Jennifer, your article offers a powerful analysis of the radical feminist mentality followed by so many of us - increasingly rejected by a mounting voice of women determined to expose the cultural lies commercially and culturally peddled to women . . . that sex and child-bearing and love are separable components of the female human being. You honor the lengthening line of intellectual female leadership ignited by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Excellent. Excellent work. Keep going. Speak loudly and proudly. I look forward to reading more from you. (I well remember your great June 2008 brilliant bullet points for talking to Atheists about Christianity... it was quite helpful to me.)

Jennifer,
This is a wonderful piece. Simply and staightforwardly put. I love how you make the connection between a person's thinking on abortion and their thinking on sexuality. I too held many if not all of those same beliefs. They led to my decision to abort my child. Six years ago I had a profound conversion experience, sought healing for the wounds my abortion caused and now live my very pro-life faith. What those who work in the pro-life movement need to remember, especially when doing sidewalk counselling/praying, If you say anything to a woman going into a clinic, ask her "What can I do to help you?Thanks again for a great piece.

Jennifer, You write..."Specifically, the Church's teaching on human sexuality reshaped my worldview..." Powerful words, indeed!

Here once again we have an example of how the Church's very clear teaching about human sexuality and marriage draws people into our Catholic faith. Recently, another article said much the same thing pertaining to the Church's teaching on contraception. As our bishops speak out on this teaching ever more boldly as some did in the last election, more will find their home in our beloved Catholic Church.

Jennifer, you are a blessing to our Church.

"And remember: Most people who favor abortion need to re-think human sexuality before they can be in a mindset to really 'hear' the arguments against abortion."

This is key, at the heart of the problem. Someone close to me put forth this idea years ago and it took me a long time to process it. The prevailing culture - which at this point is basically the entertainment industry - has completely reshaped people's thinking on human sexuality. We have been indoctrinated to believe two very destructive ideas: 1) that sex is "right" for all people, no matter what your age, situation, etc., for we have little or no control over our desires. And 2) that abstinance/celibacy is untenable; snicker about it but it's impossible to achieve, that if you are successful at it there must be something wrong with you, and that it's a choice that could only be made by the deeply religious.

You have provided us with excellent talking points. Thank you for a very helpful piece.

I meant to write:

1) that sex is a "right" for all people, no matter what your age, situation, etc., for we have little or no control over our desires.

Every woman of adult teen plus their husbands and brothers
should WRITE THEIR CONGRESSMEN AND THE NEW PRESIDENT ...TODAY!

Let the entire country tell this new PRESIDENT (OBAMA) how
wrong he is in his stand against pro-life. If we do not speak
our now we may never get a chance to bring it up again.

This new president has the congress and the senate behind him
and thus he can deny us our rights merely by a 'stroke of a pen'. It would be the right time, now, today, to write a letter
to this president and to your congressional members and make
your point now. Perhaps the purchase of a U.S. postage stamp
would enhance your letters to these men/women.

I have seen new babies...what a terrific pleasure!
No, OBAMA - YOU ARE WRONG...THEY ARE NOT A PUNISHMENT...!
write now...don't wait. A few lines can put you on God's side
of the law. Please write.

This is a great article. The only way to fight this tragedy is by appealing to people's hearts and minds.

I'm another former pro-choice militant who uses to think that if they ever made abortion illegal, I would go to medical school so that I could perform illegal abortions. Which just goes to show that there's hope for everyone.

I'm often reminded of how the character Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park" kept warning Hammond that he was playing with a powerful force of nature that couldn't be tamed, that it would break free. Life will find a way.

Sex is one of the most powerful biological forces in the universe, and it's hubris to think that we can conquer it with pills or latex. You might as try to stop earthquakes by bolting the earth's tectonic plates together!

Dear Jennifer,

In points 1 and 2, you discuss the severing of sex from the potential of creating life and by doing that girls and women are not prepared for the life changing event of motherhood.

I thought about it and if I had this mentality and "used contraception but still got pregnant" I would feel like a failure. That is a sad way to begin motherhood. Worse, I would be at a point emotionally where someone could manipulate me into having an abortion.

I had an abortion 28 years ago at Hope Clinic. What an ironic name. I regret my abortion. Thanks for this article, Jennifer.

