*This originally appeared at DougOnTap.com
If you have been pro-life your entire life, this might be a little difficult to understand, but I think it needs to be discussed. And for some of you, this post may be uncomfortable because sometimes we want to believe the very worst about people we disagree with. But believe it or not, most pro-choicers support abortion for reasons they believe to be compassionate…compassionate towards the woman and the child. They believe that every child should be wanted. Nobody wants to see children born into abusive situations. Nobody wants a woman to feel stuck. It doesn’t matter if you think their stance or feelings are misguided or that they are blind to the truth. What matters is that their feelings and desire to be compassionate are genuine, and frankly, they deserve to be heard. My wife spent 8 years in the abortion industry. We have been married for almost 10 years now, and I spent the first five years of our marriage supporting a woman that proudly waved the biggest and boldest pro-choice flag out there. Although I did not like abortion, I was still with her every step of the way until the day she had her conversion to being pro-life. Why? Because I loved her. Because I loved her passion. Because I loved that she truly believed what she was doing what was right. I spent several years arm in arm with Abby attending fundraisers, rallies, and events with a lot of people who supported a woman’s right to an abortion. It is safe to say you tend to gain a lot of insight about abortion clinic workers and other pro-choicers when you spend a significant amount of time breaking bread with them. (And sleeping next to one of them). There are so many common misconceptions, ideas, and stereotypes that many pro-lifers have about the other side. I think it is all too easy to hate the person standing in front of us that boldly represents what we as pro-lifers are working against. I am not sure what image comes up in your head when you think about pro-choicers and abortion supporters. You might think unhappy, dark, hates children, promiscuous, ignorant, angry, hurt, super liberal…the list goes on. I am here to tell you, for the most part, you might be wrong.
1. Pro-choicers have kids, they love their kids, and they like other people’s kids
For the most part, people who support abortion are not rejoicing in the right to kill babies. They are not sitting around talking about how much they hate pregnant women and how they should all abort their children. When Abby was pregnant, they gave her a baby shower at the Planned Parenthood clinic. (I know there is some irony in that). Most of the women who came in for abortions already had kids. Some of them brought their children to their abortion appointment. They felt like they were doing the very best and most compassionate thing for their current baby in the womb. I know that may seem hard to understand, but when you are living in that world, it makes sense. We all justify our own poor decisions everyday. The same way you do it is the same way they do it. When you meet someone that doesn’t like or want kids, it’s usually a personality thing, not a pro-choice thing.
2. They know they are right the same way you know that you are right
There were so many times Abby would complain about the protesters outside her Planned Parenthood clinic. She would gripe that they should find something better to do. “How can they be so callous towards women? How could they not care about a woman’s reproductive rights?” I would usually just remind her, they are out there because they are just as passionate about saving babies as you are about helping women obtain abortions. Just like we KNOW as pro-lifers that we are 100% correct on the subject, Abby used to KNOW that supporting a woman’s right to abortion was absolutely the right thing to do. And she was supported by her friends, the women she worked with and even our church.
3. They are articulate, well educated, and smart people
I get tired of pro-lifers that think you have to be ignorant or stupid to be pro-choice. It’s just ridiculous. The truth is that there plenty of very smart people that support a woman’s right to abortion. I went to a lot of meetings, talks, small gatherings, fundraisers, and other events with Abby when she was with Planned Parenthood. Every time, the majority of them were doctors, lawyers, college professors, and well known professionals. If you think you can’t be argued under the table by a pro-choicer just because you know deep in your heart you are right, you are dead wrong. When you decide to take on a stranger on the subject of abortion, make sure you are on your A-game and assume they are pretty intelligent. Don’t just go in with Bible verses. In fact, they might find a way to use that against you. Make sure you are well versed in science and medicine. Make sure you use sound logic in your argument. Otherwise, you could easily be embarrassed.
4. Not every abortion supporter would choose abortion for themselves
“I wouldn’t have an abortion, but I am not going to stop a woman from getting one if she needs it.” Many prochoice women will tell you that they would never have an abortion. It’s not about them having an abortion or having the option, it’s because they don’t want to take away the option from other women. They feel like taking away the right to abortion would lack compassion. They also really hold on to the idea that “every child should be a wanted child.”
