There’s a humming you typically hear outside Manhattan’s Planned Parenthood. It’s the background noise of cars running — typically boyfriends making sure they are comfortable in air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, as their girlfriends endure the abortion of their unborn child. Of course, we no longer have a culture that quite thinks of it in those terms. Today, one boyfriend sat lounging across the street in a collapsible chair while watching videos during his wait time. As I said, though, the boyfriends are typically inside the cars and when I’m there, I see them rarely even budging to open the car door for the girls after the abortions. Today a girl waiting for one of the girls coming out from an abortion beeped so she would see the car. I just want to give these girls hugs and an Uber ride to the Sisters of Life who will love them back into life and help them know the mercy of God.
It’s all a grave injustice we’re going to have to answer for one day. What did I do to make the world more hospitable to life? To let young girls and women know that there is help? Honestly, I fear even in my own desire to help, people only see judgment. This past Saturday in Brooklyn, the memory of the chant of not only “God loves abortion” but “Mary loves abortion,” still gives me chills, as our Witness for Life prayer was protested for a third month in a row. After the protesters formed a human blockage keeping us from processing to Planned Parenthood from St. Paul’s Church after Mass, with ample warning, the police made two arrests. A most courageous priest was maligned for his loving witness with ugly words, inspired by the abhorrently evil crimes of other priests. He wants to save women from the pain of abortion, as well as save the lives of innocent children. Those protesting prayer see the rosary as harassment. It’s actually a plea for God’s mercy on us all. Americans haven’t just failed the women and children of Afghanistan, but those of our own cities, too. The young Hispanic woman I watched devastated, holding her stomach, after her abortion today in Manhattan deserved better than standing alone on a sidewalk. And with the rise of chemical and abortion by mail, we’re always working to become less humane, rather than more. Our nation is filled with young women who are enslaved to legal abortion in America. It’s not health care, it’s cruel and unusal punishment. And we tend to be numb to it — unless we now prefer it to the truth and beauty of human person and possibilities of the joys of unexpected of life.