Take It From Me: Acting Like A Jerk Won't Save Any Babies

My friend Nella wrote an incredible post yesterday and if you missed it I'm really begging you to go read it because if there's a message that we pro lifers need to hear (and there is), it's this. In the post she mentions a facebook friend of hers who wrote a status a year ago about having courage in a crisis pregnancy, and how it angered and hurt her. At that time she was in between a rock and a hard place, thus a chipper little facebook status about having courage in a crisis pregnancy was only salt in her very fresh and very serious wound.

Well, I'm the friend. And I want to tell you that Nella's memory is a lot kinder than reality, because I don't remember writing that status but I do remember writing this:

"Whenever I look at little Miabella, I wonder how the hearts of our nation have become so hardened that we throw away precious little boys and girls like her every day. God help us to stop viewing children as a threat, as an inconvenience, as nothing more than garbage that we can dispose of. God give us the courage to be real men and women, to stand up and defend the lives of the very smallest among us."

You know, even as I re-type those words, I think: Yeah, we do throw away precious little boys and girls every day and it's so MESSED UP. It really is. And like many of you, it causes me physical pain in my heart and my stomach when I think  about exactly what abortion really is. 

But when I imagine Nella one year ago today, reading these words of mine.. I feel shame wash over me. 

You see, while it is true that as a nation we have come to view children as a threat and an inconvenience and nothing more than garbage that we can dispose of -and I know there's people out there who can possibly benefit from hearing that - the nation wasn't reading my facebook status ..but my friend whose heart was breaking and whose life was falling apart? She was.

I have learned over the last year that the tone I used to use  when talking about abortion was not always very loving or very effective. When Pope Francis said that thing about some of us being "obsessed with abortion", he was right. In fact, until about a year ago - in my pro life zeal - this is the only issue I would post about on facebook. There were many times where I shut people down and turned them off. It truly grieves me to say that I have hurt people and shamed them in the name of being pro life, and at times I have not respected the dignity of others in my quest to uphold the dignity of the unborn.

I am so sorry for that. I am so sorry to everyone whom I've hurt this way, truly. Although compassion was supposed to be my goal, and was even so present in my heart when I would write these statuses that I would have tears running down my face while typing them, looking back I see that so often my tone was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I have never been one to shame post abortive mothers, but I'm sure now that some things I shared would have hurt them. I hate that. They and their children, out of anyone, are most in need of our compassion. And I know this. I know this. I know this because I almost chose abortion for my oldest son.

I was 17 and in a sexual relationship that you couldn't even really call a relationship. It was weird. The guy didn't really like me to begin with, but I felt like I was in love with him, even after he locked me out on the roof of a house in the middle of winter without a jacket on. And left. Like he actually left the house. So romantic. "Baby It's Cold Outside" could have been our song. 

I know...it's not funny.

I didn't know what the hell love was. I was a very desperate and lonely girl. 

I wasn't living at home. I was living with a relative, the one I mentioned before who was like an aunt to me. Her name is Amy. She had gone through a "reversion" to Catholicism and I think I've mentioned before that she opened her home up to people in need who didn't have a place to live, like drug addicts and prostitutes. I wasn't either of those things, but I was definitely in need of help because I was making a real big mess of my life.

When I was younger, like 14, I read a book about abortion. It explained what an abortion really was and gave quite a lot of graphic information about what happens to the baby in the womb. I was in ninth grade and ironically at that time my English teacher gave us an assignment: give a presentation on a controversial topic. I chose abortion for my topic. My side? Pro life. I did a great job but gained zero popularity after that presentation. I pissed off a few people but I stood my ground. 

When I found out I was pregnant, it wasn't so cut and dry. I wasn't reading about some girl in a book or watching some actress on an after school special. It was me. And it was me who was so terrified I could barely even breathe. 

The guy had already broken up with me and was long gone. I remember feeling this suffocating fear at the thought of my family finding out. How could this be happening? What could I do? I decided to play it safe and confide in one of the other women who lived in Amy's house. She told me "I've had three abortions. I know where you can get one."

I called and made an appointment for the following Monday. This was on a Friday. I was so panicked. You know when you see a bunny on someone's lawn and it sees you approaching, how it tenses up and gets that wild look in it's eyes? I was like a frightened rabbit.. I couldn't even think straight. I just wanted to get through the weekend and get this thing over with. I DID NOT want to think about it. At all. 

