Thoughts on being Catholic and acceptance of abortion from Sursum Corda

Unrelated but related thoughts: Just as many who commit abortions depersonalize the fetus so also do many Catholics depersonalize women who are forced to consider abortions. I tend to think that we can approach the issue differently without compromise to principle, if we saw that there are human stories to these situations. I personally think that pro-life is just another cause for many Catholics and not deeply personal enough. Seeing the personal dimension does not mitigate the severity of the situation, but at least you see that there are human beings involved and slogans aren't helpful.

I once worked with a lady who was pregnant and the boyfriend did not want the baby. After months of holding out, it became clear that he would leave her if she had the baby. Well, one day she came in and her stomach was not as blown up as it had been. It was an horrendous thought and everyone knew what she had done. I know that she and other women have to aching inside but she never showed it. Part of me wanted to rant at her because I felt that she did not show any contrition or even, awareness that she had done something terrible. On the other hand, I knew that there had to be things going on in her head.

If I knew what was going in her mind, i think I could have handled it much better. Hence, my support of powerful Catholic fiction or even blogs. For a man, it would be invaluabel to get into the mind of a woman who is considering an abortion or has had one and maybe put human feelings and considerations to what's going on. It is so easy to treat these things as simply an issue and forget that we are dealing with human beings. That's one reason I thought Kat Lively's book was a real contribution because it cast the whole abortion issue in a human way. We need more of that so that we can approach it with the sort of compassion that Christ would and less with the fire and brimstone saber rattling.