Does America Prefer Abortion?

D o we prefer abortion? That’s the question we should be asking right now as Americans.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recoils — it happened just again hours before I write — when asked about her position on abortion. If the reporter who asks her is a man, she tends to try to put him in his place by pointing out she is a mother and a grandmother. In this most recent incident she insisted that she is “a very Catholic person” and believes in “a woman’s right to choose.” First of all, her bishop has had something to say of late about that very Catholic kind of description. And, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear on the evil of abortion. So is Pope Francis. It’s like taking out a hitman on your child, he most memorably said.

The fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church throughout the country has the utmost compassion for women — some dioceses run pregnancy-care centers, while others offer a whole host of resources for not only pregnant women but also women and children and families beyond birth. To be a very Catholic person is not to be defensive and insist on expanding abortion but to be beacons of the words of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae (The gospel of life). He wrote directly to women who have had abortions:

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.

He encourages women who have had abortions to encounter God’s mercy.

Now I know that some reading this will be offended at the suggestion that there is anything to be forgiven when an abortion happens because of other considerations in life. But please consider what the use of abortion as backup birth control has done to our country. We are violent. We do not look at human beings as unique creations with purpose and a plan beyond anything we feel because of pressures all around us. It’s Pride month and the president of the United States is making childhood in America even more confusing than it already was. It’s a wonder to me that adults don’t remember being teenagers themselves. Why are we making it harder, pressuring children, making suggestions to children that they don’t have the maturity to be dealing with now, with repercussions that are often permanent?

Our mess has to do with abortion. I fear that, until we confront that, there will be more violence and more rage no matter how many bills are passed — and some of them could make things worse. (New York, for example, is now promising to target pro-life centers, of which there are few in the Empire State, while the resources of the abortion industry, which includes the behemoth Planned Parenthood as well as hospitals, are vast.) It’s one thing to see a heartbroken teenage child leave Planned Parenthood, which is primarily about abortion. But knowing that a hospital that should exist to help is killing some of its patients! This is a reality in America. And the domestic terrorists raging about abortion are lying to America by giving the impression that abortion is going to end in America at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in all three trimesters of pregnancy.

The pro-life movement is not about judgment. We are about help and hope. To target pro-life centers by law and arson, activists — and terrorists — are making it more difficult for a mother to choose life for her baby. Nancy Pelosi and others say they are “about choice.” What about the choice to be a mother? What about the other heroic choice, adoption? This should be celebrated.

These choices for life take tremendous courage and should be universally supported, whatever one’s view of Roe is. If you are pro-choice, please stand in condemnation of violence and disruptions at pregnancy centers and churches. If you are pro-choice, please consider supporting places where life is embraced and abortion isn’t the predominant option. Planned Parenthood isn’t going away soon. In many ways, I wish pro-life pregnancy centers were about to put them out of business. I’ve been to many pro-life women’s care centers in the United States, and they tend to be filled with love for motherhood and care for mothers and their children. If you ever get the chance to know the Sisters of Life, religious sisters dedicated to God and the charism of life, you will see total accompaniment throughout life. Surely there is room in America for that approach?

A declaration of independence from Roe affords a new freedom for life in a country where there are all too many pressures and excuses for death. Unless we prefer abortion.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.