To Be Born

On Saturday, April 21, I rode with a group of high school teens to the field outside the Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL.  The school's bus was filled so I rode a few extra kids in my van.  Riding in my passenger seat was a woman that recently talked at the high school chapel because she lives with the memory of having an abortion as a young woman.

I told her that I've become more sensitive to the language I use when I talk about abortion.  I asked her if it makes her sad when people say abortion is murder, that I try to say ending the life of the unborn or something but not "murder".

She said, "It is murder."

At the center, the high school organizer asked that just 5 of the girls at a time stand across from the center.  This was the second biggest turnout for the monthly trip that we've had.  He advised me and the other adult not to yell anything, but instead to stand behind the girls.  He asked the girls to love the women walking in there, and to say things that they thought would touch their hearts.

The girls in sequence yelled:
(together) "Your baby is going to be beautiful!"
(girl 1) "Your baby could have your eyes . . . "
(girl 2) ". . . your laugh"
(girl 3) " . . . your walk."

They would also yell that there were counselors here from a free crisis pregnancy center a couple blocks away that could help them, and that they were not here to judge them, but to love them and help them.

One of our girls asked the woman with me if there is anything that they could say that might have kept her from going through with the abortion.  They didn't ask her directly.  I coached some of these girls in basketball so they asked her through me.

She told me, and I relayed, "'Your baby is going to be beautiful' is perfectly innocent and would have impacted her when she was walking in for her abortion appointment."

Both she and I remained silent and prayed as we were directed.  I was praying the rosary on my rosary ring.

There was one couple that came out, hand-in-hand, smiling, and walked right in front of us by about 15 yards, continuing onto their car in an adjacent parking lot, where they hugged.  We, neither the girls, the counselors, the other woman or I, nor the Knights of Columbus or even the guy from Operation Rescue yelled or said anything to the couple.  What they decided is their business, after all.

One of the Knights did peak through the trees to see them hugging at their car.  One of the wives of the Knights said, "She didn't do it. She was walking too well to have had an abortion."

One of the lies of those supporting Planned Parenthood and slamming people like Santorum (i.e. Ashley Judd) is that there are angry people outside of the centers.  No one out there was angry, or judging the women walking into the center.

There was one woman who rode by in a car and asked the high school girls if they were from Aurora.  Immediately when one of the girls said no, she yelled, "Then go home!"  I yelled after her, "Thanks for stopping by.  Good-bye."

I told the girls, "You don't have to give an answer to someone when they ride by.  She like some adults think they have the right to yell and tell people your age what to do.  They don't."

The girls and I are resident of this state and this country and are children of God owing him our allegiance, and not obedience to a stranger yelling at them rudely from a slowly moving vehicle.

The reason we are out there is in hope that by seeing these girls, about the same age as the girls going in for the abortion, they will think, and we pray, reconsider.  That is it.  We are trying to prevent the extreme violent act of the killing of the unborn child, even though it is legal, and we don't live in the immediate township of the facility.

It is confusing to some of the girls that the pregnant woman is sometimes accompanied by mother, or father, or both.  It doesn't fit with their understanding of the scriptures they have been taught to memorize from preschool:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."  Ephesians 6:1

We really are not sitting in judgement of the woman.  We are angry that this is legal.  We are angry that a young woman is often pressured into this, and sees it as the chance for a fresh start, rather than the tragedy, and emotional wound that it will be for her that can only be healed by the Divine Mercy of her Savior.

In the car when I was talking to the other adult woman, I said the reason I don't say "murder" is because I think the emotional pain must be touched off again when the woman sees a baby, or child.  She said it was painful until she was saved and Jesus healed her.

The life of the unborn child, and the pain that the woman (mother), and man (father), and grandparents feel after the abortion is exactly why the high school kids and the adults, the majority of whom are Catholic, go out there to be the visible, physical reminder of the God who saves!

In case you need some encouragement to pray the rosary, fast, and offer sacrifices for the intention of changing the hearts and minds of pregnant women, and the electorate in this country you can watch this.

It is one of those pieces of visual art that is both very sad and hopeful at the same time.  I am still trying to resolve my own crying while watching this.  I'll use the tissues right after I hit the Publish button.

It is under 10,000 views at this point.

***Spoiler Alert***

While I would love if all pregnant women considering Abortion would be touched by the grace to have a dream like this before their appointments that end the life of the unborn baby within them, I would hope that at minimum you and I would do whatever the Holy Spirit prompts us to do from praying the rosary to offering a fast, to actually showing up in person at an Abortion Clinic or a Freedom of Religion event. Oh and voting, yes voting.

If there was confusion in anyone's mind in 2008 that Barak Obama is activist for NARAL and Planned Parenthood that confusion should be gone.  His administration has acted to provide public funding for chemical and surgical abortion and to enlarge the number of facilities providing this to the public.  I do not understand how someone could justify voting for him on moral grounds.  I just don't!