``Where
the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of
Antioch, 1st c. A.D
Abortion
The 5th of God's Ten Commandments1 is "thou shalt not kill,"
and paragraph 2270 of the most recent catechism explains clearly how
this applies to the matter of abortion:2
Human life must
be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first
moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the
rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every
innocent being to life.
That the unborn are fully human is shown in Sacred Scripture in various
places, such as:
Jeremias 1:5
Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew
thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb..
Isaias 49:1
The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of
my mother He hath been mindful of my name.
Psalm 70: 63
By Thee have I been confirmed from the womb: from my mother's womb Thou
art my protector.
The story of St. John the
Baptist's birth (Luke 1:5-15; 41-42) reveals
that unborn babies can even be eternally saved -- "he shall be filled
with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb" -- and the Church's
teachings about the immaculate beginnings of the Blessed Virgin show
that this is so even from the very
moment of conception.
The oldest existing version of the Hippocratic Oath, which
was originally written ca. A.D. 275, includes these words --
I will use those
dietary regimens which will benefit my patients
according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or
injustice to them.Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when
asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not
give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep
pure and
holy both my life and my art.
-- and, the even older, 1st. century Didache -- considered the very
first Christian
catechism -- includes these:
You shall not
commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall
not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not
steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice
witchcraft, you shall not murder a
child by abortion nor kill that
which is begotten.
For millennia, the West knew that abortion is wrong. But this Truth got
left behind in the 1970s, when feminists and Big Business pushed women
to get "careers" (which, for most women, means simply "jobs").
Still though, abortion is wrong. But some just don't agree. Below are
rebuttals to their arguments:
Abortion bans
endanger women's healthcare
How? Things like ectopic pregnancies were adequately dealt with when
abortion was illegal -- without directly willing the death of babies.
In what ways would women's healthcare be "endangered"? Over a thousand
obstetricians and gynecologists have signed the Dublin Declaration on
Maternal Health Care, which reads,
As experienced
practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm
that direct abortion – the purposeful destruction of the unborn child –
is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.
We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between
abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save
the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of
life of her unborn child.
We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect,
in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.4
Abortion bans deny
bodily autonomy
There are all sorts of things we're not allowed to do with our
bodies -- e.g., we're not allowed to commit other sorts of homicide,
arson, theft, burglary, and rape; we're not allowed to loiter or to
defecate in the streets; we're not allowed to use illegal drugs or to
commit suicide,
etc. Murdering babies is one of those things we can't morally do, and
isn't it pretty intuitively so?
But abortion affects
only women!
Abortion affects not only women, but the babies murdered, the fathers,
grandparents, siblings and other family members of those babies, and
the societies into which those babies were to have been born. It's not
a mere private and personal matter; it's a familial one, and a social
one in which the State has a vested interest. (Besides, men have to
register for Selective Service; I don't hear women crying about "bodily
autonomy" or the rights of men when it comes to the draft.)
Abortion bans make
poor women poorer
Do you think that children's value depends on the wealth of
their parents? Are you willing to slaughter all of the poor and
hungry of the world - or just the very young among them? If a woman
gives birth to a child she can't afford to raise, she can allow someone
to adopt the baby.
A ban on abortion
would hold women back and undo all the strides they've made in the
workplace!
Pregnant women work all the time, and if a woman doesn't want or can't
afford a child after it's born, she can allow someone else to adopt it.
Besides, are women in a contest with men or something?
But who are you to
tell others what to do? Who am I to tell others what
to do? I don't even like
abortion; I wouldn't have one myself, but think others should have the choice!
What other sorts of murder would you say that about? During the Shoah,
would you have said that it's OK for a Nazi to kill a Jew, but it's
just not to your personal taste? Are you OK with people breaking
homicide laws now even though you wouldn't do it yourself? Besides,
it's not a matter of you
"telling others what to do"; it's a matter of honoring natural law.
It's just a fetus,
not a baby
"Fetus" is Latin for "offspring," not "meaningless and inhuman clump of
cells." "Fetus" (and "embryo") are simply words we use to describe a
stage of life, just as we use "toddler" to describe very young
children, "kids" to describe the young, "teenager" to describe another
age, "elder" or "senior" to describe the old, etc. "Fetus" and "embryo"
accurately used to describe someone don't make the person so described
less human or less a person.
