(The following is an essay which first appeared here on Vital Signs two years ago.)There were four women who went in to the building on 46th Street yesterday morning to have their preborn children killed. We were there to offer alternatives to those women and to let them know the facts about abortion that they were certainly denied by the abortionist’s staff. We were also there to pray. And though we’re sure the Lord lovingly heeded our entreaties, the abortion clients didn’t. They decided to turn away from the message of truth and compassion we presented.
They usually do.
And frequently they do so with a brazen blasphemy.
A common sentiment among some pro-life people is that women choose abortion only as an act of great desperation, a last resort taken because they could not depend on the callous, cold-hearted man in their life. A woman, it is often said by such pro-lifers, does not choose abortion as she would a restaurant or a dress but rather as a trapped animal decides to chew off its leg in order to get free.
That this vivid word picture is an accurate description of what some women experience in deciding on abortion is certainly true. However, those pro-life advocates who dare go to the abortion clinics as sidewalk counselors know all too well that the “crisis pregnancy” of a desperate, otherwise well-intentioned woman is no longer the norm. Indeed, most abortion clients are now women who are well aware of the humanity of their unborn baby and even well aware of the safety nets provided for pregnant women by government, social service agencies, pro-life organizations, churches, family, adoptive agencies, and so on. And this increasingly hard-hearted attitude of women who buy the abortionist's services is a truth that many pro-life advocates have refused to recognize or, at least, openly admit.
Yes, in the past there was much more ignorance about fetal development and much less publicity about the wide range of services available to pregnant women and moms of newborns. And yes, we must deal with women who experience genuine “crisis” pregnancies in which the trapped animal metaphor is yet applicable. And yes, we must always deal compassionately, patiently and sacrificially in our offers of assistance to any and all women tempted by abortion.
But no; we need not keep propagating a myth. We should face the fact that, as the years have gone by since Roe v Wade, more women are making abortion decisions boldly, selfishly and completely cognizant that alternatives are freely available.
Of course, I understand that even the flippancy and bravado that we see as a matter of course in the women coming into abortion mills can be a cover for deep-seated pain and confusion. I have no doubt that sometimes is the case. But also beyond doubt (for someone who has been sidewalk counseling for over a quarter of a century) is that many, many modern women are cold-heartedly using the abortionist as their backup birth control, indifferent to the cruel death that is inflicted on their child.
Legalized abortion has not liberated women. But it has changed them. It has stolen their children, emasculated their men, and transformed their natural, nurturing spirit into a concentrated, but tragically counter-productive, selfishness.
Legalized abortion has done more than kill children; it has killed the compassion that was once the beautiful, noble crown of womanhood.
