"No, it's okay!", the young woman shouted out across the parking lot of the abortion clinic this morning. She was waving and smiling broadly. "I'm just here to get checked for an STD!"Hmm.
Of course, I was relieved to know that she wasn't going in for an abortion. But then such a nonchalant attitude towards a promiscuous lifestyle and the almost inevitable venereal disease that results from it (something that once was, if spoken of at all, spoken in the most secretive and shameful of tones) still struck me as a very sad sign of our times.
I began to speak to her and she came right over to us. (Mark and Quint were standing there too. All of us were holding our large, winsome pro-life signs and banners there on the very busy Mission Street of Bellevue; Claire and Carol were around by the clinic entrance.)
I began by telling her about A Woman's Touch Pregnancy Center just a half block away. I explained that it was a beautiful place -- safe, wonderfully helpful and totally unlike the place she was about to enter. "Good grief; just look at this sleazy place. Like Mark here once said, even if this was a vet clinic I couldn't bear to bring my dog in here."
The young woman looked at the ramshackle building of Leroy Carhart's and concurred. "I know, but it's the cheapest place on the list." She proceeded to explain to us that she had already undergone a pregnancy test (it was negative) but she needed to get in somewhere quick to find out about an STD. I suggested she check out places that could better serve her needs, a place where they aren't killing preborn babies by abortion.
I started to tell her about the AAA CPC and its services but then I shifted tactics. "Look, my wife Claire is right up there at the top of those stairs. She counseled at the CPC for many years and she can give you more information. In fact, she can put you in touch with the gals at the CPC right now. Will you go up and talk to her?"
The young woman (cute, blonde, early twenties) agreed. She thanked us and headed up towards the entrance. She found Claire and Carol and did stop and talk to them. She even talked to Barb over at the AAA CPC when Claire got her on the cell phone. Yet because Carhart had "the cheapest price", the young woman ended up going in...and staying in.
Was she lying to us? Was she there for an abortion? No, none of us thought so -- and all five us have been doing this kind of thing for a long time now. And we were pleased that our witness was such that she felt comfortable coming over and talking so freely with us.
But still, the young woman's casual 'tude towards sharing her body around, the tragic normalcy of STDs among the young, and her distorted priorities (getting medical care from a staff that also kills preborn children because it's a few dollars less than at Douglas County) -- all of these made the situation a pretty troubling one.
Welcome to the brave new world, I guess -- a world which has jettisoned those outmoded ideals of romance, chastity, modesty, and even the sanctity of life itself. And what has it received in trade? Heartache, spiritual emptiness, an epidemic of debilitating disease, and the destruction of millions of human beings.
There's no winners here. No winners at all.