But it's just a clump of cells
If a fetus fits the definition of "just a clump of cells," what
prevents you from fitting that same definition? The fetus is alive (it
undergoes biological processes such as growth, metabolism, cell
division, etc.); it has its own DNA; it is human (it's not a giraffe,
sloth, or orchid). It is, therefore, a living, individuated human
being. The baby is not the mother, and is not the father, but has genes
combined from both -- a combining of 23 sets of two chromosomes that
has a one in 8,324,608 chance of coming together the way it did. And
each of those chromosomes carries up to thousands of different genes
such
that that particular, individual new baby has a one in over 70 trillion
chance of being genetically who he is. 96% of 5,577 biologists from
over a thousand academic institutions in 86 different countries affirm
that human life begins at fertilization. 5 Do you "trust
the science" or not?
Who are you to kill that baby or to condone others killing it? So many
who speak so easily about abortion wouldn't dream of stomping on sea
turtle eggs, tossing robin eggs out of their nests, squashing baby
goats underfoot, or ripping unborn dolphins apart. They'd be horrified
at a mother cat who ate her living kittens as they were being born. But
they're nonchalant about killing human babies.
Finally, are you 100% certain that what you're calling a "clump of
cells" isn't a living, individuated human being? If you're not,
shouldn't you err on the side of caution? Would you fire a shotgun into
a bush hoping to shoot a deer when you think there's a possibility that
the rustling you heard was a hunter -- a fellow human being -- and not
a deer?
But some women don't
want to be pregnant!
Then they shouldn't have invited children into their wombs by having
sex.
But some babies
aren't "invited"; some come about because of rape and
incest
Do you disagree with the principle stated in Deuteronomy 24:16 -- that
"fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children
for the fathers"? If not, for what other parental crimes should their
children pay?
Violence against an innocent human being isn't the solution for
past violence. It's a basic principle of moral thinking that one can't
do an evil to bring about a good, that good ends don't justify evil
means.
Further, of aborting women surveyed by the Guttmacher
Institute, "1% indicated that they had been victims of rape, and less
than half a percent said they became pregnant as a result of incest." 6
Would you be willing to outlaw the 99% of abortions that are not sought because of rape or
incest?
In 99% of abortions, the women who aborted willingly engaged in the act
that invites pregnancy. That's what sex is. That's its biological
purpose. That's what it does. And that's why it should be taken
seriously and kept inside marriage.
But lots of women
who have sex aren't "inviting babies into their wombs"; they're just
trying to have sex!
That's rather like saying "women who plunge to their deaths after
jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge don't want to die; they just want to
feel the rush of falling." As said, procreation is the very biological
purpose of sex. Babies are what sex is designed to make.
But some women do
all they can to prevent getting pregnant, but still get pregnant!
That's why one shouldn't rely on contraception -- which seems to invite
promiscuity by making people think they're safe from the consequences
of sex when they're really not. Ever hear of the Peltzman Effect? When
safety measures are implemented, people's perception of risk decreases,
and so they make riskier decisions. The Peltzman Effect played out
clearly during the AIDS crisis in Thailand:
In the late
1980s, Thailand and the Philippines had roughly the same number of HIV/
AIDS cases at 112 and 135 cases, respectively. In the early 1990s, the
government of Thailand enforced the 100% Condom Use program in its
booming commercial sex industry while the Philippines was characterized
by its very low rate of condom use and the firm opposition of church
and government to condoms, among other forms of contraception. In 2003,
almost fifteen years later, the number of HIV/ AIDS cases in Thailand
had risen to 750,000 while the number in the Philippines remained low
at 1,935 cases as the latter’s population grew to more than 30 per cent
that of Thailand. 7
Half of all abortion seekers in a 1987 study were practicing
contraception during the month in which they conceived.8 The
point: don't think contraception will stop unwanted pregnancies.
Finally, getting pregnant isn't -- and shouldn't be treated as -- a
"punishment" for having sex; it's a natural consequence of having sex.
