
I came here from a mention at the Evangelical Outpost.
A very well thought out and written piece.
Can I have permission to mention it at my blog?
I just had a discussion with a single friend a few days ago about the "contraception" mentality.
Again, thanks for such a great article.
Farmer Tom - sure! Thank you.
Arkanabar, You are only half right. WHat is neccesary is to remove the power that is driving people to sin. If the driving force is lies, then unmasking is required. If the driving force is truth leading to desperation, then unmasking the lies we tell ourselves to try to avoid guilt will do very little beyond increase the desperation.
Jon
This post made me cry, especially the part about the process of abortion.
I knew someone who wanted to abort her second child because it was "inconvenient" for her. I attempted to talk her out of it, with one of my points being that she already has a child, so she KNOWS it's a baby. How could she kill that baby? Unfortunately, that little soul lost his/her life because apparently he/she was simply too much of a burden to the mother. It is so sad.
I actually remember being surprised at the birth of my first child that she was really, truly a baby! Not some blob - a baby! You are so right that we have been conditioned so well to dehumanize the fetus.
I also agree that we were never told that if you don't want a baby, don't have sex. Like you, when I read the Church's teaching on sex, I was amazed! The idea that sex is for unification AND procreation is astounding in this day and age.
Thank you for this post.