5. Pro-choicers go to church
Not only do they go to church, but Abby truly believed she was doing what God wanted her to be doing when she was with Planned Parenthood. Dr. Tiller was killed while attending church. Abby can tell many stories about women who wanted to pray while on the table about to get an abortion. Sometimes, she would recognize women that would come in to Planned Parenthood, because they attended the large Baptist church where we taught Sunday School. Some of the people she worked with attended church regularly. Remember that sometimes we think we are hearing God’s voice, but it may not be Him at all. There have been people who are anti-abortion who say that “God told them to kill an abortion doctor.” Or maybe that “God told them to blow up an abortion clinic.” But if we know the person of God, we know that He would never instruct us to harm others. I suspect that when Abby thought God was blessing her work and telling her to keep doing what she was doing, it wasn’t God’s voice she was hearing.
Yes, there are some pro-choicers that have malicious intent in their heart, but that group is a small number. The majority of people that are pro-choice believe their intentions are good. I think most of the time, people on both sides of the argument want what’s best for everyone. When we work towards to understanding each other better and look at what our intentions are, we might be able to move towards the right solution. So, let’s get to know each other a little first. Remember, I was pro-life minded and married a pro-choice woman. In other words, we can get along. We have things in common. Yes, this is a fight, but an opportunity to minister and change hearts and minds as well. If anything, I hope this gives you reason to want to pray a little harder a love a little more.
Doug, I appreciate that you believe in your wife and yourself. I also believe that you are wrong. I think that you and your wife were under a diabolical disorientation of your choosing. You both had a free will choice to follow the commandments or to follow the devil. Unless you were insane, you have to own that to advocate for abortion is grave matter and I also believe you were both in mortal sin because you had the responsibility to inform your conscience of the teachings of the faith. Too, even now, you do not admit culpability which I believe is the latent and lingering effect of the mortal sin even when the sin is confessed. It is called the temporal effect of being in the sin for so long.
In other words, you and Abby may not be able to see clearly even to this day the effects of the sin on yourself and on your own children. I tell you this in this public forum as you and Abby have the ear of many Catholics and those who are your audience need to understand the severity of what was done when Abby was directly and materially involved in the abortion of human persons.
I am sure that this post may upset you and I ask that you consider that I have a right and a responsibility to advise you using the spiritual works of mercy.
God forgives all sins as we Christians know but there are conditions and I ask that you and Abby speak with a holy priest to be sure that you have met those needed for absolution.
I was a grave sinner too and am still laboring with the lingering effects, but they are abating. The sacraments helped me enormously and so did the humility I had to embrace to ask for God’s forgiveness without excuse. God bless you both.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate the honesty and the desire to correct a brother in charity. It seems to me though, that you’ve missed Doug’s point here. He’s not making excuses. He even admits that there was probably some demonic influence when he writes, “I suspect that when Abby thought God was blessing her work and telling her to keep doing what she was doing, it wasn’t God’s voice she was hearing.”
Doug’s points are important ones and can help us to better understand the mindset of those who really believe (though they are in serious error) that they are doing the right thing by working in the abortion industry. That’s important for evangelization.
The problem in these blogs of people calling other sinners is that they do not have the right to do so.
Remember the “Father forgive them because they do not know what they are doing”…
Also remember the amount of brainwashing that is going on in society and maybe… maybe we can with love talk of issues without condemning, but throwing light from God´s love…
Of course we have the right to correct. We have no right to condemn the soul, however. And, yes, brainwashing could definitely be a factor for mitigation of the sin since it affects free will. When Jesus asked the Father to forgive them, remember He was the perfect man, who knew all things, and so He knew His killers were ignorant. We must use our intellect to discern with the aid of the Holy Spirit. I believe I corrected Doug in truth and charity. We must stop being fearful of brotherly agape love and correctly balance mercy with justice.
The Church used to actively teach about the inner hierarchy which God gave us to interact with our world. First our intellect, then our will and finally our emotions (in that order). I was taught to never make decisions based on emotions. And a well-formed intellect must enlighten the will. The will has been explained to me as being like a muscle; it’s weak unless it’s exercised frequently. Our free will and intellect will only serve us if God is in the mix. We were made for God and if we deviate from how fearfully and wonderfully He made us then we suffer.
God did give us His laws in our hearts when we were conceived and a yearning to know Him, so, really, for intelligent beings we have no excuse to not know Him, but for our own pride in self which is the barrier and which, if not reined in, will be our ultimate downfall (our election of hell versus the Beatific Vision).
