PIC pregnant woman on chemo
Pregnant women have been successfully treating their cancer in the second and third trimesters without harming their babies for over twenty years — and yet this fact is far from common knowledge. When we hear that a woman has cancer while pregnant, the first thought that comes to mind is that she has a horrible choice to make. Why is this?
Read the rest at the Register.
SF:That seems like the hallmark of how your run Mary’s Shelter: you don’t only care about the babies and the kids, but you respect the parents. Is this a deliberate decision, to approach your ministry this way?
KW: Absolutely. We don’t just save the life of the baby. We’re out to save the life of the mother, and the father, if he’s in the picture. We crack up when we hear a pro-choicer saying, “You pro-lifers only care about the white baby in your belly.” That’s the biggest lie out there.
If the woman is abortion-minded, we’ll give her a place to live, if that’s what’s holding her back. If a woman walks in and she’s in a domestic violence situation, we get her counseling. We don’t even kick them out if they’re drinking or doing drugs; we give them an opportunity to do a program and stay with us.
We give women up to two years with us; and women who are “rock stars” – the ones who are really looking to move on and get a nursing degree or something like that — she can stay up to three years while she does school and work and gets everything together. That’s all about the woman. That’s for her.
Read the rest of my interview about this amazing organization at the Register.
And don’t forget, I’ll be the keynote speaker at their upcoming Summer Soiree August 23! Free to attend, and a great opportunity to learn more about the amazing work they are doing.
In effect, the law [which was just ruled unconstitutional] created a First and Fourteenth Amendment-Free Zone for a certain class of people. It made it a crime for some citizens to be on a public sidewalk, or to say things in public. Today’s decision reasserts that all citizens have equal protection under the law, and should enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. In short: you can be places and say things and not go to jail for it, even if you’re a pro-lifer.
I hope so! This year’s Summer Soiree and fundraiser for Mary’s Shelter promises to be a wonderful time. I will be this year’s keynote speaker for this organization that really gets what it means to be pro-life. Click here to RSVP. Free to attend!
We all want to get tough on people who hurt babies. But this new law in Tennessee is the exact wrong way to go about it. This law is not pro-life.
I was also relieved beyond belief to hear that “risks of narcotics to newborns have been exaggerated, according to medical authorities who say that withdrawal symptoms, if they occur, can be treated with no long-term effects.” Via the New York Times, here ismore information from National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Obviously we’re not hunky dory with the idea of drug addicts raising babies, but I was under the impression that a baby born addicted to drugs was doomed. Not so.
News flash, Cecile: Abortion is not and never has been #WhatWomenNeed.
(Our pipes have been frozen for a few days, and my hair is in desperate need of washing; so my vanity won’t let me post a picture of myself holding a #WhatWomenNeed placard. But if you want to join in the fun with New Wave Feminists, where you can find a template for the placard, my suggestion for What Women Need is “PEACE IN THE WOMB.”)
. . . without having to get off your hiney and go out in the horrible, freezing cold.
[This post originally appeared on The National Catholic Register on January 22, 2013. Comments there are closed; comments here are closed. I will not respond to any emails about this topics. Anyone who comments about it on any other thread, here or at the Register, will be banned. As I said on today’s other post about graphic images, I spend part of every day crying for my lost baby, and I am not up for another round of hearing that I’m not really pro-life. I have already heard what you have to say, and the rage and condescension only persuades me further that the pro-life movement needs to be purged of misogyny if it will ever gain ground.]
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Are you going to the March for Life, either in DC or in your state? If so, are you planning to display graphic photos or videos of aborted babies?
If you are, I’m begging you to reconsider. Fr. Pavone famously said, “America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion.” Most pro-lifers understand that Americans are tragically ignorant about what abortion really is — what it really does to real babies. Many of us remember seeing those bloody images for the first time, and can recall being shaken out of a vague, fuzzy support for the pro-life cause into the realization that this is a life-and-death struggle — real life, and real death.
