So we had
the March for Life in Ottawa yesterday, and a most beautiful day for it, it
was—sunny, warm, all that. While crowd size estimates are approximate at best,
the organizers think around 24 000 were in attendance. It does seem slightly
bigger each year, but it’s hard to tell when you’re on the ground. It is,
without question, the biggest demonstration that happens each year in Ottawa.
What’s the
point of it? We meet, we listen to some speeches of varying quality, we
process around downtown Ottawa holding signs, we return to Parliament Hill
where there are more talks and some prayers, and that’s it, pretty much. The
counter-protestors yell at us, strip their clothes off and rush the podium
(yes, that happened again this year), and increasingly try to disrupt and
interrupt the proceedings (kudos to the Ottawa police for their professional
calm way of removing the disruptors).
So, what’s
the point of it all? We know that the Canadian political system is not going to
re-open the abortion debate as a matter of law any time soon. So it’s not for
them, exactly. It certainly is an event for the young people who make up a
very large percentage of the crowd. Consciousness raising and conscience
formation are crucial in the long-term eradication of abortion from our
society—since we cannot make abortion illegal, let’s try to make it
unthinkable.
In this
light, the women and men of Silent No More Awareness Campaign play, perhaps,
one of the most important roles in the day, as they give their testimonies on
the Hill after the march. The young men and women who remain for that event,
where they hear story after story of the devastating harm done by legal
abortions, cannot possibly go away thinking that it’s no big deal or an easy
answer to a crisis pregnancy. I only wish that some of the counter-protestors
would stay and at least listen to these people—real people, who really got into
terrible situations and did turn to abortion to solve their problem, only to
find it did no such thing.
My own
sadness in the whole thing is the extent to which the two sides seem to talk
past each other. Those of us in the pro-life movement firmly hold that a new
human life begins at conception (that is a strictly scientific statement, by
the way), and that every human life should be extended the protection of law (a statement grounded in the entire legal tradition of our society).
One human being simply cannot kill another human being, except for very
rigorously defined and long established exceptions—self-defence, soldiers at
war.
In terms of
the strict question of the morality of abortion, that is the beginning and the
end of the matter. Once we establish the existence of a living human being (and
there is no question of this from any point of view of science), the legal
protections given human life apply, or ought to. ‘Everybody counts, or nobody
counts’, as fictional detective Harry Bosch says when he tracks down the murderer
of yet another obscure demimondaine over the objections of his superiors.
Well, that
is the fundamental pro-life position, but of course the pro-choice (to use
their own name for themselves) position simply refuses to engage that. They
really seem to believe that we don’t really believe that, and that the whole
thing is a bluff to hide our real intentions, which is the suppression and
control of women.
“Our bodies,
our choice,” is the chant they used yesterday, along with “Pro-life is a lie.
You don’t care if women die!” But the choice is to kill another human being. I
cannot use my body to do that, can I? Meanwhile, it is true that every
pregnancy has its risks—there is no question of that. But many women also die
because of complications from abortion, not to mention the long-term
negative effects of abortion on many fronts, none of which are ever
presented to the woman when she is considering the procedure (so much for
informed consent!).
And many
doctors, faced with a woman who is pregnant and who also has this or that health issue,
are quick to pressure the woman to have an abortion. I know many women who have
resisted that pressure, carried a healthy baby to term and successfully dealt
with their other health issues. Too often doctors prescribe abortion,
not because it is medically necessary, but because it simplifies their job.
Yes, there
can be wrenching and difficult situations where there are no easy answers, and
it is no service to the pro-life cause to ignore those. But in the hardest and
worst of those scenarios, the basic truth remains: there are two human beings
here, and both have to be considered, both have to be treated as human.
Everybody counts, or nobody counts.
It just isn’t
true that pro-lifers don’t care about women. We do care, and we know that
abortion is no kind of a solution to the real problems and real sufferings that
attend crisis pregnancies. What is needed are communities to surround all our
suffering people in all situations with love, with concern, with support, with concrete
help. For families to do that for their own members, and when that family
network fails (which is tragically frequent in our day) for the larger
community to pick up the slack. The great driver of abortion is family breakdown and social isolation and abandonment.
To say ‘You mustn’t
kill you child!” and then give no help or support is not really pro-life, is
it? But to say “I will support you as you kill your child!” is not really
supporting the woman, either.
Anyhow, I don’t
write about abortion much, not because I don’t care about it, but because I care
very much, and it’s hard to write about it, frankly. But these are the thoughts
that marched around in my brain as I marched around Ottawa, and listened, and
prayed. Everybody counts, or nobody counts. And I believe everybody counts.
I have often thought that, Fr. Denis (and I've never read Harry Bosch books). We open the door to all sorts of depravities when we say even one tiny little bit of humanity "doesn't count". Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteYes, and it's the arguments for why 'this one' doesn't count that are truly chilling. They are too small... so the bigger a person is, the more they count? Does Ahnold count more than me? Or they are too dependent... so the disabled count less than me? I count less that Survivoman? Or they are unwanted... so, our value depends on who loves us? And so on, and so forth. Once the value of a life is contingent on some quality that being possesses, then we are all incredibly vulnerable.
DeleteI don't think that many women considering abortion believe that life doesn't begin at conception. I never have and have had multiple abortions. I would have another with absolutely no hesitation.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you.
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