Breeding Like Rabbits - Not the Catholic Way
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Recently a self-described Catholic woman pointed out to me that the Holy Father made disparaging remarks about a US Presidential candidate's declaration that he wants a wall built between the United States and Mexico. Apparently this was her way of stating that voting for Mr. Trump was somehow against Catholic teaching, though she did not make that statement. In fact, I should probably take that back since I have no idea WHY she made that statement. When I replied that the Holy Father has made definite statements about supporting anyone in public office who supports abortion or euthanasia, her response was that she voted for the candidate that does just that because while she wants to share her Faith she does not want to 'judge' anyone.
This came out of the keyboards of a woman who has called the candidate she opposes 'Hitler', the people who support him as unintelligent, hate-filled racists, and other choice words.
She went further to state that the medical term for miscarriage is 'abortion'.
Now, I have no idea what that 'point' was supposed to be; but it got me thinking how far down the rabbit hole the pro-death people have gone when, to muddy the waters, they equate losing a child through a miscarriage as the same as losing a child through surgical abortion.
I am a post abortive woman. During the 1980's, before I got sober and during the height of my drug and alcohol addictions, I chose to abort four of my children. In 1987, when I married, I quickly became pregnant and I was convinced that the child I carried was going to be the child that saved me from those choices. The day my husband died, I lost our child.
I have, therefore, experienced both types of 'abortions' - surgically induced and spontaneous - and quite frankly I find the woman's inference that both experiences are the same to not only be ugly but a typical attempt by the Left to shame those women, like me, who refuse to be silent about the damage the legalized abortion industry did to us.
I do not blame Planned Parenthood for my decisions to end the life of my children. I do question why no one at that clinic ever asked the trembling, sick, scared and bruised woman sitting in front of the reception counter why she was there for the second, third and fourth time. I wonder why that clinic worker responded to my feeble request for 'counseling' after the third time I showed up with the astonishing sentence, "You don't need counseling. You just need to take your pill on time.". By the time I arrived there for my 4th abortion, they just laughed at me. "You sure have a hard time following directions". They never asked why a well-educated woman kept showing up and I was too traumatized to tell them about the ugly life I was living, a life where alcoholism now ruled my every waking hour and all I wanted was for someone, anyone, to tell me I was worth more than the way I was living.
Meeting Fred (through our cocaine dealer, which made really good sense at the time) and deciding to take him as my husband was actually one of my better decisions. Because I wanted to be a better Leslie, a better woman, someone's wife and mother, I started working towards being just that; however, when tragedy struck, I was unprepared. My reaction to the tragedy was to jump into the bottle and the pipe. I stayed there until rescued by my 12 Step program and the amazing people I met in the rooms.
Oddly enough, however, when I lost our baby the day my husband died, the only person who reached out to me was a Catholic lay worker at the hospital. She found me in the bathroom sobbing. She gave me her name and her card. She told me she would be there for me and to call her any time. I remember thanking her, going out to my parents, tucking the card in my purse and being taken home...where I proceeded to contact my drug dealer and then start drinking. My parents were unaware of what had just happened. It was many years before I could tell my mother and she cried with me...because she knew how much I had wanted all my babies, and how my own sickness and the people around me had caused me to think I only had one choice...the choice to end their lives.
Because of sobriety and The Church, I have healed from this horror. Today, I can share my story with other women and men and hopefully stand as an example of the amazing healing power of God and Love. I can also stand before the world and declare I am Pro Life - that I DO judge people who think this is something every woman has a RIGHT to do simply because our society is too damn lazy to hold MEN accountable for their sexual behavior and support women who need help when they are pregnant and alone.
It kills me that the very people who will scream bloody murder about racism do not see any kind of irony in the fact that more children of color are aborted than any other. The very people who will yell and moan about Mr. Trump's treatment of women have no problem with a woman deciding, after an ultrasound shows she is has a female person inside her womb, to kill that person because that person is the wrong sex. The very people who will become giddy beyond belief when Planned Parenthood gets tax dollars do not want tax dollars given to Pregnancy Centers who do NOT provide abortion, despite the fact that those centers provide all KINDS of support to women who are pregnant - medical, financial, societal, you name it. THAT cannot receive public funds...but if you want to snap your child's neck before it leaves your womb, here's your voucher.
And let's stop playing with words, people. Stop trying to make women ashamed of their pasts, ashamed of the choices they made based on the information we had at the time.
And what was that information?
I was told:
It's nothing...it is only a blob of tissue.
It won't matter.
This is for the best.
You can't raise this child alone.
You were raped...you don't want this child.
What did I tell myself?
I was worthless.
It had been my fault.
My parents would hate me and be ashamed of me.
I won't be able to raise this child alone.
No one will help me.
I don't matter.
Stop trying to tell people that a surgical abortion and a spontaneous abortion are the same thing. Stop pretending to care about women's rights and racial equality and society as a whole when you won't even admit that you have no problem judging people you don't like. Be honest about being afraid that if you stand up and say, "This is not the right thing to do" YOU will be judged - and you don't have the backbone to withstand the hatred and the judgment that will be thrown at you by the Left because you dare to attack their sacred cow - Abortion.
Words matter. People matter. Lives matter. If you are going to call someone Hitler you better be willing to stop pretending you are not going to judge others. If you are going to support laws that make murdering a newborn a felony, stop pretending that deliberately ending that child's life five minutes before it is born is a woman's right and a declaration of freedom.
Our government differentiates between an abortion and a miscarriage. If you do not recognize the difference, my heart goes out to you.
A miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. (Pregnancy losses after the 20th week are called stillbirths.) A miscarriage may also be called a "spontaneous abortion." This refers to naturally occurring events, not to medical abortions or surgical abortions. Nov 16, 2014
I am a sober, widowed, Catholic Out Loud. After trying the ways of the world, I found myself back in the arms of Holy Mother Church and today I work towards finding my place without losing my unique perspective. I believe my dark past is my greatest asset. I am a third order Dominican, a former RCIA Catechist and a lover of animals, especially Scottish Terriers!