For whatever reason, I had low self-esteem as a young adult in my 20's & was looking for love in all the wrong places during the sexual revolution. When I was of age (18) I immediately got on the pill continuing for almost 10 continuous years. Then I went to a diaphram and became pregnant. I had no clue. I went for a routine checkup and was shocked at the unwelcome news. I was under a time constraint to make a decision. I researched natural herbal abortive methods, but there was no time as I was fast approching the 1st trimester. I panicked and acted.

For 15 years after that I thought I had done the right thing, for me, because I didn't feel that I would be a good single mother and I was bearly supporting myself & could not afford a child. Neither the guy or my family offered any emotional help. He paid; my parents were embarassed & all suggested abortion was the solution. I thought I had put it all behind me. But that was just it; everything was about me & my selfish needs. Little did I know that my heart was hardened. I did not know God, yet.

When I later had a spiritual conversion and entered the Catholic Church, the state of my baby's soul weighed heavily upon me. I thought I had committed a mortal sin and that my soul was in jeopardy. I had not thought about an eternal soul living inside of me; unrepeatable and created by God. I went to confession; actually 3 times over a period of years for I never felt cleansed. I have gradually learned to forgive myself by faith. But the wound is there daily. Some women from a Rosary group suggested I name the baby to help me greive my loss. On the 20th anniversary of the abortion I did and asked Rose to forgive me and pray for me. I light prayer candles for Rose frequently. I am still not at peace, but it is better. But then it is hard to come to terms with murder; murder of your child in your womb. Nothing prepares you for that.

In the area of sexuality and love I realize now that I grew up with the cultural mindset that if a relationship didn't work out I could leave. No marrage, no ties, no committment. A baby? I could take care of that by going to a socially acceptable clinic. I had made up my mind before the sexual act that I would not keep a baby. That is when the decision was made. The abortion was the climax of years of contraception.

Just recently, I was watching Priests for Life & Janet Morano further suggested that over a ten year period of contracepting a woman could possibly abort 2 or 3 children due to the aborciant action of the pill. Back to the confessional I went with this on my heart...more possible aborted infants. But this time I praised God for the grace to have been brought to this realization so that my soul could be further sanctified.
This sin had certainly taken me farther than I had ever intended to go and deeper into who I was than I had ever imagined.

Now I do what I can to spread the message to reverence life and not to meddle where only God has the right to. God is good & has given me a loving mate, a surrogate spiritual daughter and 2 God-sons to love. I am forever grateful. Family is the only thing that matters in the end. * * *

Jennifer you make some good points, and you also make one very large assumption. It's the same assumption on which pro choicers base their argumentation. That assumption is that men ultimately have no responsibility for any pregnancy and that the subsequent children and all decisions associated with them are consequences for the woman.

In this extensive article you use a masculine determiner only once, and that only in describing the male contribution to the fetus.

As long as men are given a free pass with regards to their sexual accountability, the pro choice lobby will control the discussion and abortion will be legal. It's in the interest of men to see that this is so.

As long as society gives a wink and a nudge to male sexual irresponsiblity, 'boys will be boys', we will make no headway in the abortion issue. Laying the entire abortion/ pregnancy issue on the shoulders of women is why legal abortion exists in the first place. It is not just to make criminals of one sex when it takes both sexes to create the crime.

Jennifer, thank you for your article. Conversion and forgiveness have been very instrumental in my life as well. I am a lifelong Catholic who strayed away from the true teachings of the church during a time when I was getting mixed messages from other Catholics and culture in general. As a family practice doctor, I took an a la carte approach to birth control, not recommending abortion, IUD's, morning after pill, but somehow justifying the use of the Pill, barrier methods and sterilization, preaching abstinence and chastity, yet prescribing contraception for unmarried people. Gradually I found my rationalizations for these offerings crumbling as the evidence began to mount that I couldn't live my life being faithful to my God and raise my children according to that faith without recognizing and giving a faith response to the disconnect in our society between sex and babies. Time and time again I saw in my exam rooms there is no such thing as sex without consequences and no method of artificial birth control was fixing that. I was very disheartened and tempted to leave my profession. Finally, a good friend gave me permission to see that I did have a choice in how to practice medicine. Through prayer, confession, re-education and God's grace working through family and friends, I have begun to know the full truth and beauty of human sexuality. I no longer prescribe contraception or refer for sterilization. As a physician this has not come without a great deal of persecution from many of my colleagues and members of the community. I have not doubted for one moment, however, that it was the right thing to do.

How courageous you are - may God provide unlimited graces to you for what you are doing.

"Laying the entire abortion/ pregnancy issue on the shoulders of women is why legal abortion exists in the first place."

