About "Abortionists"

Who is - and isn't - an "abortionist"

It’s not uncommon to read “Abortionist” in these pages.

After yesterday’s vote in Ohio - enshrining the right to abortion in that state’s constitution - I’d like to make a distinction and offer an explanation of my use of that descriptor.

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It’s unimaginable to me that every voter in Ohio who pulled the lever to take this constitutional action thinks the way this abortionist thinks.

“Indivisible Acadiana” is commenting on the conservative trend in Louisiana and recent Democrat losses across our state:

You see, Katie Bernhardt is the head of the Louisiana Democrat Party and the left wing of that party loathe her; they consider her “Republican lite” and find her too accommodating to her fellow Louisianans, to people like you and me. In the instance above, “Indivisible Acadiana” says the quiet part out loud, describing Bernhardt as “a pro-lifer” while bemoaning the fact that Bernhardt describes herself as “leaning on the conservative side of this issue” while “respecting choice.”

“Indivisible Acadiana” would qualify fully as “an abortionist” though in my ever-evolving understanding of this issue, and how to speak about it, perhaps Katie Bernhardt, ironical as it sounds - head of the state Democrats - is not.

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Ira Wray Is An Abortionist

… going so far as to describe the Ohio abortion vote as an “enjoyable five course dinner.” (Does cannibal ‘weird’ come to mind for you, too?)

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But I cannot believe that 6 in 10 Ohioans are as hard-hearted as the abortionists cited here. People generally are just not the ghouls that these two are.

So what is it then? What drove the vote to enshrine abortion into the Ohio state constitution?

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I Don’t Want To Be ‘That Guy’

My best hunch is that when someone is pressed to make a hard choice on this matter - when they are forced to take an actual vote on this - that they move into a default position, they take a more passive than active position. I do not believe we should conclude that 60% of Ohioans “celebrate” abortion. Instead, what yesterday’s vote suggests to me is that Ohioans do not claim to themselves the right to deny a woman a choice. Ohioans in the main feel empathy and presume a woman’s choice to have an abortion is a struggle for her.

In other words, Ohioans don’t want to be “that guy” who tells someone else what they must, or must not, do.

Seeing it through this lens makes sense to me; imagining that 6 in 10 Ohioans are baby cannibals does not make sense to me.

This is an essential distinction.

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Moving forward, please know that when I write “abortionist” I really mean “abortionist.” But reality imposes on me an obligation to acknowledge a category of people somewhere in the middle between myself and “Ira Wray.”

And those people voted in Ohio yesterday, forced to constrain very complex feelings into one binary decision.

Have no doubt that the abortion issue will continue to impact elections. Losses for Republicans, Conservatives, and the pro-life movement will mount up across the country. And as the efforts to convince others to the pro-life cause unfold, we must keep in mind that the force at work inside the voting booth isn’t an evil hatred of babies and moms, but a deportment of humility as the voter reflects upon themselves.

Crazy as it sounds, the abortion vote is less about babies than it is presumed to be, and it’s more about forcing one’s will upon another who is viewed as in distress.

This distinction must become the root of our motivation to speak out in support of that distressed young woman, though it will be a tough, and perhaps impossible, uphill battle.

While the leftist abortionists paint us as unsympathetic to a woman’s situation and uncaring of her struggles, and while we paint them as mean-spirited baby killers (and indeed many of them really are exactly that) to be effective we must speak to that large middle crowd of humble people who, when their feet are put to the fire, make a choice for choice.

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A Very Personal Revelation

Though I have sought forgiveness within the confessional and pray for forgiveness literally every time I fall to my knees to take the Eucharist, I confess to all of you that three decades ago I paid for an abortion. At the time, I loved my girlfriend very much. I felt an obligation to support her decision and she insisted on the action.

Then, I leaned Democrat left. I was young and dumb and I went along with the decision. Looking back, I don’t believe I could have stopped it.

But that day changed the trajectory of my life in ways I could not have imagined at the time. (And I tell you this very personal story because I’m certain it’s a reality for some of you, too.)

I regret that choice every day with every breath. I’m fully aware that my life would be better now, truer now. That when I sit in the pew at church alone, surrounded by large families in my parish, that I could have been like them. Indeed, I have no doubt that if we had kept that baby we’d have had a great life together; we really loved one another. But with time, and without the commitment that would have bonded us in parenthood, the love left and the relationship ended.

It’s this regret that fuels my passionate stance against abortion. I feel compelled to warn others of the consequences I live with daily. “Don’t do this!” I want to tell them… all of them… “Don’t do this! You’ll regret it!”

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Life is truly hard. The choices we make create permanent outcomes that we cannot predict. Our younger selves are not thinking about our older selves when we act out our youthful energies. I get all that.

I think the voters in Ohio get it, too. But I lament their choice and in the long run the real vote of empathy and compassion is to, indeed, “tell someone what to do.” To be “that guy.”

Don’t enable people to make the awful choice I made.

Choose LIFE.

Today. Tomorrow. Every day. Unendingly. Choose LIFE!

It’s absolutely and certainly a choice that you not only will never regret, but will come to celebrate more and more with every passing day.

the bec

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