Consideration #1
The great tragedy of our time is that a woman’s quintessential role in the creation of life has been corrupted by abortion. The murder of innocent life – and the related denial of the beauty and reality of motherhood and family in God’s divine plan – has been elevated to the high altar for worship by a society hardened by a toxic culture, ego, narcissism, and selfishness. As a result, blindness, ignorance and pride becomes like a glove on the hand, desensitizing the woman to the violent reality beyond those “clinic” doors as she reaches for the handle.
A woman who aborts should never be condemned as they are part of our family. They need to know that God’s loving mercy and forgiveness is unfathomable. We all have experienced anxiety related to major life decisions and we all make monumental blunders. That is our shared humanity. It’s understandable then that some women feel trapped and confused as they enter an abortion facility. The choice propaganda is everywhere. They are likely ill informed. But if one does not show compassion towards them even while sharing the truth about abortion, we risk turning them away from the truth rather than drawing them towards it.
By choosing to eliminate the life within their bodies, women will destroy their own humanity and suffer for the rest of their life. In Veritatis Splendor, Pope St. John Paul II expresses that it is actually the one perpetrating the intrinsically wrong act that is first of all deformed by evil. This should be part of our message.
Consideration #2
Satan is a perplexing element of existence, seemingly a part of reality’s scaffolding. It’s as if he’s a universal constant – like gravity. With the skill of a dancer, he moves among us. Floating. Hunting. Scoring. And the mother with child is a prime target. Never successful at destroying the Mary-Jesus alliance, he maniacally pivots to the vulnerable surrogates – destroying millions of lives, both literally and figuratively, with glee.
Consideration #3
A doctor who was trained in abortion by the infamous late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller ironically said, “We learned at his knee. Kindness, courtesy, justice, love and respect are the hallmarks of a good doctor-patient relationship.” Evil takes great delight in this diabolically warped perspective, where man’s conscience can be twisted and unspeakable acts follow. The larger the scale, the better. When malevolence swallows up children, only some recoil in horror. Tragic.
Consideration #4
I don’t have an answer to this but is it effective to show pictures of aborted babies to women entering an abortion facility? It is the harsh reality of a contemplated act but should that picture be shared quietly or spotlighted? At the risk of offending some – spotlighting such an image as it were – I’m going to share a woman’s horrific memory which affected me deeply.
A young woman, scarred for life by the accepted genocide of our time, wrote the following. “The glass container was half full and splattered with blood. Even the tube that fed into the container was crusted with blood. What I saw inside the collection container defies belief, little baby parts swimming in a bloody muck. All those graphic photos you’ve ever seen of tiny dismembered arms and legs are accurate. Only this wasn’t just one set of tiny arms and legs – this was more than I could count. This wasn’t just one baby that was aborted and some careless worker forgot to remove from the room. This looked like all the babies that had been aborted that day. All together in one glass container, swimming in a gruesome soup of blood and bits. They hadn’t even bothered to clean the equipment between patients and I suddenly realized they had every intention of using the same filthy equipment on me.”
Consideration #5
The abortion mentality is nonsensical. I’m not talking about the abortion act, many cringe when you say murder, but it is the premeditated killing of one human by another. The confusion has to do with the rationalizations of the abortion proponents. Reproductive healthcare is both the disingenuous mantra and marketing ploy but brutality is its reality. As much as I want to understand the thinking of choice advocates, their position is indefensible, in a reason-has-left-the-room kind of way.
I’m also baffled by the inconsistency in thought of abortion supporters. Many would be at the forefront in championing civil rights for the disenfranchised, immigrants or the poor. Yet, here we are in the crosshairs of extraordinary human rights abuses, the killing of the innocent, and they are silent. Instead, it’s only their passion and commitment to choice and their alleged rights which is megaphoned.
Consider the actress Alyssa Milano. The harm she is doing to women as well as their babies is incalculable. She had two abortions in her 20s and would do it all over again. “I would never have been free to be myself, and that’s what this fight is all about,” she said. The fight she’s alluding to is freedom against oppression – which ironically is the unjust treatment by others. It is also paradoxical that such persons frame their ideas as promoting “women’s rights,” when they are actually misleading women down a path toward the disintegration of their womanhood. She invariably glosses over the agony which surrounds the abortion act, before, during and after.
