This Lent our parish is joining the 40 Days for Life effort to raise awareness of the harm done by abortion.
The greatest value many people embrace, on the abortion matter, is the Freedom of Choice. So, I would like to address the effects of bad choices.
God made all of us free and so desires our freedom that He does not stop people who use their freedom to do heinous things to others. The universal complaint about this choice God has made is: How can a good God allow such terrible things to happen to innocent people?
It would seem to me that God could ask us, How can you allow such terrible things to happen? How can good people allow so many abortions to happen to innocent babies? It’s truly amazing how a mentality can sweep the land that accepts what every other generation has seen as evil. It reminds me of how, in the lifetime of Jeremiah the prophet, it had become acceptable to take newborn infants and throw them into the fire as a sacrifice to the false god, Moloch. How can such things happen? Yet they do.
As a confessor, I must tell you that there is a dreadful side of the abortion story that remains a secret. It’s the lifelong grievous impact that an abortion has on the soul of one who has procured an abortion. Let me explain. There is an expression for the harm done by a sexual abuser; and it’s called “soul murder.” Such abuse has such lifelong horrible effects, such that the victim’s soul is terribly impacted. The victim’s relationship with self, God, and others is tormented seemingly forever. I think we all can grasp this horrendous effect. That’s why so many people are in denial when such abuse happens. It’s just so utterly horrible.
What no one seems to want to talk about, when they espouse a pro-choice agenda, is the grave harm done to the soul of the one who got the abortion. Even if not at first, sooner or later the horror of having murdered one’s own child weighs on the soul and frequently drives them away from God until they call upon the mercy of the Lord, for “in God there is plenteous redemption.” Do you have any idea of the depth of grief and sorrow that women live with for years because of such a free choice? But because it is not the mentality of our times to express this out loud, women keep this secret, like the victims of abuse kept their abuse so secret for so long.
Women who have abortions do not need our judgment. They need our love and care. It is easy to see how the pressures and persuasions of pro-choice people can drive a panicked girl or woman into the abortion clinic, but how malevolent it is to do this to someone in trouble.
“Soul murder” is the expression for what happens to a victim of sexual abuse. I haven’t yet found the right, similar expression for the act of encouraging someone, or pushing someone, to get an abortion. But it is just as serious.
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