This may be an exaggeration. I came of age in the 70's, and I remember the boys just toeing to abortion line so they could get dates. I also don't remember men's groups aggressively campaigning for abortion rights.

So many woman have been indoctrinated to believe that it is natural for them to behave sexually like men always have (they were only taught to imitate the men with weak morals!) that sexual irresponsibility runs both ways now. There are some women who are coerced sexually and coerced to get abortions, but most make the decision on their own (many times the father has no idea). All of the women I know who got abortions got them on their own, sometimes to the heartbreak of the guy they were sleeping with.

Thank you, Meg, for gently correcting Colkoch's attempt to push off more of the blameworthiness onto men than they deserve.

One could argue that the pregnant woman's sex partner has an equal share in the blame for the pregnancy; where Colkoch goes wrong is in equating a pregnancy with an abortion. Except in the unheard of case of a woman being dragged against her will kicking and screaming to an abortuary by a man, to be honest one must admit that whether an abortion takes place is solely up to the woman.

When most women admit that abortion really is, under present law, solely the woman's choice to commit or not, rather than trying to push off the blame for the woman's decision off onto men, and when most men let go of misguided chivalry that gulls them into accepting so much blame for the abortions women have chosen to procure, then there will be progress toward ridding America of the evil of abortion.

Almost certainly there's someone out there who'll try to argue that men are to be blamed collectively for the actions of the few men who happen to be the legislators and judges who made abortion legal. I do not believe that I need explain what is wrong with such an argument to the good people who participate in and read this forum.

Meg, your remarks regarding Colkoch's comment remind us of the power women have to set a nation's politico-social agenda and to determine what the social consensus will be regarding what is considered moral and immoral. Women forced through the prohibition of alcohol in the first half of the twentieth century even before they had the voting privilege in federal and many state elections. Prohibitions on abortion were only removed when most women chose to accept that many or all abortions should be legal. Colkoch neglected to mention that today's feminists and other pro-abortion advocates press the "assumption... that men ultimately have no responsibility for any pregnancy" in their propaganda because those feminists and other abortion promoters believe that were men in control of the abortion question, abortion would not be legal.

Thank you again, Meg, for your sense of justice and good will toward men.

I am a convert to Catholicism from atheism. Like the author, I used to be very pro-choice, and I'm now very pro-life. I am also a woman who had an abortion when I was twenty, in college, in a bad relationship, etc. I agree with what Jen wrote, but I also know that at the time I found out I was pregnant, NOTHING would have convinced me to change my mind about having an abortion. I am from a liberal family, grew up in a left-leaning town, went to a top college, and I had never met anyone who was religious or pro-life. I had no doubt that what I was doing was right and necessary, if a bit unpleasant. For me to change my mind would have required much more than a crisis pregnancy center; as a life-long atheist, I did not believe in a soul or an afterlife. Strangely, I thought of it as a baby, but that didn't bother me. I thought to myself 'I am just making it like this had never happened,' as if I could turn back the clock a few weeks.

I had no qualms about it for more than a year after I'd done it. As I started to become a Christian, it weighed on me very heavily, but I still felt that I'd made the right decision. I couldn't imagine how different my life would be with a baby - would I have finished college? how would I afford it? how could I have told my family? would my boyfriend still have left me?

As I started to become a Catholic, I wondered if God would ever forgive me for what I'd done. It made coming into the Church very hard, but once I was baptized, I understood that I was forgiven.

My point, I guess, is that to stop abortion, you really have to go far beyond politics and laws. You need to change the hearts of the women who have abortions and think it is nothing. You need to reach the women who who want someone to tell them not to do it. You need to reach girls and plant a seed so that if they are ever in a situation where they don't want to be pregnant, they will stop a moment and consider what they're about to do.

I think Jennifer is right to talk about this.
I also came to the Catholic Church after college and just a few years ago, though from a religious background. I often find myself in conversation with "cradle Catholics" or Catholics who are a bit older than me, and it seems that many do not understand what Jennifer and Elise are trying to explain. Pro-choicers are not people who are "out to get" pro-lifers, usually. They are not spending time trying to convince themselves that abortion is acceptable though deep down they know it isn't. They simply have never been confronted with a different view. They really think that it is ok. To even understand these truths about sexuality and the unborn requires a truly dramatic shift in their minds, as previous commenters have said. And usually this takes years. This is how pervasive the distortions about 'women's rights' have become in our society; the younger generations do not even have a personal memory of things being otherwise.
To those who think pro-choice advocates are trying to destroy the pro-life cause or on a crusade against the Church: maybe so. It is truly a great, great Evil and they are being used by the Devil. But it is against their own good, and usually even without their own knowledge of what is for their good.

