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Article: Abortion: None of Your Business?

This is from a brochure by Priests for Life’s Father Frank Pavone that can be found here. Priests for Life has been kind enough to allow me to republish material from their site. The pictures of unborn babies throughout are my addition. All of the babies pictured could be legally aborted in at least one US state.

Most people admit that abortion is wrong; surveys show, in fact, that half of all Americans are willing to call it “murder.” (See, for example, the January 1998 New York Times/CBS News Poll.)

Yet a disturbing number of these same people will not do anything to stop it. They say, “I believe abortion is wrong, but I do not want to impose my morality on others.” In other words, it’s wrong, but it’s a private wrong. If I think it’s wrong, I won’t do it. If someone else does it, that’s none of my business.

This attitude has been expressed in a bumper sticker that says, “Against Abortion? Don’t have one!” and in the assertion that the opposing sides in this controversy should simply “Agree to disagree.”

Yet we simply don’t look at most moral problems this way. We do not hear people say, “I would never abuse my child, but if the other person wants to do so, that’s her choice.” Nor do they say, “I would never commit a violent crime, but if someone else chooses to do so, that’s none of my business.”

Many do not want to “interfere” with someone’s choice to have an abortion. Yet it would make perfect sense to “interfere” with that same person’s choice to steal your car, burn your house, or kidnap your child!

The fact is that some choices have victims, and when somebody’s choice destroys somebody else’s life, that’s everybody’s business. It is, after all, the business of love to intervene to save our brothers and sisters in need.

People need to know that abortion is their business. They need to de-isolate the issue. People understand that we have to intervene to help the poor, the AIDS victim, the drug addict, the victim of crime and war. Even if we do not know their names, or have never seen the faces of these victims, we know it is our business to help them. There is no reason to isolate abortion in a category of its own, where all the rules of human decency suddenly change. Who is the child scheduled to be aborted today? That child is your sister, your brother.

Some claim they are free to believe that the unborn are not human lives. That’s fine. But to claim the right to destroy them in practice is a different matter, no longer involving only beliefs, but bloodshed, not only viewpoints, but victims.

Abortion is our problem, and the problem of every human being. We are one human family. Nobody can be neutral on abortion. It involves the destruction of an entire group of human beings! Just as we cannot be indifferent to the killing of a new born baby, so we cannot be indifferent to the killing of a preborn baby. We all share the responsibility for people who are in danger. Injustice to any person in this world is injustice to every person!Even when we understand this, we are often afraid to act. We can gain courage, however, from the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a man fell in with robbers. A priest and a levite came by, but did not stop to help. Despite their knowledge of the Law and Prophets, they walked right by. Why?

One of the reasons may be that they were afraid. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a dangerous road. Because of its numerous steep curves, it lends itself to attacks by robbers who can easily hide not too far from their victims. Perhaps the priests and levites who passed by that man asked themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? Maybe the robbers who attacked him are still here. Maybe they’re hiding just around the bend. This is a dangerous road. I better keep going.”

Sometimes we ask the same question. If I speak up too loudly about the victims of abortion, what will happen to me? Will I face persecution, will I encounter opposition, will I lose popularity if I get involved in a cause like this?

And then the Good Samaritan came along, and he reversed the question. He didn’t ask, “If I help this man, what will happen to me?” The Good Samaritan asked, “If I do not help this man, what will happen to him?” And that’s the question for us. If I do not address this evil, what will happen to the unborn? If I do not get involved, what will happen to those who are vulnerable, to those who are marginalized our society, those who are oppressed, those who have no one to speak for them?

The abortion problem involves us all. Its solution must also involve us all. Get involved today!

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

— Elie Weisel, Holocaust survivor

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Abortionist: performing abortions is my Christian responsibility

“I perform abortions‬ because of my religious belief. I would feel I wasn’t living up to my Christian responsibility if I saw the need to not offer an answer to that need. We have a saying among Presbyterians that God alone is Lord of the conscience.”

Abortionist James Armstrong, in the 1990’s film Whose Choice?

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Abortion: no more important than a bad cold?

A message from a pro choicer received by prolifer Carolyn Gargaro:

“Many of us consider an abortion no more important than a bad cold”

Subject line: Abortion not = murder

Below: Unborn baby at nine weeks. Before and after abortion

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Henry Morgentaler, late term abortionist, gives his views

The following interview is excerpted from a film produced by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which was then affiliated with Planned Parenthood. It is an interview with Canadian late-term abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler. There are pictures of abortions similar to the ones done by Morgentaler in his long career. The pictures are there to show the irony of the abortionists words.