Apparently, not all rights are equal. Clearly, selfish entitlements have more gravitas. But if these choice advocates desired consistency, I would presume that they would want to end this enslavement to abortion and protect the rights of the most vulnerable. The ones without a voice.
Consideration #6
Abortion proponents want the government out of the woman’s womb since it’s sacred, personal, their business and no one else’s. Dear women, your womb is indeed sacred. But if it’s turned into a killing field, shouldn’t society intervene and protect the child – your child – before they’re slaughtered? Because for reasons you may or may not understand, you’ve abdicated your protector role. The mother should be the first line of defense for their baby. Sadly, that is not the case.
Consideration #7
Only an abortion fanatic would dispute the following: “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.” One does not abort a lump of tissue or a homogeneous biological mass. It’s not an abscess or a kewpie doll. It is a human being that will be thrown in the trash. One does not destroy a “potential human being but a human being with potential.” The pertinent distinction between the mother and her unwanted, unborn baby is that the mother has had time to grow and develop. The butchered infant was denied this precious time.
Consideration #8
Each one of the Ten Commandments has articulated theological layers and an incredible richness of thought. They are also supremely relevant to modern life. As an example, let’s consider the fifth commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” Human life is sacred because God creates it so God alone is the Lord of life. We can’t assume any rights that lead to the destruction of an innocent human life, whether in the womb or not.
We have some government leaders who may be sensitive to the Catholic Church’s position on abortion or actually support it. However, they don’t think their personal views should be imposed on others with different beliefs. This lack of both conviction and courage is stunning. Somehow, this fence sitting has to become hazardous to their political life. A professed leader who accepts immorality in one form is open to evil in all forms.
Consideration #9
Earlier this year, the approbation of child murder by a powerful governor was met with wide smiles, hoots and hollers, congratulatory handshakes and high fives, and then made law. They – a high percentage of women by the way – took abortion to another level. You can now terminate in the third trimester under very liberal conditions. Other state lawmakers were so inspired that they quickly began to draft mimicking language.
The worst of mankind was on display as lawgivers figuratively got on their knees, within inches of their victims, and whispered to each of the 239 children who would be sacrificed that day in New York, “Sorry kid, you’re inconvenient, enjoy the ride.” Each one of these lifetakers stood at the top of their Mayan-like temple and kicked a precious baby down the bloody steps into a heap below – all the while grinning like a Cheshire cat. And as the sun rose on the next day, the vicious cycle began once again. Out of sight. Out of mind. Serial killing memorialized and worshiped like a golden calf.
Consideration #10
I imagine the following conversation between an aborted baby and their mother.
You are my mother but you threw me away. Why?
“You weren’t important. I had other priorities. They told me you weren’t even a ‘you’.”
But I am, you know, from the very beginning. We all are. It’s undeniable.
“That was an inconvenient truth that I couldn’t handle.”
I was inconvenient?
“You were responsibility, commitment, disruption, expensive, awkward, burdensome, enslaving. Unwanted things.”
And my father felt the same way?
“He was busy. Told me my decision.”
I don’t understand. That seems selfish. Did you both know what they were going to do to me? That place where very bad things happen?
“I never thought about it. The chorus of voices pushing me to abort you was deafening, I was compelled from every which angle. I guess I forced myself into some sort of passive denial.”
Which meant you denied me. But I’m as real as the sun. This is such a sad story, Mom, it didn’t have to happen. Deep down, in your heart of hearts, I truly believe you know that.
All Things Considered
Legalized abortion is a tactical nuclear assault on our values and destructive to society. It is also a deplorable act in that it is gravely contrary to the moral law. More importantly, it is antithetical to God’s will.
The pro life movement has become counter cultural in the best possible sense. With God’s grace, this movement will inevitably succeed and push our toxic and throwaway culture of death to the gutter. But we all should be committed to making this happen sooner than later because lives are at stake. We should support all the women and men who are involved in this extraordinary battle. One profoundly important way to help them is through prayer. This personal communication with God, this request for good things from Him such as the end of abortion, is essential.
