Pregnant
mothers are the concern of Pro-life people everywhere; pro-lifers seek to help the
mother find a better solution for themselves and their child than abortion, and to help post-abortive mothers to overcome the trauma of their abortion.
Many post-abortive
mothers deeply regret their abortions; many 'chose' abortion because they felt trapped by their circumstances
and felt they had no choice but to
abort their babies (so ‘freedom of choice’ and the ‘right to chose’ are not
honest slogans). Thank God there is a place where post-abortion regret can become a
healthy sorrow which is understood and absolved: the Christ's Catholic Church. While the Church is passionately pro-life, she is also passionately
caring toward those who have taken the step of aborting their child or
children, and offers absolution/forgiveness and healing (in that order) to those who have made such a
choice. There are many ministries today that help such mothers find that
healing, such as Rachel’s Vineyard. It would be shameful for any Catholic
not to hold out the hope of emotional/psychological healing and the forgiveness
by absolution for any mother who has accessed abortion. But it is equally wrong for legislators to give men and women the impression that abortion is OK by passing laws which
allow it. Too many women and men
have been swayed by the fact that “this is legal so it must be OK”. That is no
different to saying, as many did 200 years ago, that “Slavery is legal so it must
be OK”. Only after mothers have accessed abortion do they experience the trauma,
depression of regret and the feelings of guilt so often brought on by abortion,
or simply the feeling of being somehow blocked in life. Yet the war against the
unborn goes on by those who promote abortion.
New
York Governor Andrew Cuomo is reported
to have said, “I’m here to represent all the people and the constitutional
rights and limitations for all the people, not as a Catholic.” (SeeLifesite News here). What an
odd statement: he thinks unborn children (some of whom receive life-saving
operations while still in the womb) need no representation against those who
would take their life for reasons such as inconvenience to one’s career; the hiding of an illicit affair, or financial struggles. Apparently, if money is short;
if you don’t want your husband or your lover’s wife to find out about your
affair, or if you don’t want to miss out on that promotion or business trip, it
is fine to kill your child –even up to the point of birth in some cases.
This
is the attitude one detects in Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam who is
reported to have suggested that a proposed bill allowing abortion up until the
moment of birth would also allow doctors to refuse to resuscitate an infant
born alive after a failed abortion "if that’s what the mother and the
family desire." (See Lifesite News here)
What
a horrific, Nazi-style society we in the West have become under the guise of women’s
rights. What right does anyone have to kill children? I am horrified, outraged
when fellow clergy abuse children, and most folk share that outrage. Yet many
if not most of those same folk would support the killing of children just
because of their location: they are inside the womb not out of it; out of sight is, apparently, out of consideration.
Yet if we fail to respect the humanity and dignity of the
unborn we can never respect the humanity and dignity of the born; if we
can kill innocent children in the womb, how are we ever going to justify the
right to life for anyone? What foundation is there for social justice if we can take innocent life with abandon? Our right to a fair wage, to good working
conditions, to good health care, good education, good housing, the right to freedom from
violence and oppression, all depend upon us being alive to access those rights -and we cannot defend these rights for anyone is we don’t uphold the right to
life for everyone regardless of their location. After all, the only difference between the born and unborn
is their location: inside the womb or outside the womb. That said, Mr Northam
does appear to want us to have the right even to kill the born “if that’s what
the mother and family want”.
In
these days when science has the standing that it does, there is no logic to the
slogan “My body, my choice”, for it is not her body she is aborting:
the child has his own DNA from the moment
of conception; his tubal heart beat begins to beat at around day 18; his
fingers and toes are present from around day 56. Fundamentally, he has his own
body and his own right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Pro-abortion
language is too often a a smokescreen, for both embryo and foetus simply and correctly describe a stage of human
life: foetus, embryo, baby, infant, teenager and adult are all stages of human
life. Yet
human babies can be killed at will. What a Nazi society the West has become. This is not
progress. This is the Culture of Death at its worst: the killing of children;
the ultimate in child abuse which harms not only the child but the mother too (often physically as well as psychologically).
The West has become pro-abortion not for women’s rights, but to allow for sex without
responsibility; we have a culture of hedonism which seeks pleasure by drink,
drugs, and sex with abandon, -for which the unborn child pays with his life, and
for which the mother will often find herself depressed, guilt-ridden and
blocked. We must always seek to console and support; to heal and help the
mothers, and protect and promote the life on the unborn child. This must not be
a war on mothers -the pro-abortion folk are fighting that war. Our must be a
war for the healing of those harmed by the Culture of Death; for the healing of
post-abortive mothers and the protection of the unborn child. Never judge the mother; seek to heal her soul and mind, and always protect the unborn child.