It's not a matter of "you were a good girl and used protection, so you
deserve to get to kill a baby!"; it's a matter of "you had sex, and,
so, a baby happened in spite of your 'precautions'." Besides,
contraception is against Catholic teaching, so no educated Catholic
pro-life person would think of using contraception as a great move
worthy of a reward -- let alone the "reward" of infanticide.
And to those who think pro-life people want to use pregnancy to
"punish" women who have sex, consider that no one has ever pushed the
idea of throwing into prison unmarried pregnant women who have
miscarriages, as if their "punishment" hasn't been served by nine
months
of pregnancy, so some other "punishment" must be substituted.
But it doesn't make
sense to be worried about a fetus before it's viable
"Viable: capable of surviving or living successfully." Babies of any
age are "viable" if not murdered.
If by "viable," you mean "able to live without the help of others,"
then that includes babies who are born, toddlers, some of the sick and
disabled, people in comas, anyone intubated on an operating table, etc.
Do you want to deny all of them human rights, too?
You either deny the existence of the soul and/or the inherent dignity
of human
life, or you affirm that the soul and/or dignity attach to the baby at
some point. If you believe that humans have souls and/or that
human life
has a dignity above that of other animals, when does this ensoulment and/or
acquiring of dignity take place? Is the vagina magic such that passing
through it confers a soul and/or human dignity? And if you're not sure when this human dignity
attaches to a human being, shouldn't you err on the side of caution? For
ex., if you're out hunting deer and hear a rustling in the bushes,
would you start shooting before you've actually seen the deer when know
that the rustling you heard could be another hunter?
"Viability" in the sense of "able to live without the help of others"
also depends on technology: a 24-week old baby born in Burundi won't be
able to survive as easily as a 24-week old in the United States. Do you
think that the ability to afford technology should affect the level of
respect and care we should at least want
to give to human beings? Do
you think the law should
treat the poor and rich differently in terms
of their rights? Do the
babies of Burundi have the same human dignity and personhood as the
babies of the West?
"Viability" in that sense also depends on timing, on one's place in
history. A baby born at 24 weeks in 1888 would have a smaller chance of
survival than one born at the same age in 2022. Should the baby born in
1888 have been treated as having fewer rights than the child born later?
And here's a question for you: if pro-lifers are wrong about abortion,
the worst possible outcome is that more human beings are born. If
pro-abortion types are wrong about abortion, the worst possible outcome
is that there's been an ongoing genocide -- 42 million people a year
worldwide -- for decades, a genocide that makes the Holocaust pale in
comparison. Are you so sure
about when life begins that you're willing to even risk furthering the
cause of genocide?
But young fetuses aren't even conscious
First, how do you know?
Second, even if they aren't, neither are you when you're asleep, and
neither are those in comas. Are you fair game when you pass out at
night?
Third, it's been shown that babies can feel pain in the womb at least
as early as eight weeks9, that they appear to dream10,
and that they can recognize faces.11 Don't
underestimate the unborn.
But what if the
fetus is deformed or has Down Syndrome or --- ?
Do you think we should kill all people with deformities or intellectual
challenges -- or just the young ones? Should we display them in
circuses first, maybe make a little money off
of them? What other classes of people should we be able to kill? Is
there a certain race or ethnic group you're fine with murdering or is
it just unborn babies?
But what about
ectopic pregnancies?
Ectopic pregnancies -- when the fetus develops outside the womb -- were
always treated medically long before Roe v. Wade. Unfortunately, all
such medical treatments results in the death of the baby, but those
deaths are not desired; they are not willed.
But Thomas Aquinas
says it was OK!
No, St. Thomas Aquinas did not condone abortion. He did, though, get
the timing of ensoulment wrong, but never at any time did he condone
abortion. From the very begining of Christianity, as the 1st century Didache very clearly reveals,
abortion was seen as an evil.
You're a man, so
shut up
First, right and wrong don't depend
on a speaker's identity. Play that game and there can be no right and
wrong -- and no social order -- at all (and, hey, should women have no
opinion about whether their country goes to war or not if those women
aren't drafted?).
Second, a child results from the actions of a mother and a father, and
fathers love their children, just as mothers do. Men are affected by
abortion, too, just as women are, and are legally bound in most of the
West to financially support, for almost two decades, children they
bring about (and, often, even those they aren't responsible for
bringing about).
