Taking a stand against abortion
This week, I was one of the keynote speakers at a pro-life rally in Harrisburg. You probably haven’t heard it mentioned anywhere else.
So, I decided to bring the rally to you. Here are my words. Sorry you couldn’t be there, but a good time was had by all. And the unborn babies were quite appreciative: Language is a powerful thing, and the way we use it can be more potent than weapons or conquering armies. If we can turn the taking of an innocent human life into a “choice,” a word that has traditionally brought with it such positive connotations, we can mask the true horror of what is done.
This was eloquently expressed by Archbishop Charles Chaput in his book “Stranger in a Strange Land:”
If the world taking shape around us today seems to make us strangers in a strange land, strangers in our own land, that’s because it does. If, while preaching freedom, the world seems filled with cynicism, ugliness, blasphemies big and small, and sadness, that’s because too often it is. What the modern world really wants, wrote Josef Pieper, is flattery, and it does not matter how much of it is a lie.
But since every lie is an act of violence against reality and a deforming of the truth, the world also wants the right to disguise the lying, so “the fact of being lied to can be easily ignored.” The result is predictable, “The common element in all of this is the degeneration of language into an instrument of rape.” And that rape is carried out not just against the dignity of the human spirit, but against the beauty of the earth itself.
That is one of the most powerful phrases I have ever read “the degeneration of language into an instrument of rape.” When we stop calling abortion what it is, both morally and scientifically, and that is the destruction of human life, we are violating the truth, and our own ability to feel shame. We are sanitizing the most fundamental barbarity so that we can avoid feeling savage, uncaring, wrong.
I saw this when I was doing research for one of my asylum cases, once. I do a lot of asylum cases, and I often deal with abused women. I always look for country and human rights reports, like those published by the Department of State, Human Rights Watch and articles from other NGOs to buttress my claims of abuse. Once, I found a report from Amnesty International that said that the denial of abortion was a violation of human rights. The head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, has said the same thing, quite recently. To turn the language of rights around in this manner is particularly despicable, but very effective. If we start framing abortion as a “right” instead of violence against the dignity of all people, we can avoid feeling degraded. It is a way to sympathize with the victimizer, and not the victim.
I am a lawyer, and a woman, and a Catholic, and all of those aspects of my identity compel me to speak out on behalf of the unborn. As a lawyer, I look for justice, even imperfect and delayed justice. As a woman, I know the awesome power that is the ability to create life. As a Catholic, I understand that it is always important, even when it is unpopular, to speak for those who don’t have voices, the “least of these.”
I hope that our legislators will hear us, will listen closely to what we are saying, and will reject the “degeneration of language” that urges us to ignore the true nature of abortion and consider it one among many legitimate “choices.”
Kermit Gosnell was able to benefit from that willingness to ignore the truth, because Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates wanted us to look away and helped invalidate legitimate controls on abortion clinics and providers.
In closing, I want to quote from an email that I received in response to my column in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week:
“I am still surprised that an educated woman still calls herself pro-life. That is a misnomer. Those who believe in abortions for quality of life or even life-saving reasons are also ‘pro-life’ … I am also a scientist and I know all the stages of life. A child who is unwanted suffers much more than an aborted fetus.”
That, my good friends, is what we are fighting against, that willingness to manipulate an obvious truth to a personal advantage. And today is an important step. Thank you.