[Guest Blogger] Day 26: Abortion

Through Facebook, I have become online-friends with an Orthodox Catholic priest, Father Nathan Monk, who lives and works here in Pensacola, FL.  Within some circles, he has gained a bit of local "fame" through his tireless efforts to help the poorest of the poor within our community.  Read more about Father Monk here (opens in new window).

Over this past month, Fr. Monk has been writing a series of notes on Facebook, each addressing a different aspect of his personal life, spiritual life, social beliefs, political beliefs, or some mixture of any of these.  Tonight, with his permission, I am reposting his "Day 26: Abortion" note, in hopes that it may be shared with a greater audience.

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Once in a while I'll see something that truly makes me wish that I could think and act quicker than time. 

Kind of like after someone insults you, and it's not until you get home that the perfect comeback finally makes it into your brain. But this was so much bigger than that. I was walking along 9th Ave and I was a few blocks up from the abortion clinic, and I hadn't even thought about the fact that it was Friday morning, they day the abortions take place. I heard some commotion and I turned around to witness a small black sedan pulling out of the parking lot. The lone picketer ran up to the car and jumped as close to in front of it as he's legally allowed, holding a graphic sign of an aborted baby with limbs ripped apart, and he yelled, "Look! Look what you did to your baby, your little baby, you killed it! MOMMY WHY DID YOU KILL ME, MOMMY!?" I would have given anything in the world to be able to transport myself into that woman's car and hold her hand and tell her that somehow it would all be ok. That Jesus makes all things new. But instead, I was limited by space and time to be standing there, a few blocks away, helpless.

I have met the protestor before. If you meet him outside of the context of an abortion clinic, he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and is well-versed on a number of topics. However, come Friday morning and something inside of him snaps and he's a different kind of man.

See, I have a fundamental problem with the label of pro-life and pro-choice because life is far too complicated to put in those broad of terms. Neither terminology properly displays either side of the isles' stance on a variance of issues.

I realize that I am speaking in general terms, and obviously there are numerous shades of gray that people tend to live in. But speaking along those general terms it has been my experience that though people will choose to define themselves as pro-life, what they really mean is that they are anti-abortion. Because to me the term pro-life means that, well, the person believes in the sanctity of all life, from conception to natural death. However, it has been my experience that most people who say they are pro-life are also pro-gun, support the war, are against welfare, do not support free medical care or other things that would help provide a better quality of life for people around them.

They claim that every life is important, but then they justify away the death of children both born and unborn that die in war as "collateral damage." 

But how can the life of a child be shunned away as part of the greater good in one circumstance and not in the other? It is my belief that whether a child is killed at the hand of an abortionist or at the hand of a bomb it is of equal loss to humanity.

Justifying the death of an Arab baby, because it may through six degrees of separation save the life of an American baby shows to me that extreme levels of racism, classism and general feelings of superiority still exist in our country, no matter how evolved we try and pretend we are.

On the other side of that coin though is this idea of choice. I mean the term pro-choice implies that you believe people should have options. But over the course of my life, no woman I know who has gotten an abortion did so because they felt like they were making a choice. Rather, it was because they felt like they had no other choice! If Planned Parent legitimately believed that women should have a choice, then they should present them with all of the options. However, they have spent a great deal of time attempting to censor those organizations that wish to offer women another choice other than abortion. So, I believe in general terms, the term pro-choice is equally as deceptive as pro-life, because it's not like a woman walks into Planned Parenthood and they sit her down and say, "If you choose to keep your baby we will help you get the things you need, but if you choose not to we will supply you with an abortion." No, there is only one choice, abortion or take care of your baby yourself.

Neither side of the debate offers practical solutions.  Abortion in America was passed under the idea that it would be used only in cases of threat to a mother's health, rape or incest. But to this day that only accounts for less than 1% of all abortions in the States and the rest of abortions are "birth control" related. However, I talked to someone once who said that they had helped "save" a baby in front of an abortion clinic by convincing the mother not to get an abortion. When I asked them what they had done to help the baby and her mother, the answer was that they would pray for her. It's not simply enough to pray. We must be willing to be the answer to prayer. We must be willing to be the hands and feet of Jesus and go where he would go and do what he would do.

So when I say that I am pro-life this is what I mean: I am anti-war, anti-gun, anti-euthanasia, anti-death penalty and anti-abortion, but additionally I am pro-free health care, pro-welfare, pro-free and affordable housing, and pro-free food, because I believe that all life is sacred and should be treated with respect, and should have access to basic needs regardless of the ability to pay, because life is a right not a privilege.

I used to be a Republican because I felt that the stance that the majority of Democrats took on abortion was wrong and I still do. However, after this last election, I changed by party affiliation to Democrat because I felt that it more accurately expressed my beliefs on the majority of issues. I felt that it was morally wrong for me to stay part of a party that I basically disagreed with on every issue minus abortion just because the party that I agreed with on most issues represented one thing that I do not agree with. It is not moral to say that you believe every woman should keep her child, but then try to take away their ability to have access to health care, food stamps or other welfare programs that the Democrats protect.

The pro-life movement is imploding because their ideologies do not match with their political priorities. They want women to put their children up for adoption, but don't want gays to be able to adopt. They want women to stop getting abortions, but don't believe they should be able to get free medical care for their pregnancies. They promote a adoption, but few people adopt. One woman told me that, "there just aren't any babies to adopt anymore because of abortion, and that's why families adopt outside of the U.S." but that's not true… it's because people only want newborn babies that are white and healthy. In reality, in the foster care system in America right now there are roughly 150,000 kids available for adoption. Many of them aren't white, and have special needs, but they are still kids. They are still special and in need of a family and love. But, pro-lifers aren't adopting them and are trying their hardest to prevent the largest demographic of people who would adopt these children from gaining access to adoption! What is even more sick about it is that they can't use the issue of money as an arguing point, because adopting a child through the foster care system is FREE and they even give the children a full scholarship to college.

Basically, I believe both systems are broken and create broken people. We must love our fellow man and acknowledge their importance regardless of if their life seems valuable to us. Love is the only answer.