Check 1Tim 5:20: “Reprimand publicly those who do sin, so that the rest also will be afraid.”
Check 2 Thes 3:14: “If anyone does not obey our word as expressed in this letter, take note of this person not to associate with him, that he may be put to shame.”
Check 2 John 10-11: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works.”
Check 1 Cor. 5 (entire chapter). “But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person. For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within? God will judge those outside. “Purge the evil person from your midst.”
There’s more.
Judge not? Well, that requires some context.
OMG
Do you really take this literally?
What are the context situations of this?
As, really, all being sinners, no one would be allowed to be in the community!
I am going to look into studying the letters, the beginning of the Christian community…
Those attitudes in the cold are simply not those of Jesus as we see in the Gospel!
Where have you been told to act on these? In a Catholic circle?
Does it surprise you that I am indignant when people murder their children and your response is “Who am I to judge?”. My point in citing the above passages was to show that the New Testament has plenty of passages where the faithful are exhorted to exclude, shun and put to shame members of the Christian community who reject Church doctrine or live in open and flagrant sexual immorality. People who ignore these passages and exclusively cite “Judge not….” are failing to harmonize all of the New Testament – all of which is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Even Pope Francis has exhorted the faithful to practice the spiritual works of mercy (including #3, “to admonish the sinner”). See, Misericordiae Vultus.
Can we be prayerfully indignant?
Look, BXVI (are you a man?) , I am also soooooo worried and yes, indignant! at the way society is treating women as guinea pigs in this “brave new world”… because, let us not forget, that of the one billion abortions (horror of horror of the murders of the most innocents in the most sacred of places, their mother´s wombs…) since the sixties, there are one billion violated women… violated in their femininity, in their motherhood, in their bodies…
Of course we have to speak what is a biological truth versus the ideological brainwashing of a pretended gender equality…
Of course!
With clarity and with charity…
Not everyone has been given the light to see…
(Have you listen to Abby Johnson?)
Kind regards.
Btw. the Pope never said “who am I to judge?” in the void… I encourage you to look at the context… specially since it was followed by a search for God:
“What Francis said was, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” The difference between what he is quoted as saying, and what he actually said, is not minor. Those who parse his words agree, which is why they parse them. It is important to note that the pope did not offer two sentences: his one sentence was chopped to alter his message”.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/2014/01/journalists-editing-pope-francis-who-are-we-to-judge/
A rather late reply to,you… something that must be considered in applying the ideas and teachings of the bible is the context of the words in terms of relationship between the parties.
To shun and have nothing to do with those who you have no relationship with is likely to be ineffective. Dealing with those close to you, as the community at Corinth certainly was, is quite a different story. The community at Corinth was small and tight, like any smaller town, probably more so than most churches in our country. To shun someone in that place was to isolate them. That would not be the effect here and now.
Those to whom Jesus spoke most of his teachings were either within the Jewish community, or sought out Jesus on their own… Quite different than approaching someone unsolicited.
They won’t care what you say until they know that you care is really a truth and rearranged version of 1Cor13, …..”if I have not love, then I am a banging gong or a clashing cymbal”
Even those who came to stone the woman, came seeking Jesus words…even if to trick him
Are those actively engaged in aborting babies living in the Light? I think you judge by man’s standards. These children are God’s creation. Children belong to no one but Him. We approach all human life in this manner if we are to live in the light.
help them see the light…
heard of Abby Johnson?
Their is something deeply wrong in the heart, mind, and soul of a person who wants the mass murder of babies to be legal. I am a sinner but I don’t rejoice in my sin as the baby killers do.
They do not know what they are doing…
Heard of Abby Johnson…?
They need the light to see how this is a separation from God, a missing the mark, what we call a sin… and how they miss out on life because of that
Calling them sinners does not solve the blindness: only love does.
Then Jesus must have been a VERY bad man……..because He spoke about sin and hell a lot……….
So what you are saying is if I see a man beating a child with a baseball bat I should not say “stop that” I should speak to the man beating the child about “luv.”…..maybe I can talk about puppies and butterfly’s as he is crushing the child’s skull.
Hummmm, I’ll try it………….
Why write so aggressively…?
