What I Really Am Thinking While I Pray at Planned Parenthood

 

All of that pain and anger puts a pretty dark cloud over the abortion issue.  There is a lot of propaganda, on both sides, really.  Although, I firmly believe that the pro-abortion folks lie and keep the truth from a lot of these families.  I think that they have been lied to themselves, and just don’t know any better.  I hate to say it, but I am sure some of them just don’t care that a human life is extinguished.  What I mean to do is give my side and experience as someone on the front lines of the abortion fight in our country.  I have chosen peaceful prayer and a presence of witness as my tactics.  I also provide resources to poor women who contact a parish ministry that I work with along with three other women and I send people to our crisis pregnancy center.

 

What am I thinking when I kneel or stand outside of my local Planned Parenthood?  It probably is not necessarily what you think.  First, you have to understand what I want for these women, babies, and men who walk into the clinic.  I want these women to know that they have options.  I don’t want them to feel trapped or coerced into ending the life of their own child.  I want them to feel less alone.  I want them to see themselves as God sees them.  I want them to see their child as God sees them.  Motherhood is not easy, but the joy and gifts are worth the work. 

 

My daughter has taught me more in her 2 years of life than I have learned in 32.  She has shown me how deeply selfish I am.  She has shown me what it is to love unconditionally.  She has made me a better person.  My daughter has vastly increased my capacity for joy and a love of life.  She blesses me way more than the pain and heartache that come with motherhood.  When my daughter sits with me outside of Planned Parenthood, I want these families to see that children are a tremendous gift.  Perhaps not all women or couples feel that they can care for a child.  That is why they need to know that adoption is always an option.  

 

Today I was out at Planned Parenthood with my daughter and some friends.  Saturday is surgical abortion day.  It is heart-wrenching to see these groggy women stumble out of the clinic.  Usually a man or parents are with them.  I am overcome with deep sadness and compassion for these women.  I wonder what kind of despair would make a person choose to kill their own child?   My righteous anger is not towards them.  Rather, I am upset with the boyfriend, husband, or parent that drove them there.  That person failed to love that woman as she deserved.  She needed her boyfriend to be a man and stand up for her and their child.  She needed someone to tell her that it would be ok and that she would be taken care of.  To tell her that she was not alone.  To tell her that killing her own child is wrong.  The people who drove her to that clinic failed to take away her despair.  They did not give her any hope.

 

The other thing that bothers me is that the clinic workers do not try to help these women to their cars.  They have been drugged up and undergone surgery.  One woman today sat in her car almost the entire hour I was there talking to her parents.  As the abortionist and clinic workers left, not one of them went over to see if she was ok.  I desperately wanted to go over and check on her, and give her a Rachel’s Vineyard contact card.  My heart hurt for her, but I would be arrested if I went near her.  I can’t really do that with my 2 year old daughter with me.

 

It is hard to know how to react when someone leaves on surgical abortion day. I do not like to stare at them and make them feel condemned.  Rather, I try to maintain a prayerful posture.  We are not going to bring people to Jesus Christ, if we are condemning and cold-hearted.  Yes, killing your own child is a grave and horrible sin, but we need to bring these people to Our Lord, so that they can repent and receive the freedom of forgiveness.

 

At least the surgical abortion people see us.  We are a presence on that day for them.  A reminder of something more, of hope.  For the women who go home to do a chemical abortion, they are alone and isolated.  Once again someone has failed to love her.  Someone has let her bleed out her own child alone in her bathroom.  Or perhaps they stay with her, but they abandoned her when they helped her procure the medication to kill her child.  Abortion is always a failure to love.  That is what makes it so difficult.  The purpose of 40 Days for Life is not to reign down hellfire, it is to show men and women that they are not alone. Because, quite frankly, once they step foot in that abortion clinic, they are alone.  No one there is going to help them keep their child.  Stepping into that clinic is to despair and abandon Love.  We need to bring those people to either for the first time, or back, to the Divine Life.  We need to be a reminder that Jesus Christ conquered sin and death for all people out of his infinite love and mercy.

 

So, yes, I have periods of righteous anger, most especially at Neo-feminists and abortion industry workers who have been deceived and deceive others.   I also struggle with being mad at the men who drive these women to the clinics.  They failed these women, and while I know these women make the choice to end their child’s life, I pity them.   But, more than anything, the whole thing makes me deeply sad.  It brings me to prayer.  It brings me to the Cross and I bring all of those people I see each time I am at Planned Parenthood with me to the Cross.  I pray for their conversion.  I pray for their healing.  I pray that someday that may be truly loved in the manner they deserve.