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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Refusing to pass on the pain

Ashli was once one of the magnanimous prochoicers throwing the bone of abortion to desperate, frightened women, then patting herself on the back for her compassion and generosity of spirit:

I reflect on the times friends or people I knew got pregnant in college. If it was someone I barely knew, I'd offer to drive her to the clinic myself. (Thank God no one ever took me up on it.) But curiously, if the person was a friend I had known for years and genuinely cared about, abortion was the last thing I wanted for her. I desperately tried to talk her out of it and then agonized when she wouldn't listen. I knew I must be contradicting myself somehow, but I didn't want to explore that. Abortion was good enough for all the uncaring faceless women of the world, but not for me, and not for anyone I cared about. What that says, what it really says about me is that I didn't care about all those other women for whom I advocated abortion. I didn't care about them or their children. Abortion was just a solution for people who, outside of my own little world of acquaintances, existed to me as much as individuals that pass by in cars on the interstate.

I don't think anything ever would have changed my mind, because to evolve would have required genuine thought, and it never occurred to me to think at all about it. It was abortion for crying out loud, the big solution. What was there to think about? Besides, it was always someone else's problem. It would never effect me, because I was smarter and nicer and made better choices. It was settled, and there was nothing anyone could say to cause me to reexamine my hollow beliefs. But one person did come and grow with me for a time, and I learned everything I needed to know without any words at all.


She learned the hard way. But she did learn. And she refuses to grease the skids into the mill for the next woman.

Abused children, when they become parents, have the choice to break the cycle of abuse. Aborted women, likewise, can also choose to break the cycle.

Thank God, many are saying "Enough is enough. We're not passing on the pain any more."

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