by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann
Abortion advocates and their propagandists, who masquerade as journalists, have utilized doublespeak and lies for decades.
Early in the abortion debate, Americans were told that abortion just removes blobs of tissue or products of conception from a woman’s body. Unfortunately for them, ultrasound technology has made these falsehoods less credible and effective.
The discovery and study of the human genome has also proven problematic for the obfuscations of abortion advocates. No matter the stage of development — a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, an unborn child — has different DNA from her or his mother or father. Pregnancy does not just involve a woman’s body, but a genetically distinct second body.
In recent years, abortion propagandists and the secular media prefer to refer to abortion as part of reproductive or preventive health care. There is nothing reproductive about abortion. The entire purpose of abortion is to stop reproduction, to end a new, vulnerable life. Abortion is not preventive. Pregnancy is not a disease, but actually a healthy condition.
Abortion is not health care. Health care is to protect and care for human life. In every pregnancy, medically there are at least two human lives, two patients. The purpose of abortion is to destroy the life of the unborn child. In addition, abortion always scars emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and too often physically the second patient, the mother.
Dr. Noreen Johnson and her husband, Dr. Haywood Robinson, both performed abortions to supplement their income. They convinced themselves that they were performing a service for women.
Through God’s grace, both Noreen and Haywood stopped performing abortions. As part of a spiritual awakening for both of them, they recognized the evil of abortion and were thus moved to ask the Lord for mercy. They also realized that what they had convinced themselves was a service to women was actually harming them.
In their book, “The Scalpel and the Soul: Our Radical Transformation as Husband and Wife Abortion Doctors,” Noreen described her realization of the harm that abortion does to women. She wrote: “We believe the lie that these women we sell abortions to just get over it. Nothing is further from the truth. They are damaged for life. How is it that we accept that a woman grieves a miscarriage — which is medically referred to as a spontaneous abortion — and say there is no grief or remorse when a woman pays to have her baby killed. That’s totally inconsistent.”
Recently, two Georgia women died from complications caused by taking chemical abortion pills. The abortion industry, along with a compliant press, spun this event as the fault of a Georgia law that attempts to protect women and children from the tragedy of abortion.
This is not surprising because abortion advocates and their propagandists in the secular press supported making abortion pills accessible to women through the mail with no medical supervision. I have been told by those who worked in the abortion industry that when women are given the abortion pills at abortion clinics, they are advised that if they experience complications, they should go to a hospital emergency room and tell the nurses and doctors that they experienced a miscarriage.
Of course, this is malpractice to instruct a patient not to accurately inform emergency room personnel of the actual cause for their problems. It also helps the abortion industry distort the actual number of serious complications from chemical abortions.
Our public policy places all of the burden of a difficult pregnancy upon the woman. She is responsible to decide the fate of the child in her womb. In so doing, our culture absolves men from any responsibility for the child they have fathered — other than perhaps to pay for a portion of the cost of the abortion.
I encourage anyone that has had an abortion, pressured someone to have an abortion or assisted in performing abortions to reach out to our Project Rachel ministry for postabortion healing and reconciliation. No sin is greater than God’s mercy.
Our societal attitude toward abortion actually obstructs mothers and fathers from grieving the death of their child and repenting their decision to end the life of their child. When we surrender whatever our sin is to God, it allows us to experience his mercy and unconditional love. God loves us not because we are perfect, but because his love is perfect. On Calvary, Jesus revealed the depth of God’s love for us and made accessible his mercy.
There are many pressures and difficulties that motivate women to suppress their maternal instinct and to choose abortion. Often, they are pressured by the child’s father and others in their lives. Our public policy not only permits abortion, but teaches the cultural acceptability of abortion. After all, our laws do not otherwise permit the killing of an innocent human life.
Early feminists, like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul, considered abortion the ultimate exploitation of women. True feminism reverences the beauty and importance of motherhood and works for a society that accommodates the value of motherhood, while at the same time making it possible for women to bring their talents and genius to every segment of society.
Truth be told, the cultural acceptance of legalized abortion is one of the great tragedies and consequences of the so-called sexual revolution. Our young people have been formed by the culture to believe they are incapable of the virtue of chastity. Our society fails to protect them from the pornography industry that seeks to addict them at a young age to seek sexual pleasure without love.
Our culture has trivialized the meaning of sexual intimacy. St. John Paul II in the theology of the body sought to restore the authentic meaning of sexual intercourse as a profound physical expression of faithful and committed love — a love that is open to one of the natural possible fruits of sexual intimacy — the awesome privilege of being co-creators with God of a new human life.
Elections are important and have significant consequences. While there are no perfect candidates, we have the responsibility to choose individuals who most closely support respect for the sanctity of human life. Obviously, candidates who celebrate abortions as a fundamental right and make a pillar of their candidacy the legalized murder of preborn children are unworthy of our support.
Christianity was born in a world dominated by a pagan culture that not only allowed for abortion but supported the abandonment of children with disabilities. It was a culture that required women of nobility to be chaste but had no similar expectation for men.
Christianity transformed this pagan culture in a relatively short time. They did this by the witness of the early Christians to authentic love. The Christian understanding of marriage and family was attractive and revolutionary. Pagans marveled at how Christians loved one another and loved even their enemies.
Pope St. John Paul II believed that culture was much more important than politics. In a democratic republic, we get the leaders we deserve. For the most part, politicians are not leaders, but reflect the values of society.
Christianity changed a pagan culture once, and it can do so again. We change culture by how we choose to live and what we choose to value.
The love and joy of Christians, even during times of persecution, drew people to Jesus and his Gospel 2,000 years ago. Living our Catholic faith with fidelity, heroism and joy can transform the woke, pagan culture of our time. Authentic love and abiding joy are so much more attractive than ideology that believes the solution to societal problems is to kill our own children.