I never said not to stop disordered acts… what I said was no to call the person a sinner, as the sin is in the heart…
A passage that enlightens what I mean is that of the adulterous woman…
He addressed both the sinful men and her fragility and then, and only then, told her not to sin…
He did stopped the stoning… a very grave sin for sure…
Btw, maybe by concentrating on the love that Jesus has for me, thus for others too, I can stop aggressions with love… like He did…
This is what I meant.
You are right Conchita………I have just given up hope after 55 million babies aborted in America and I have read estimates of close to one billion abortions in the last 50 years.
We see no evidence that abortion will end and despite the Planned Parenthood videos I would bet nothing will be done to defund PP.
You are right Conchita………I have just given up hope after 55 million babies aborted in America and I have read estimates of close to one billion abortions world wide in the last 50 years.
We see no evidence that abortion will end and despite the Planned Parenthood videos I would bet nothing will be done to defund PP.
Catholic politicians are the driving force behind the murder of babies and Catholic voters continue to vote for pro-abortion politicians……I guess I look at it that after one billion abortions in the last 50 years what does anything matter.
I am very very sad and worried too, Maggie!
Maybe we can pray together….?? Please….
Amen…..God bless you and please don’t ever lose your kindness.
Thank you, Maggie. You neither.
God bless you too.
I attach a link with the latest horror on abortion (link in Spanish but video in English).
This barbarism has to stop!!
Our Father… open thei eyes… Amen.
Very shaky ground you’re on. You can’t keep making excuses for people in manifest egregious sin, not can you condemn their souls, either.
However, we ARE called to admonish sinners – it is the FIRST of the Spiritual Works of Mercy prescribed by the Church. How do you identify who is a sinner to be admonished?
By judging the sin as sin and not the sinner, per se.
Many of these folks knew at one time, depending on their religious formation, that abortion is murder, but drifted. Who’s responsible for that? The person sinning is responsible for drifting so much he has lost a sense of his sin.
Those not properly formed in their youth may not know what they are doing. Their scenario will be judged by God, but that does not relieve us of our responsibility to admonish the sin we witness. It is a great act of charity to bring to someone’s attention what they are doing, and it should be done without pride or haughtiness.
Yes, I agree, the shaky waters of when we are and are not blind in our actions.
Many nowadays seem intent on keeping the mask in front of our eyes…
But… indeed… talking about abortion as murder is a must, I agree!
I do it so much that I have such an anti abortionist reputation…!
But murder it is!
Seen the last video on tissue and organ trafficking? it makes me sick to the bone… (attached Spanish link, but video is in English…)
https://www.hazteoir.org/alerta/65615-no-permitas-que-tu-dinero-financie-aborto-y-trafico-organos?tc=ty&tcid=4159359
They love the kids they want.
The capacity to love is measured by loving the unexpected…
False compassion and false empathy are both tools of Satan. The reason these people are pro-choice or pro SSM or anything else God said NO to is they have allowed this to enter into their thinking…and because they give evil very little, if any credence, they have taken the bait hook line and sinker.
ALL life, at the moment of conception is Sacred to God- even before the child is formed as it states so clearly in the Bible.
“I knew you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart for me before you were born…” Jer. 1:5
“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in
your book before one of them came to be”. Psalms 139
There are many more verses as well.
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There is one major difference between those that flow along with the culture of death and those that oppose it. You are right — it’s not intellegence, not personality, not lifestyle — it is that God has given them the grace, and they have accepted it, to leave the broad path that leads to unhappiness and loss. That is the only difference. The broad path and the narrow one, and knowing the Shepard that leads us away from death.
Most , if not all, of Dougs paragraph headlines is true, after a fashion. That being said, most of the people in these paragraphs would probably benefit from professional intervention as even I, with only a basic training in the field, can see at least two and probably more psychotic manifestations in each. I realize he was coming from a spiritual component but a look at the whole person is almost always necessary for a proper evaluation.
The bottom line is they all approve of killing the unborn, even if they wouldn’t do it themselves.
Thanks for this. I have been pro-life all my life but some of the people I care most about in the world are not. Do I wish they’d change? Yes. Are they otherwise good people and great parents? Yes. One very silly pro-life sign I’ve seen is ‘Smile, your Mom was pro-life’; not necessarily, she may just have chosen not to abort you, or may be a Number 4 above, or may have changed her mind, or in rare cases you could be here because the abortion didn’t ‘work’. We really need to stop stereotyping & villifying people.