We’re Not Judging You: We’re Judging Abortion
Do you know the hardest thing about dealing with the topic of abortion? The one thing that has me checking and rechecking my blogposts, my comments on Facebook, my retweets on twitter? That thing that more than anything else has caused me to reword, or rephrase, or even to delete entirely?
*This thing* is my concern for the feelings of post-abortive mothers.
This thing has made me approach abortion quite differently from the way I did in the past. And it makes me wish it was possible to talk abortion without mentioning abortion.
I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to have given a doctor my permission to take the life of one of my children. It must be devastating to shatter that maternal bond.
So please understand what pro-lifers like me want post-abortive parents to know: we aren’t judging you: we’re judging abortion.
Remember Pope St. John Paul’s statement to women who have had an abortion:
The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed.
Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord.
Evangelium Vitae #99
I know I will grieve with my words, no matter how I try to soften them.
But we have to keep talking about abortion, and about all the factors which create a climate that enables it to flourish. Abortion must lost its place as the default solution to inconvenient pregnancies. But it’s necessary that somehow, we can also convince post-abortive mothers that we care about them.
I think it helps when people think about just what a scourge pro-life people consider abortion to be; far from being a weapon of empowerment for women, it is responsible for perhaps a quarter of the female population going through life wounded, desolate, and silently suffering.
Here’s what Daniel Edmonds, of Cherish Life Queensland has to say about abortion:
I’ve analysed abortion for decades, and looked at it from every possible angle; and I can’t see how it is anything but the gravest evil ever inflicted on humanity. There is literally absolutely nothing positive about abortion and it is pure 100-proof demonic in every single respect.
So, please remember, we’re not judging women, we’re judging abortion.
Abortion has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
If you have been hurt by abortion, there are trained counsellors ready to listen to your story and help you, 24 hours a day: Pregnancy Counselling Australia