But a public place is not the place to use these images — ever, I’m convinced. These images are like a terrible weapon which should be used with fear and trembling, and only as a last resort. Why?
There will be children at the march. Do you let your kids watch gruesome war movies or slasher films? No? Well, those movies show actors with fake blood, pretending to be tortured and killed. Why would you let them see the real thing? The pro-life cause is about protecting innocent life, and that includes protecting the innocence of young children. Studies show that violent images stay with us for a lifetime, and damage us.
There will be post-abortive women at the march. Imagine their courage in being there at all. Then imagine what it does to them to see, once again, the dark thing that keeps them from sleeping at night – the thing that often keeps them in decades-long cycles of self-loathing and despair. We don’t ask victims of rape to look at videos of rape in progress. We don’t ask holocaust victims to look at huge banners showing the piles of emaciated bodies. As pro-lifers, we must remember that every abortion has two victims: the child and the mother. We must never be on the side that hurts mothers. Never.
Mothers will be there. Thousands of the women at the March are mothers — mothers who have already given birth, mothers who are pregnant as they march, and mothers who have miscarried, delivered dead babies. For many of them, the grief over a miscarriage never goes away entirely. Many women stay away from any public march for fear of being subjected to these images so similar to the thing that caused them so much pain. Motherhood makes a woman’s heart tender. The pro-life movement should be a shelter that protects that tenderness — because the world needs it desperately.
Those are real babies. Christians are almost alone in affirming the dignity of the human person. Catholics, especially, understand that the human body is mortal, but still worthy of respect. When we use pictures of real babies as a tactic or a tool, we are in danger of forgetting that these are children with an immortal soul, and who have a name that only their Heavenly Father knows. They have already been killed. Let us treat their poor bodies with respect.
Public image matters. Some people’s only contact with obvious pro-lifers is with people who shout and condemn and terrify. It’s just basic psychology: if you want people to listen to you and have sympathy for your cause, don’t come across as a lunatic. You’re not a lunatic — but to people who don’t already agree with you, you sure look that way. Yes, your cause is worthy. No, you’re not helping it.
They sometimes push women into abortion. Do these images change hearts sometimes? They sure do. I’ve heard pro-life activists tell stories of women who saw these horrible images for the first time and decided on the spot that no way could they be any part of that. They kept their babies.
And I’ve heard pro-life activists tell stories of women who were pregnant, scared, and undecided — and when they were confronted with bloody images, they freaked out and rushed into the clinic as fast as they could, to get away from those maniacs with the signs.
So, yes, sometimes they save lives. And sometimes they cause lives to be lost. We don’t do things just because they work sometimes.
Desensitization is a real danger — even among pro-lifers. It’s just how humans are made: see something too often, and you stop really seeing it. I thank and bless those who work so tirelessly for the pro-life cause. But I beg them to stop and consider that, like policemen or like soldiers, they are human, and are in danger of becoming hardened out of self-preservation. People who have become hardened must never be the public face of the pro-life cause. If you, as a pro-life activist, see a bloody image and you don’t flinch, then it’s time to take a break — move into a different segment of the ministry, one that emphasizes prayer and reparation.
People see what they want to see. When the apostles begged the Lord to send the dead to persuade people to repent, He said that if they didn’t listen to the prophets, then they wouldn’t be impressed by the dead coming back to life, either. Many pro-choicers speak as if everyone knows that pro-lifers use photoshopped images — that the tiny, mutilated feet and hands and heads are a hoax that’s been thoroughly debunked. It’s a lie, of course. But people believe it all the same, because they want to (and pro-lifers don’t help their cause by being sloppy about things like identifying gestational age on photos).
*****
All the same, bloody and shocking images have their place. Pro-life activists are right when they say abortion depends on silence and darkness, and that truth must be exposed. Too many people who are pro-choice because they somehow still don’t know what fetuses actually look like, or what happens to them when they are aborted– or because they’ve simply slipped into a comfortable shelter of euphemisms. These lies, this comfort must be stripped away.
