Opposing abortion in our minds and hearts

As the annual Right to Life March made its way from the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, I was taken by the notion that opposition to abortion is not a matter of carrying a sign, but a matter of mind and heart.

Most people don’t march in marches, and that’s fine. The really important activity occurs on the inside of individual persons.

Have you made up your mind about abortion?

I listened to National Public Radio the other day as a doctor described the experimental use of fetal liver tissue as a substitute for bone marrow in bone marrow transplants. “Now doctor,” the interviewer asked, “are these livers from aborted fetuses?” “Yes,” the doctor answered. He explained that the liver produces blood and that fetuses had not yet developed sufficient defense agents and therefore their liver tissue stood a better chance of not being rejected by the recipient.

How can anyone listen to that without being horrified? A fetus has a liver, you say? You mean it’s not just so much tissue, good for nothing? Surely if fetal liver can produce blood for a fully developed human being, it can produce blood for itself. Ah, but it hasn’t yet developed defenses. Indeed, a fetus is defenseless.

We don’t have to carry signs, but we can make up our minds. Have you made up your mind, or are you still on the fence?

The important work of opposing abortion doesn’t occur on the courthouse steps, but in the mind and heart convinced of its position. It occurs in coffee shops and work places and neighborhood queues. It occurs one-to-one, couple-to-couple, person-to-God in prayer.

You’ve had a situation in your life when abortion was discussed, haven’t you? It was a conversation at work, or in a restaurant with your group, or in your living room with your neighbors. What did you say then? Did you make your position known? Or have you cowered, like I have, with my mouth shut, not wanting to offend anybody, not wanting my friends to think I’m a crackpot, not wanting people to think I don’t have an open mind.

I was lukewarm, cowardly, afraid to take a stand. Abortion is an issue out there, somebody else’s problem. I can’t change it so why should I have to be embarrassed, be scoffed at, ridiculed, scorned? I’ve read the papers. I know what people think about those pro-lifers, how they laugh and jeer and say, “Go to hell!” I don’t want to put up with that. Leave me alone.

But my conscience won’t leave me alone. I’ve had to make up my mind. I don’t have to carry a sign, but I do have to speak up when the opportunity arises. I have to face my friends and co-workers and acquaintances, and that’s a lot harder than carrying a sign.

The effects of abortion are complex. Circumstances surrounding it are complex. We must have compassion for women, millions of women, who already have had abortions. I don’t have all the answers for all the sticky moral dilemmas. But of this much I am sure: that babe in a mother’s womb is a person, with a liver and eyes and a nose, just like me. I cannot deny that. I cannot skirt that issue anymore.

The Catholic Church is known for its staunch opposition to abortion. But the official Church teaching means nothing if it is not embraced in the heart and soul and mind of individual Catholics.

Carrying a sign is easy. Looking your neighbor in the eye and speaking from conviction is hard. But that’s the important work in the fabric of society. You know you’ll have the opportunity, and so will I.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor in May of 1986