As some of you may or may not know, I am a
survivor. I do not often consider myself
to be, and there are times when this is a difficult concept to grasp. But, the reality is: I survived the threat of
abortion. My mother had experienced complications
with my pregnancy, and a few months in, she experienced some heavy
bleeding. She had a miscarriage. She was unknowingly pregnant with twins, and
the doctor advised her to come in and have a follow-up procedure to make sure
nothing was left behind in her uterus.
This procedure, known as vacuum aspiration, is the same procedure that
is used in first-trimester abortions.
Thankfully, my mother made a choice that would change the course of both
of our lives. She chose to have an
ultrasound done. After finding out that
she was still pregnant with me, she decided to carry me to term, despite the
threat to her health and the slim chance that I would be born in good
health. She spent six painful months in
bed, and delivered me healthy and whole, on the thirtieth day of June, 1989.
Twenty-three
and a half years later, I found myself last week on the March for Life in
Washington D.C., this time on the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It was my fourth March, and it was a cold
one. Temperatures were in the twenties
and it was snowing. Perhaps it was the
cold (one of my former professors swears that the best kind of thinking happens
when it’s cold. In fact, he would crank
the A/C down in his room to generate a freezing-good-thinking atmosphere), or
maybe it’s the way that I now view reality, but I could not stop all of the
questions going through my head. In
fact, this turned out to be (for me) one strange March for Life.
I
chose this title because on the one hand, the opposite of being pro-life is not
being pro-choice. And, on the other hand,
I am all of these things. Yes, let it
shock you. I am pro-life, pro-choice,
and pro-conversion. Perhaps I may not be
all of these things in the same way that our modern society has painted these
labels, but the reality is: I am all of these things.
What
does it mean to be pro-life? Many people
in our society feel that if you are pro-life, you are some crazed bible pushing
freak that needs to “get with the times.” Others feel that being pro-life means
that you are against abortion, or the death penalty, or any other “life issue”
that currently plagues our legal system.
Still others believe that pro-lifers don’t respect women and their
rights. Being pro-life is much more than
this. It is about respecting life at
every stage, whether it be in your mother’s womb, on your death bed, or any
other moment in between. At the end of
the day, life takes precedence over everything else. Life is a gift! And as such, we should happily receive it
every single day. Being pro-life means
respecting and upholding the dignity of every human life, especially the lives
of women, who are faced with innumerable threats to their dignity every single
day.
What
does it mean to be pro-choice? Many people feel that being pro-choice means
that you are pro-abortion. Others claim
that being pro-choice means you respect the woman’s right to “choose.” I believe that being pro-choice means that
you are a human being. As human beings
we all have free will, and the ability to make decisions at every moment of
every day. But do we know what we are
choosing? And do we have the freedom to
make a choice? If we do not have freedom
to make a choice, we are, in fact, not choosing, but reacting. Perhaps it is out of fear, we feel trapped,
there is no way out. But that is not a
choice! That is a reaction. Choices are
always made in freedom. Making a choice
presupposes that you know what you are choosing and you have the ability to chose
it in complete freedom—there are no extraneous things that limit your
decision. If a woman is pregnant and
cannot afford to raise her child, or does not want her child to grow up in
poverty, or a broken home, or whatever it may be, she is not making a
decision. She is reacting to fear. Abortion is not a choice because no one would
choose to kill their child and have a vacuum shoved up their uterus. That is just absurd. I have met many women in this position, and
none of them want to have an abortion. Many
of them go through with it because they feel trapped. And almost all of them regret their decision
at some point in the future.
As
I was marching this past Friday, I was struck with the stark contrast of the
events that were taking place around me.
Many people were praying in groups, peacefully marching, as we passed by
protesters who shouted profanities and cursed us for being there. Others were singing joyful songs, carrying
signs, statues, and other devotionals, while we passed horrific images of
aborted children set to sad music. All while
the snow was beautifully falling all around us, and my nose continually leaked like
a broken faucet. I was particularly struck
though by some of the chants that people were shouting at the top of their
lungs, and I began to realize why there are some people who are maliciously
opposed to the pro-life cause. One such
chant went something like this: “We love babies, yes we do. We love babies, how ‘bout you?” Yes, I do love babies, I thought to
myself. But people who are pro-choice
also love babies. If a woman has an
abortion, it does not mean that she doesn’t love babies. This type of villanization is sad at
best. That’s the heart of the mystery:
human beings have the ability to act in a way that is monstrous, and yet it
does not make them a monster, because they are still human. Excuse my harsh example, admittedly it is not
a fair one, but it strikes a chord of truth.
In the twentieth century we saw many monstrous acts, particularly in
Nazi Germany. But Adolf Hitler was not a
monster, he was a human being, with the same potential to do good and bad as
you and me. Sure it’s easier to say he
was insane and evil. But the truth is,
he was human. We all possess these same
tendencies, we just choose not to act in accordance with them, and rightly
so. It’s easier to paint the other side
as evil and point the finger. But it is
far more difficult to look on them with human eyes and try to understand their brokenness
in a human way.
Pro-choicers
are not monsters. They are not
evil. They are people like you and
me. In fact, if Roe v. Wade was
overturned tomorrow, abortion would not disappear from this country. In fact, Planned Parenthood v. Casey is the
latest case that has allowed legal abortions to continue in our country and
constitutionally. This is the case that
would have to be overturned in order for abortions to become illegal. But, even if both of these cases were to be
overturned tomorrow and abortions became illegal in this country, abortions
would still exist. This is because
people don’t choose to have an abortion because it is legal, they have one because they are confused. We need
education in these matters; we need to know all of the choices; we need to know
we're not alone in this decision; we need compassion; we need conversion. Marching around and demonizing pro-choicers
is not the way to bring about change.
Even telling someone that “Jesus loves them and he has died for their
sins in order for them to have eternal happiness” is utterly ineffective. Perhaps
people have abortions because they lack conversion, or they are ill informed,
but whatever it is, it certainly isn’t because it is legal.
This brings to mind the same questions I brought up in my last post: what are ethics? Has progress killed ethical decisions? If we possess the ability to do something, does that mean we should do it? At the end of the day, we all need conversion, especially me. We must have the courage to wrestle with these questions and make some sense of them. St. Paul claims that he is the chief of all sinners. Knowing myself, and respectfully not wanting to take the title from St. Paul, I find myself second in line for the title chief of all sinners. This is not some pious claim made in the mask of humility, it is the truth. And if we are honest with ourselves we all could claim this title. But this is the position that we need to encounter our situation: I need conversion. If I recognize this need, I can then recognize how to lead others to this need. If a great sinner such as myself can come to know Truth and Love, then there is hope for every lost soul out there. Having compassion and patiently listening, and proposing the Truth is the way to bring about this conversion in others. St. Thomas Aquinas said: “Truth has nothing to fear from error.” We must not be afraid to enter into these discussions; the Truth will present itself, and it will always prevail. So let us be open to change, in an authentic way. Let us enter into these discussions with abortion supporters in a human way. Let us look past the demonization and encounter human beings; let us take off our masks and encounter each other face to face.
No comments:
Post a Comment