Interviewer: You have been talking very logically and very calmly, but are there times when you lose your temper at this situation?

Morgentaler: Yeah, there are times when I lose my temper when, uh, I get really, um, indignant about the kind of contempt for human life that the other side shows. The kind of intolerance and dogmatism. Where, they want to impose their kind of so-called morality on everybody. And I think this is one issue where I feel very strongly about it, on our side we have all the light, on the other side they have all the darkness. On our side you have respect for individual rights. You have the concern for the safety, the health and life of people. You have respect for freedom of religion and conscience. Whereas on the other side you have a dogmatic kind of beliefs which does not take into account either the health or the safety of people involved, [the pro-life side] has a contempt for the health and life of women needing abortions. Has a complete disregard for the opinions of others…..

We live in a pluralist society. Let everyone decide on this issue as a matter of his conscience, his religious beliefs. Of his or her philosophy of life. And I get very upset when people show this kind of fanaticism, this kind of intolerance, and this kind of insulting contempt for others, of the rights of others.

Interviewer: Now, there are a group in Canada called the right to lifers. Have they, uh, been in contact with you in any way?

Morgentaler: yes, they’ve tried to make my life as miserable as possible. By the way we don’t call the pro-lifers, we call them CCPs, and that stands for Crusaders for Compulsive Pregnancy. Or we call them fetus fetishists because that’s a very good description of what they’re standing for. We are actuallythe people who are pro-life, we are for the right of women and couples to determine what their life is going to be like. Whether they’re going to have children or not, how many children they’re gonna have. Whether they should use birth control methods or not. Now, the so-called CCP’s have done everything they could, they have, uh, written circular letters denouncing me, vilifying me, they of organized demonstrations outside my clinic, which lasted for about two weeks, with, uh, gory signs –

Interviewer: What sort of signs?

Morgentaler: Signs saying here Morgentaler is murdering babies, and every abortion kills a child, things like that, which were very distasteful to me and to my staff, and which were very stressful to my patients. For most patients who come in for an abortion are scared, they are anxious, and on top of that they were met by a hostile group, with signs, telling them as a group that what they were doing was a crime, murder, and so on. So it was a really bad scene at the time.

You can see the video here. At the end of the video a pro-life group has spliced pictures and videos of abortions.

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Have an abortion, but don’t murder a cow

From an email pro-lifer Carolyn Gargaro got from a pro-choicer:

“I’m pro-animal and pro-life, if it can be a good life. However, when there is an undesired pregnancy, there is no reason to have it if it will end up in a trashcan or in prison. If you’re so pro-life, go wait outside an abortion clinic and beg the women who go in to sign papers so that YOU and your almighty god-righteous heart can adopt their child when it’s born, or are you not quite that willing? Animals have no choice. They have no birth control. People keep popping out unwanted children because of idiots like you, which leads to murder, school shootings, drugs and a deteriorating world when people could just have abortions and prevent it. People seem to have no problem stuffing down a hamburger which came from a cow which was murdered, but god forbid you have an abortion. I guess in your opinion it’s okay to kill non-human animals, right?”

You can read this and other feedback from pro-choicers here.

9-10 week baby. More moral to kill than a cow?

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Man who married postabortion woman talks about their struggles

James McNeill married a woman who had 2 abortions in her past. He says:

“When I would bring up the idea of having children, Kathleen would say things like, “I don’t deserve to be a mother.” It started to dawn on me that unresolved pain, shame, and grief related to her abortions were at the heart of her reluctance to have children. It was difficult to know how to address what was clearly a painful and sensitive wound in a way that would be helpful.

One time I said, “You can’t sweep your abortions under the rug forever.”

She said, “If I didn’t sweep them under the rug, I couldn’t live with myself.” Kathleen had stuffed the pain and hurt deep down inside herself in order to cope, but in doing so she walled off an area of her heart that could’ve otherwise been used to love herself and me. The price of avoiding the issue was taking a terrible toll on Kathleen and our marriage.

As the years passed, she was increasingly unable to completely squelch the emotions that came from her post abortion pain and grief. She would occasionally freak out, scream at the top of her lungs, throw things, and break things. She told me she fantasized about cutting herself, and burning herself. I felt so powerless and confused, and I had no idea how to help her, except to calm and soothe her in the moment. I was unable by myself to help her face her abortions and embrace a future that included having children. No matter the tactics, or entry point to the discussion, we wound up at odds, and back to square one when it was over. It was like banging our heads against a brick wall.

