The voices against abortion

Friday morning, a very rainy day that reflected mymood, I was onmy way to the immigration office to meet with an officer about a client, when I passed by a small group of people praying. They were standing in front of the Planned Parenthood building at 12th and Locust in Philadelphia, heads bowed and exposed to the fine mist from heaven.

If I were inamelodramatic mood, I would have called it the veil of angel tears. Even though I was late tomy appointment, I crossed the street and said, “I want to thank you, fromthe bottomof my heart, for doing this today. Itmeans so verymuch to me. I’d stay if I could, but I have an asylumhearing. I will pray for you, and will you please pray for my client?” One of the women, middle- aged, African American and leaning on a cane, said, “I will my dear, and thank you for reaching out. It doesn’t happen, often. It means the world.”

With her were two men, one elderly and one who appeared to be about 20 years old, both of whom held signs that said, “I regret my lost chance at fatherhood.” And rounding out this very small group was an elderly white woman wearing dark glasses and holding the leash of a dog, obviously her eyes. That small gathering of humanity, quiet and dignified and very humble, mademe wish I didn’t have to rush to court. It made me want to linger and soak in some of the kindness, and decency, that emanated from these people. It mademe want to gather, from them, the strength to confront the next few weeks.

Regardless of your position on abortion, you cannot — if you are an honest person— deny that the vitriol is coming from one direction these days. KamalaHarris, Dianne Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar, and Mazie Hirono are just a fewof the senatorial sisters who have turned Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing into a referendum onRoe v. Wade. But it wasn’t just these women, motivated more by political animus than by a true concern for the practical implications of their rhetoric, that engaged in the crusade.

Womenwho are personal friends, and who I had known for a long time, started posting things on social media that were dishonest at best, offensive at their deepest core. They, who should have known better, threw around phrases like “the right to determine our destinies,” as if there was this conspiracy to deprive women of our rights as U. S. citizens ( one of which, I hate to tell you, is not abortion. Just ain’t in the Constitution, folks).

I cannot understand howthe same people who support my work on behalf of refugees, those who are vulnerable to the powerful forces of persecution, condemn my advocacy on behalf of the unborn. Perhaps that’s not exactly true. I understand quite well why those who cling to abortion as a right and sacrament make distinctions between those who are born, and those who are reaching toward that light. They do so because their kindness and their compassion, real sentiments that they do harbor in their hearts, extend only to those who do not compromise their own autonomy.

I would not be honest if I didn’t examine the other side of the coin, my sisters and brothers who oppose abortion but who have a problemwith refugees and make sure to use the word “legal” whenever they speak of immigrants. They distinguish themselves from the hard hearted by waxing eloquent about welcoming immigrantswho do it “the rightway,” ignoring that there is no longer a “right” way given the shuttering of doors andwindows by this administration. They are not of my own tribe, either.

But as between thosewith actual policy differences on immigration, and those who refuse to recognize the humanity of those points of light in utero, those pulsing vessels of life that are as real as they are invisible to the eye, I choose to alignmyself with those who start fromzero. Unlesswe fight to communicate thatmessage, that abortion seals us off fromour decency and our integrity and our nature as good humans, we have let the anger of the senatorial sisters and their own conscripted handmaidens win.

I may not win. That small and humble group, praying in the rain, may not win. Not in this moment. But evil has an expiration date, whether it be 4 years, 47 years, or a century. And the message of life has none. So they will pray, and I will speak, and the voiceless will be heard. Even if no one listens. They will be heard..