So when should you use graphic images? When a teenager shrugs and says, “My health teacher says it’s not a person until 25 weeks.” When someone who works at a clinic says she’s doing a gentle, compassionate work of mercy. When your boyfriend wants you to get rid of “it” before it becomes a real baby. When a college girl likens unborn babies to tumors or parasites. Then you can respond to the actual situation, to the actual person. Then you can take out the picture and say, “Is this what you’re talking about?”
I believe that everyone should see an image of an aborted baby once in their lifetime. And I believe that, like any traumatic image, it will stay with you. Once or twice in a lifetime is enough.
Abortion is violent. Abortion is cruel. Abortion inflicts trauma and pain. As pro-lifers, we should have no part in any of that. Let us save the graphic images for a weapon of last resort.
Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa posted this excellent article from New Wave Feminists on Facebook. It’s an open letter she wrote to a fellow who insists that it’s essential to use large, graphic photos of aborted babies outside abortion clinics. There ensued a lively discussion about whether or not this practice is (a) appropriate and (b) effective. The fellow to whom the open letter was addressed boasted that he’s been a pro-life warrior for twenty years, and insisted that it was both right and effective.
O wonder of instantaneous social media: Abby Johnson responded. Johnson is the founder of And Then There Were None, which ministers directly to people who want to leave the abortion industry. She says that, while these graphic images occasionally do change people’s minds, they also often do something else: they tip the balance toward abortion.
She should know. She once managed an abortion clinic, and for many years saw protesters march around with their gory posters. Johnson says (emphasis is mine; and she gave me permission to reprint her comments here):
I watched them be ineffective for many years … from inside the abortion clinic. A perspective that most do not have. I watched for several years as women would literally run away from those holding graphic signs. They would come into my office and ask us why those people were holding them. We used that as an opportunity to point out how crazy the prolifers were and that they would do anything to prevent women from making the choices they felt they needed to. It was an AMAZING way for us to build camaraderie inside our clinic.
Then I saw the signs come down…and I actually saw women changing their minds. They started approaching the people on the sidewalk, asking questions…and then leaving our parking lot and going to the crisis pregnancy centers. Once the signs came down, we started to have volunteer escorts so that we could try to convince the women coming in not to talk to the sidewalk counselors…because they were having such an impact. When the signs were out there, we LOVED IT!!! No one was approaching them. We didn’t need escorts.
Read that again: they liked it when the gory pictures were out there. It made their job easier. Women literally ran toward abortion.
As I have said many times before, these graphic images are essential for showing ignorant or apathetic people the true horror of abortion . . . as long as the images are used in the right context. Waving them at women in emotional turmoil is the wrong context.
We are several generations past Roe v. Wade. We have the luxury of speaking to women who have lived with abortion for many years — women who can tell us what it’s like to make that choice, and who can tell us what would have changed their minds. We can talk to women who can tell us what doesn’t work. If our goal is to protect women and babies from abortion, then in God’s name, we must listen to people who know.
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Note: I am closing comments because the last time I talked about the proper use of graphic images, I was subjected to months and months of incredible nastiness from people who consider themselves pro-life. I spend part of every day crying for my lost baby, and I am not up for another round of hearing that I’m not really pro-life. Please note that I will not respond to any emails on this topic, and anyone who comments about it on other posts, here or at the Register, will be banned. I have already heard what you have to say, and the rage and condescension only persuades me further that the pro-life movement needs to be purged of misogyny if it will ever gain ground.
Wow. Many, many thanks to Garard Nadal for posting this incredibly pro-life short film from Unilever:
I do not know what Unilever’s Project Sunlight is about, but man, the clip is lovely, and will do much good. A great companion, as a matter of fact, to this comic illustrating a quote from C.S. Lewis, who died fifty years ago today. (Thanks to Jason Bach for sharing the comic on Facebook!)
Hope doesn’t mean you know nothing will go wrong. As Lewis says:
The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