Well on Saturday, Amy decided to make a huge meal for all the girls in the house. She's an amazing cook and the meal she was making was one of her best - a three meat sauce with spaghetti, pasta primovera, and I can't remember what else but when I think about it that's really a lot of pasta, right? Anyway, FOOOOD!! I was so thrilled and she knew it.

Then we sat down to say grace and after we prayed I felt the most revolting wave of nausea that I'd ever felt before in my life, and I said weakly, "May I please be excused? I don't feel very well."

After I left the table and fled to my room, Amy looked at everyone sitting around the table and said (I know this because I've heard it retold like 90,0000 times) "Let me ask you all a question. Is Heather pregnant?" And they all looked down at their plates in silence. 

I was sitting on my bed, feeling sick and scared when I heard her coming up the stairs. I braced myself. Boy I knew I was in for it now. My heart was thumping.

There was a gentle knock on the door and she quietly pushed it open when I said "Come in."

Amy looked at me with a gaze of compassion and asked, "Honey, are you pregnant?" 

That was all it took for me to begin bawling. I was crying so hard, but finally I managed to wail "I don't wanna have an abortion!" And I just remember her hugging me with her big, soft arms and saying "Oh honey I would never want you to have an abortion!" and she promised to help me. 

You hear what I'm saying?

She didn't yell at me. 

She didn't tell me what an abortionist would do to my baby's body.

She didn't "tell me all my options" or tell me she'd "support me in whatever I decide" and she didn't shame me, either. 

When she looked at me, she saw a broken, terrified girl who needed help. She saw a baby who needed help. She saw us both. 

She saw what a lot of people don't see or refuse to see - a girl who needed hope that she AND her baby would be accepted and loved and cared for. 

All she kept telling me is how she would help me to take care of my baby, give me diapers, help me with everything. She kept telling me I was not alone, that she loved me and already loved the little one I was carrying. And by doing that, she saved my baby's life. 

How many times do we need to hear it before we get it? Women don't choose abortion because they're cold heartless bitches, folks. They do it because they feel hopeless and alone, afraid and unsupported. Trust me, I know.

Many times I have been in situations and around pro choice people who have talked down to me about my pro life position and have said things to me about abortion that range from totally bizarre to just blatant flat out lies. Like many of you, I have had people treat me like I'm stupid when they've debated with me about abortion. I have even seen (rarely) people laugh about aborted babies, make jokes about their little tortured bodies. I'm sorry, but that stuff makes me so angry I could just slap somebody. 

But slapping doesn't help. It's understandable to be angry..there is such a thing as righteous anger and there's a time to display it. And if abortion doesn't make you angry I don't know what will. Christians aren't just supposed to be smiling waldorf teachers, ya know. I'm sorry, but Jesus didn't spend His life wearing a crown of pretty little flowers and dancing around the maypole with his fists full of pastel ribbons. He was a dude. He was fully GOD and fully MAN. FULLY. Sometimes even Jesus got angry.

  But we ain't Jesus and many times we can crush people with our anger. Many times, the cruel laughter and the condescension we find ourselves up against when speaking with those who support abortion is merely a cover up for pain. The only way to break through that is with love, prayer and kindness. There are many, many people who have been wounded through abortion. They are hurting. They need mercy and compassion.

Here is my status from today, a full year later from the status I told you about earlier: 

"From Pope John Paul 2: I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life."

This is how we change the tide - by showing compassion and truth. I am growing in this. Winning the argument isn't winning the battle. What we want to win are hearts, and hearts are never won through condescension or being "right". We aren't going to change the world by obsessively posting one predictable facebook status after another. We're going to alienate ourselves and make people want to slap us. Acting like a jerk won't save any babies.

Have you done this? It's okay. You see, 'nothing is definitively lost'. God makes all things new. We can make a change in our own hearts and behavior,  starting today. Think about it: what is this really all about? It's about what it's always been about: love and relationship and authenticity.  With God. With each other. With the unborn and with the born. 

I think of a little baby boy that melted my heart the moment I laid eyes on him and who changed me for the better in about a million ways. He's nineteen now, and his smile can light up the whole world. 

I think of a young teenage mom crying on her bed and a loving woman wrapping her arms around her, telling her she is loved and not alone and promising to help her. She's always made good on that promise to help, too. 

I guess I've known all along in my heart.. that's how you change the tide.

My son Joey with baby sister Miabelle , 1 year ago this month.
Dammit I hope some of you failed math so you can't figure out my real age.