But women have to
deal with pregnancy and men don't. Men can have sex
and just walk away!
Which is why God wants sex kept inside marriage and nowhere else.
But it's not fair!
Is it "unfair" that a woman can experience what it's like to nourish a
child
with her own body but a man can't? Is it "unfair" that cows get
stomachs
with four separate comparments while our stomachs have only one? Is it
"unfair" that things get wet when it rains, that geese can fly, and
that bees can make honey and we can't?
That men endure fewer direct physical
consequences from sex is something you'll have to take up with God (the
word "direct" is there because, as so many don't seem to realize or, at
least, appreciate, men
work for at least eighteen years to support their offspring). Or,
if you're an atheist, take it up with "nature." There's no appeal to
"fairness"
when it comes to the way things simply are, and raging against
basic biological facts makes no sense and will keep you miserable.
So you think people
who aren't married shouldn't have sex. Really? Really? Never?
Yes, never. Put down the porn, work to acquire
the cardinal virtues, behave and dress with dignity, develop a prayer life, avoid occasions of sin
(situations in which you're likely to sin), de-saturate your mind from
the overly-sexualized culture we find ourselves in, and master
yourself. You're under a spell; wake up!
So the stereotypes
are true: Catholics hate sex!
No, Catholics love sex; that's why the married among us tend to have
large families (in fact, studies have shown that married Catholics have
the best, most satisfying sex of all -- and more often, too12).
Catholics just know, as all biologists do, that sex brings about
babies. So Catholics know that sex needs to be taken very seriously. An
analogy I use elsewhere on the site is this: sex is like fire. Fire's
good; it cooks our food, warms us in the Winter, is beautiful, etc. But
fire needs to be kept in its place: a fire in your fireplace is good; a
fire on your roof isn't. It's the same with sex. Sex between a married
couple is good; sex between two people who aren't married is not good.
Learn
why sex isn't just a private matter, but an extremely important social
one: The Garbage Generation.
But we'll live in a
"Handmaid's Tale" kind of world without abortion!
We didn't live in a "Handmaid's Tale" kind of world before Roe v.
Wade, did we?
If we don't have
legal abortion, thousands of women will be dying in the alleyways from
illegal
abortions!
Not if they don't get illegal abortions. And don't believe the nonsense
spread by the likes of Planned Parenthood -- the idea that many
thousands of women died each year from "back alley" illegal abortions
before abortion was made legal with Roe v. Wade. The year before Roe v.
Wade was handed down, that is in 1972, 90 American women died from
illegal abortions; the following year, that is in 1974, 54 died -- from
legal
abortions. In 1975, 49 died -- from legal
abortions. (Note that before penicillin was made publicly available --
the first patient was treated with it in 1941 -- women did die from illegal abortions in
relatively high numbers. 1,232 died from abortions in 1942, with the
numbers dropping precipitously every year as penicillin came to be more
and more widely prescribed. But they'd undoubtedly have died at the
same rates before penicillin was introduced had their abortion been
legal ones. And they almost certainly wouldn't have died at all if
they'd carried their pregnancies to term and given up their babies for
adoption.)
But where do we draw
the line? Do we want government throwing women in jail for eating too
many Big Macs or smoking or having a few alcoholic beverages while
pregnant?
Now that is a serious
question and a true concern! Let's reason about where those lines
should be and shouldn't be
-- without the hysteria (and, please, without the misandry). And let's
remember that women weren't rousted like that before Roe v. Wade and
the legalization of abortion in other places.
Look, if you don't
like abortion, just don't get one!
"If you don't like slavery, just don't buy a slave." Does that logic
really work?
But you're OK with
the death penalty!
God's commandment is against the taking of innocent human life, not
killing in itself, not self-defense, not fighting in a just war, not a
civil society punishing the guilty, not killing animals
for food while avoiding any unncessary suffering and while treating
them with kindness while they live, etc.
And know that that "logic" could also be turned around on you: "you're
against the
death penalty for vicious torture-killers but are OK with killing
babies?"
You Christians only
care about babies before they're born; you
don't care that they live in poverty after they're born!
First of all, whether we care or don't care about babies after they're
born does not make their murder before they're born OK. Feelings are
not what makes murder bad. Seriously, what kind of an argument is this:
"In the future, you won't think about, feel about, or do for X kind of
people the way I think you should, therefore, I should get to kill X
kind of people now"?
