Why I Stopped Engaging the Comboxes on My Miscarriage Pieces

I survived my first major secular publication, and I mean, literally survived. I knew sharing my miscarriage experiences and framing it within the abortion war raging in our culture would unleash fury. I’ve been serving in front of Planned Parenthood and on pro-life committees in enough parishes and areas to know how abortion divides and how it brings out a great deal of depravity and hatred. To share honestly about miscarriage, is to automatically step onto the battlefield of abortion. Miscarriage implicates abortion by its very nature.

I genuinely enjoy good discourse. My parents were college debate partners and I was a debater and debate coach at one time. I experience great joy in intellectual discussions. I’ve also worked briefly in politics as an intern at The Heritage Foundation and now find myself in more theological circles, but discourse is a natural part of these environments.

The problem with Internet comboxes is they are devoid of true discourse. They turn into yelling matches from the get go and it is impossible to engage in a debate with someone who shifts the argument to fit their desires. It is even less possible with those who are blinded by pure hatred. There is no common ground with a person who thinks that it is a mother’s right to kill her child because the baby is in her body and purely because she “feels” like it. It is very difficult to reach people who are so turned in on themselves and trapped in that level of selfishness. It requires prayer and fasting on our part, quite frankly. It also requires a great deal of compassion, which has to be expressed in person and cannot be fully appreciated in the fighting of Internet comboxes. That’s why we pray at Planned Parenthood.

We are well past the clump of cells argument. The abortion industry realized that fight was lost with the advent of transvaginal ultrasound technology, which can detect a heartbeat shortly after conception. The real fight is about whether or not a mother has a right to murder her child. The abortion industry is out in the open and the ugly truth is that so many people have given into the nihilist lies of the last two centuries that they believe they have a right to kill their unborn child. There are a few who cling to the fetus (which in Latin means unborn, this has of course shifted overtime, due to the abortion agenda) is not a person, but by and large, people are fully conscious that they are ending their child’s life. They may not admit it publicly, or even fully to themselves, but what we have now is a group of people who think that whatever I want, I have a right to do, even murder. We are now in an age of self-worship where the false gods are not the sun or the moon, but are in fact, ourselves.

What’s more is that people are so entrenched in their ideology, or grappling with their own guilt from a past abortion, that a grieving mother is seen as “offensive” or “disgusting”. When asked what exactly a “fetus” is, nobody can seem to answer except to say a potential human. How does that change the unborn into something other than a human being? When is full potential realized and the “fetus” turned into a human being? They will not come out a moose, water buffalo, or Labrador Retriever. They will, and are a human baby, with all of the DNA to prove that point from the moment of conception.

We need to be careful. The potentiality argument is the most dangerous one to evolve within the pro-abortion movement. If that is the argument, what makes a full human? People like Peter Singer say it is someone who is over two years of age, so that means two year old’s should be freely exterminated by their parents. We are only beginning to see the true, radical, and horrible reality of abortion out in the light. Satan is  more brazen these days because so many have walked away from the Faith and into his lies. The real agenda is full on infanticide and the extermination of anyone who is not seen as “fit” by the powerful. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is reality. This is nihilism: Will to power and might makes right.

It is impossible to discuss a topic that is based entirely on one’s own feelings. I ran into this the couple of times when I tried to engage with a person. Everything is contingent on me. If everything is based on how I feel then I have the right to go carte blanche and do whatever I want. I tried to explain this argument to no avail.  The reality is that comboxes are places for people to level vitriol at one another. They think because they have anonymity to a certain extent, that they can say the most vile and offensive things to a complete stranger. I have written about this problem before.

Writers take a good deal of risk every time they publish. There is always somebody who is offended even at the most innocuous of blogs or articles. When you step into an arena that is wholly uncivil and unjust it becomes clear that discussion will go nowhere, which is why I stopped reading the comments on my latest piece for The Federalist once they surpassed 15. My husband read them last night with great humor, but was astonished at the lack of intelligent discussion. He saw the same thing as me: Satan’s trick of turning woman away from God, herself, and man. Abortion is the continuation of Satan and Eve at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The temptation has always been God-like power and now women have power over life and death and it is intoxicating and enslaving. My husband is not one to read comboxes, and by and large, I stopped responding when I started getting hate mail or nasty comments over at Catholic Exchange, but he was strangely fascinated by the train wreck on my latest article.

The unfortunate reality is that I was wasting my time, energy, and breath trying to respond to people who cannot understand me, let alone themselves. It takes a certain kind of person to write hate mail to a grieving mother. All I can do is write and pray for the conversion of souls. I pray for each one of those people who launched terrible words my way and I will continue to do so, but I won’t fight with them. In fact, it says much more about the author of the email or comment than it does about me. I can handle the hatred and vitriol sent my way, but I am certainly not going to waste my time engaging with people whose only interest is revenge or self-gratification in attacking a woman who loves all life from conception to natural death.

As a Christian, I am reminded of the demonic forces always at work and I see the great dangers of the mob mentality, even on the Internet. Don’t expect to see me debating in comboxes again anytime soon. I write. People either like my work, hate it, are apathetic about it,  or it helps them. That’s all I can ask for as a writer. My hope is to touch the lives of those God wants to touch through  my work. I have been blessed by all of the emails and comments from people suffering or who have suffered as I do.That is the greatest blessing of all. Pax Christi.