One of the hardest things to live with was the fact that our relationship itself was held up as proof that the abortions had been the right thing to do. Kathleen would say to me, “I can’t imagine my life without you, and if I had had the two children, I wouldn’t have you, so the abortions must have been the right thing to do.” What you say in response to statement like that? To have our love serve as justification for abortions hurt deeply, and I felt powerless to do anything to help her or us.”

As things became more difficult in the marriage, they went on a Marriage Encounter retreat to work on their differences:

“About a year after the Marriage Encounter retreat, Kathleen was experiencing some serious depression she could not explain. Her violent screaming and destructive outbursts were worse than ever. She started seeing a psychiatrist, but visit after visit seemed to go nowhere… It is worth noting that many therapists on both sides of the abortion issue are ill-equipped to treat postabortion women and men. Many psychiatrists – like the rest of society – do not even recognize postabortion trauma or grief. Even counselors who are willing to recognize abortion related symptoms often lack the knowledge and resources to offer practical, effective treatment of this trauma.”

James and Kathleen discovered Rachel’s Vineyard, an organization for postabortion women and men (and, increasingly, others affected by abortion) and Kathleen felt great healing at a retreat for postabortion women.

Kevin Burke, David Wenhoff, Marvin Stockwell Redeeming a Father’s Heart: Men Share Powerful Stories of Abortion Loss and Recovery (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007)

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Local paper misled readers about abortion protestors

Two abortion protesters went to a clinic to educate women entering. They held graphic signs of aborted children. Whether you agree with this type of picketing or not (and I agree that a case can be made against it) it is notable that the local paper misled its readers as to the pair’s activities. From the article:

“It was erroneously implied that Dorothy and Judy are displaying graphic images to elementary school students located “right around the corner,” however the signs are on the 3300 block of 67th street and the school is at 6901 Nashville, over half a mile away….

The news coverage said:

Tony Thornton, CEO of Planned Parenthood, which is not affiliated with the abortion clinic, was also interviewed. He said he doesn’t care which side of the fence people are on, “I don’t think children should be subjected to this, the protesters have a target audience and it shouldn’t be the children.”….

Of course the target audience was not the children. But the newspaper apparently did not care about accuracy.

The news reporter finished her story by saying, “Some cities have ordinances against protesting on school grounds, but this isn’t the case in Lubbock.”…

Dorothy Boyett, has contacted the station demanding a retraction. “This broadcast left viewers with the impression that we were actually on school grounds” she told a representative of the station. “We have never gone to an elementary school and have no plans to do so. The signs save babies’ lives…”

Source: Dorothy Boyett “Lubbock prolifers accused of targeting children by local media” August 30, 2004

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Clinic worker; post abortion woman crying, feeling guilty

From a clinic worker:

“I’ve taken up to one hour and a half if the patient needs it – the people at the front desk don’t love it if I do that too often, but if I have to, I do. I just had a patient today that took a really long time. It was a post abortion – she was crying, feeling really guilty. The doctor really scared her; I had to act as her advocate.”

Carole Joffe The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family-Planning Workers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986) 86

In actuality, most clinics either offer no counseling or counseling that consists only of a short session of telling a group of women about the abortion process (not in too much detail of course) and offering to answer questions. Even in cases where clinic workers want to give more counseling, there is pressure on them to make it short.

Some clinics do offer post-abortion counseling. This woman was obviously very troubled by her abortion, feeling guilty and upset. I wonder what the counselor told her? probably, like most pro-abortion counselors, she was told that aborting her baby was perfectly fine and she should not feel guilty.

Perhaps she should have gotten more in depth counseling BEFORE her abortion, not after the fact.

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Author of Equal Rights Amendment called abortion “exploitation”

“The author of the original equal rights amendment (1923) opposed the later trend of linking the ERA with abortion. A colleague recalls her saying:

“Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”

This was Alice Paul

Quoted in “Pro-Woman, Pro-Life” by Feminists for Life of America

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ACLU leader on abortion vs. welfare

ACLU leader Norman Dorsen:

“Financing abortions for the poor is far less expensive than the cost of childbirth and welfare support for unwanted children,” he wrote. “So the government is actually paying out your tax dollars to force poor women to become mothers.”

Brief for Appellees at 185, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980); and Norman Dorsen, ACLU Campaign for Choice fund-raising letter to “Dear Friend,” n.d. [received by the writer on 29 Sept. 1979].

Mary Meehan Human Life Review, Spring 2001, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p49, 25p

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