Second, it's simply not the case that Christians don't care about
babies after they're born. The religious are the most charitable people
on earth. From Philanthropy Roundtable:13
Pew Research
Center investigators examined the behavior of a large sample of the
public across a typical seven-day period. They found that among
Americans who attend services weekly and pray daily, 45 percent had
done volunteer work during the previous week. Among all other
Americans, only 27 percent had volunteered somewhere...
Seven out of ten weekly church attenders told Pew they
consider “work to help the needy” an “essential part” of their faith.
Most of them put their money and time where their mouth is: 65 percent
of weekly church attenders [as opposed to 45% of other Americans] were
found to have donated either volunteer hours or money or goods to the
poor within the previous week....
Philanthropic studies show that people with a religious
affiliation give away several times as much every year as other
Americans. Research by the Lilly School at Indiana University found
Americans with any religious affiliation made average annual charitable
donations of $1,590, versus $695 for those with no religious
affiliation. Another report using data from the Panel Study for
Income Dynamics juxtaposed Americans who do not attend religious
services with those who attend worship at least twice a month, and made
fine-tunings to compare demographic apples to apples. The results:
$2,935 of annual charitable giving for the church attenders, versus
$704 for the non-attenders...In addition to giving larger amounts, the
religious give more often—making gifts about half again as
frequently....
In study after study, religious practice is the behavioral
variable with the strongest and most consistent association with
generous giving. And people with religious motivations don’t give just
to faith-based causes—they are also much likelier to give to secular
causes than the nonreligious. Two thirds of people who worship at least
twice a month give to secular causes, compared to less than half of
non-attenders, and the average secular gift by a church attender is 20
percent bigger...
Religious Americans adopt children at two and a half times the overall
national rate, and they play a particularly large role in fostering and
adopting troubled and hard-to-place kids.
Some women just
don't want to be mothers!
Of course. And some women shouldn't
be mothers. But if a woman has a baby she's unwilling or unable to
raise, she can let a loving couple adopt her offspring. Experts say
that 2 million couples in the United States are waiting to adopt babies
right now.
Facing the Reality of Abortion
So many people speak flippantly about abortion because they've never
really, deeply thought about it, never had one, or never truly faced
the results if they have. Those who've had an abortion typically laid
themselves down on a sterile table, stared at the ceiling, had their
bottom halves draped so they couldn't see anything, felt some pain, and
then it was over but for a week or two of vaginal discharge. They hide
the reality away in their minds. They distract themselves. They rest
for a few days, and try not to think about it. They don't look at the results of what they've
done: out of sight, out of mind. This story shows what happens when
someone does look:14
Abby Johnson’s
book The Walls Are Talking: Former
Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their
Stories collects firsthand accounts from former abortion
facility
workers. The stories vary in theme, each one an abortion worker’s
memory of an event that stuck with her after she left. One story,
called “Frequent Flyers,” is about a young woman who had nine abortions.
The chapter’s author, who is unnamed, explains how women who
came in for repeat abortions at her facility were called “frequent
flyers” by the staff. Even though abortion facility workers were
committed to promoting and providing abortions, some of them had
judgmental feelings toward these “frequent flyers.” The abortion
facility worker says:
When Angie walks
through our doors for her ninth procedure, even those of us whose
paychecks were funded by abortion shook our heads and said “Really?
Seriously?”…
Although it went against my own ideology, I wanted Angie to
show some indication of remorse. I didn’t want to feel that way about
the numerous women who presented for abortions two, three, or even four
times. But nine? That, I felt, deserved at least a slight show of
regret or even a bit of good old-fashioned shame.
Angie showed no trace of guilt or any kind of distress when
she came to the abortion facility. She had laughed through her first
abortion, and every abortion since. It was not at all different when
she came in for her ninth. The abortion facility worker described
Angie’s demeanor:
[S]he seemed to
regard her visits to our clinic as an opportunity to perform her improv
comedy act. “Could y’all just xerox my chart and I’ll fill in the
dates?” She would jest. Once the paperwork was in order, Angie would
attempt to banter with the girls in the waiting room. “It’s no big
thing,” she assured them. “I’ve done it 8 times before, and I have no
regrets.” Although I couldn’t help but like Angie, her flippancy
appalled me.
