I pulled this quote from the Shout Your Abortion website: “If you know more than three women, you likely know someone who has had an abortion. We are your sisters, your bosses, your daughters, and your friends. But you don’t know our stories because those working to eliminate our rights have demonized us. Because of this, many of us have chosen to hide or have been deeply harmed by shame.”
I hear and/or read this claim (the demonizing part) all the time. However, I personally do not see this. I am able to admit that I may not be “able” to hear or see it since I’m a guy. I can also admit I am not the best read person in the world. As well, perhaps I just don’t have large enough social circles. However, I doubt these cover the whole of the absence. I am the first to denounce the wayward antics of people like Westboro Baptist Church, but surely you cannot think they actually speak for my Savior or the real church. And, of course, the rantings of some who make vulgar, filthy language raids in comment sections, while egregious and hateful, don’t represent anyone I’ve read lately or anyone I know that has any public clout at all.
So, respectfully, for those of you I know, love, admire, yet disagree with, could I ask you to point me to sources where you find those who “have demonized” women. If they are in my “camp” I’d like an opportunity to pray about it and perhaps offer an olive branch.
As I wait, consider this…this is the biblically informed message I hope my camp is sharing…
As an advocate for the suffering, if I removed my breath from the plight of the border-crossing crisis impacting thousands of helpless children in the American southland, from third-world starvation, from the memory and lingering effects of slavery, from the memory and lingering effects of women’s suffrage, from the memory and lingering effects of the holocaust, from inner city and rural decay leaving children at risk, from the senseless brutality of driving-under-the-influence, from the horrors of human trafficking, and from the billions who have yet to have the wonder of learning about God’s love for them, most would cry foul. So hear me when I say I and those I know find no discrepancy between these messages of hope and our prolife hopes. We’re not interested in name calling. All we want to convey is this…In all cultures and through all of time those who have made sacrifices on behalf of the defenseless and less fortunate have been called heroes. Laying aside one’s own drive for self-preservation and self-fulfillment for the hopes and benefits of the defenseless brings out the honor of one’s soul. Mom and Dad, please, may we help you see this is what your baby and the world needs from you. Be a hero.