She showed no guilt or remorse of any kind:
Over the years,
I had consoled and held the hands of scores of women who approached
that same table with much trepidation. Some would weep, their knuckles
white as they gripped my hand until it ached. Others would clutch
Bibles to their chests and mouth prayers begging for forgiveness, even
before the abortionist had begun his work and when their babies were
still safe in their wombs. Many times women would climb onto the table
and remain limp and unresponsive during the procedure. Mentally, they
were a million miles away. And then there was Angie… Angie never even
attempted to explain herself. When we would talk to her about birth
control and try to set her up with an appointment to explore the matter
further, she would just smile and politely refuse with a wave of her
hand.
Angie was using abortion for birth control, not bothering to
learn any other method. She may have gone on to have nine more
abortions – but something happened.
Angie had no doubt heard pro-abortion rhetoric. She had
certainly been told that abortion is only removing a ball of cells, a
piece of tissue, or an undeveloped mass. But after her ninth abortion,
she was curious and wanted to see the “tissue” for herself. She asked
the abortion worker to show her the remains of the abortion, and the
abortion worker complied. At 13 weeks, her baby was fully formed.
I debated about
how to arrange the pieces. Would it be best to throw them all together
in a clump so that none of the parts would be recognizable, or should I
piece it back together as we normally did to ensure that none of the
parts were missing. There was no protocol on such things, so in the end
I opted to piece the parts back together.
Angie’s reaction was not what the abortion worker anticipated:
“Thanks,” she
said, her trademark smile still fixed on her face. When her eyes
traveled to the container, she gasped sharply, and for the first time
since she had arrived, Angie was utterly silent. A few moments later
her entire body shuddered and gooseflesh was raised on her smooth brown
arms.
When she reached out her to touch the baby, I tried to pull
the dish away. She grabbed my wrist and stopped me. We were both silent
for a few moments as she continued to stare at the contents of the
dish. I stepped back and Angie fell forward to her knees, her fingers
still wrapped around my wrist. The other girls in the recovery run
began to take notice, and my discomfort level rose exponentially.
Realizing her mistake, the abortion worker tried repeatedly
to take the dish containing the bloody body parts away. But Angie held
tight to the remains of her child, and wouldn’t let the abortion worker
pry it from her hands. The abortion worker said:
[Angie] remained
frozen on the clinic floor. “That’s a baby,” she said, barely audible
at first. “That was my baby,” she said. Her volume steadily increased
as a torrent of words poured from her mouth, words that made everyone
extremely uncomfortable. “What did I do? What did I do?” she said over
and over and began to sob. Some of the girls in the recovery run began
to weep along with her. Some covered their faces with their arms or
buried their heads in the arms of the recliners.
Finally, the abortion facility workers were able to tear away
the dish. Angie became hysterical. Other abortion workers tried to calm
her.
Fellow workers
rushed to my side to calm Angie down. After a few minutes, it became
obvious that she wasn’t going to calm down. We couldn’t even get her
off the floor. After discussing it hastily, we decided to drag her to
the bathroom. At least the heavy door would stifle her sobs to until we
figured out what to do.
Angie flailed her arms and legs and her screams reached a
fever pitch as we dragged her down the hall. We must have been quite a
spectacle for the other girls in the recovery room. Finally we managed
to place a still panicked Angie in the bathroom and closed the door. I
suggested that she splash some cold water on her face and “pull herself
together.” Her cries, although muffled, were easily distinguished
through the door.
Angie began begging the abortion workers to take her
mutilated baby home with her. She did not want to part with her child,
even though her child was dead. She pleaded with the workers to give in
and let her have the baby. They refused. She continued to sob and wail
in the bathroom, disrupting the entire facility.
The abortion workers finally went to her paperwork and found
her emergency contact – the number the facility was supposed to call in
the event of a life-threatening complication. They dialed the number
and got her current boyfriend. He arrived at the clinic. It took him 45
minutes to coax Angie out of the bathroom. They both left the abortion
facility in tears.
Angie never came to the facility again. The writer of the
story does not know what happened to her. The road ahead of her, once
she realized her responsibility for the deaths of nine of her children,
would be agonizing to travel. We can only hope she found healing.
From then on, the abortion facility had a strict rule never to show the
aborted babies to women.
The abortion
procedures:
If You've Had or Been
Party to An Abortion in the Past
You have to truly, deeply face the reality of what you've done. If you
find it emotionally difficult (some may, some may not), you have to
grieve. During that process, you might benefit from seeking support
from Project Rachel, a
healing ministry for women who've had abortions.
Then you have to repent of it. And you have
to trust that, when you do,
you are forgiven. Truly and actually forgiven.
When the man we know as St. Paul is introduced to us in Sacred
Scripture, he was Saul, a murderer. A killer of Christians. He was on
his way to Damascus to capture the followers of Christ there, bind them
up, and bring them to Jerusalem. But he was confronted by a great light
from Heaven, and a voice that cried out, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou Me?" Knocked to the ground and blinded, he was taken the rest of
the way to Damascus, where he spent his time in prayer. Meanwhile, the
Lord went to a Christian named Ananias and told him to go to Saul and
lay his hands upon him to heal his vision and fill him with the Holy
Ghost. Ananias was puzzled, telling God that he had "heard by many of
this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem." But
God told him that Saul "is to Me a vessel of election, to carry My Name
before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."
Ananias did as he was told, Saul became Paul, and the world was forever
changed. Saul went from a lowly murderer, deserving of death and Hell,
to one of the Church's very greatest Saints. You, too, have God's
invitation to holiness. You will
be forgiven if you're repentant! Grieve, but don't despair!
Some reading that might help:
The Woman at the
Well: John 4:4-42
The Adulteress:
John 7:53-8:11
The Parable of
the Lost Sheep: Matthew 18:1-14; Luke 15:1-10
The Two Debtors:
Luke 7:41-43
The Prodigal
Son: Luke 15:11-32
The Penitential
Psalms: Psalms 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129 and 142 (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51,
102,
130, 143 in Bibles with Masoretic numbering)
Footnotes:
1 The commandment "Thou shalt not
kill" is the fifth commandment to Roman Catholics, but is enumerated as
the sixth commandment for Protestants (and Eastern Catholics). The
commandment's meaning is "thou shalt not murder" -- that is, "thou
shalt not take innocent human life." It isn't a commandment against
defensive violence, killing animals for food while avoiding any
unnecessary suffering or cruelty, etc.
2 This page, as should be obvious, is
about willed, induced abortions, not spontaneous abortions
(miscarriages)
3 Psalm 71:6 in Bibles with Masoretic
numbering
4 https://www.dublindeclaration.com/
5 Jacobs, Steven Andrew. Biologists'
Consensus on 'When Life Begins'. July 25, 2018.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 Retrieved
April 12, 2023.
6 Source:
https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives
Retrieved August 18, 2022.
7 Source:
https://mercatornet.com/can_the_philippines_keep_aids_at_bay_if_it_embraces_condom_culture/13052/
Retrieved August 22, 2022
8 Henshaw SK, Silverman J. The
characteristics and prior contraceptive use of U.S. abortion patients.
Fam Plann Perspect. 1988 Jul-Aug;20(4):158-68. PMID: 3243346.
9 Source:
https://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/23/expert-tells-congress-unborn-babies-can-feel-pain-starting-at-8-weeks/
Retrieved August 22, 2022
10
https://www.lifenews.com/2013/07/02/unborn-babies-feel-pain-and-can-dream-in-the-womb-lets-protect-them/
Retrieved August 22, 2022
11
https://www.lifenews.com/2017/06/09/new-study-shows-unborn-babies-can-recognize-faces-while-still-ii-n-the-womb/
Retrieved August 22, 2022
12 Source:
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/17/devout-catholics-have-better-sex
Retrieved August 22, 2022
13 Source:
https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazine/less-god-less-giving/
Retrieved August 22, 2022
14 Source:
https://www.lifenews.com/2017/05/03/woman-laughs-ahead-of-her-9th-abortion-and-then-sees-her-aborted-baby/
Retrieved August 22, 2022. Abby Johnson's "The Walls Are Talking:
Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories" can be purchased
here.