You conveniently left out some of the statistics from the Guttmacher Institute study:

• Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use.[9]

• Forty-six percent of women who have abortions had not used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant. Of these women, 33% had perceived themselves to be at low risk for pregnancy, 32% had had concerns about contraceptive methods, 26% had had unexpected sex and 1% had been forced to have sex.[9]

• Eight percent of women who have abortions have never used a method of birth control; nonuse is greatest among those who are young, poor, black, Hispanic or less educated.[9]

• About half of unintended pregnancies occur among the 11% of women who are at risk for unintended pregnancy but are not using contraceptives. Most of these women have practiced contraception in the past.

guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

Jennifer--a lovely and compelling post. Thank you for marshalling these excellent arguments in one cogent and very useful place.

But what of crisis pregnancies of a very different kind?

As a lifelong Catholic, I was firmly pro-life. And then my best friend called me, weeping. It was the day of her ultrasound for her first child, a long-awaited and desperately wanted baby.

And it had birth defects that are incompatible with life. It is called a stalk cell anomoly. The baby's organs developed outside its body. There is no cure and no chance of anything but a short and horribly painful life for the baby, and for my friend, 20 weeks more of growing a baby who had no chance at life outside the womb, and due to its defects, with a chance of rendering her infertile if she carried the child to term.

My friend lives in a state that bans late abortions, so she had to cross state lines and pay for a hotel in addition to other costs to terminate her pregnancy, which felt like insult to real injury. She wanted more children, and felt that this was what was best for her and her husband.

While I understand (and she heard plenty of) the "wait and pray for a miracle," for a multitude of reasons, she felt that was not something she could do. And at that point, I severed my pro-life heart from my pro-choice politics.

I am well, well, well aware that she represents a teeny tiny proportion of women seeking to end a pregnancy. Many abortions are sought with much less introspection. But this was, in the end, a medical decision for her. If her baby had had any chance at life--any at all--she would have continued.

So I post this not to try to change anyone's minds, but to see if anyone who is for banning all abortions has a better way to deal with this situation. Any ideas, anyone? If pregnancy termination was illegal...what would you say to women like my friend?

I mean for this comment to be within the stated guidelines. I am truly searching for thoughts on this kind of situation. My apologies if this is considered hijacking. I do not mean it to be. But my friend's situation opened my eyes to an aspect of pregnancy termination legalities that I had never considered before and I would appreciate other prayerful input on how to reconcile these kinds of situations.

In response to Honest Questioner:

The Catholic answer to your question is that we must ALWAYS choose life. I know that this is very difficult for some people, even some Catholics, to comprehend. But if we look at human life as the creation of God alone, and we look at each life as God's creation with a soul and a purpose, then who are we, in any certain circumstances, to decide 'God is wrong with this one'? It is not up to us to decide for God that he made a mistake. If we believe that God does not make mistakes, then we MUST trust him in every circumstance.

There are MANY, MANY case where parents were given prognosis that their babies had no hope of life outside the womb. Many of these babies DO live, sometimes short lives and sometimes lives of a normal span. All of these parents hoped against all hope and trusted God, that he knew what he was doing and that it would benefit everyone involved.

In the case of your friend, yes-the odds were definately against her baby ever surviving outside the womb. But If she would have carried the baby to term, given birth, been able to see her baby's face, kissed her baby, held her baby lovingly in her arms, and said goodbye when God said it was time, then and only then would she have fully recieved the gift God intended for her to have. Instead, she must carry this burden always and wonder, 'What if'? She has to carry the pain of knowing she took the baby's life, regardless. And trust me, she will think this even if she does not share it with you. Abortion is abortion-women who choose for medical reasons or inconvenience reasons still all feel the same in the end. It was still their baby that they killed, period.

God also gives us suffering as a gift. Our souls grow and meld more fully to him because of our suffering. He gave his own Son for us, destined to die all along for us. If she had died in childbirth, or not been able to have any more children, then that would have been God's plan for her. Other souls, including her own, would have still received the full benefit of the suffering, sorrow and pain.

They would have been able to rejoice also in this mother's true love for her baby, that she gave of herself beyond a shadow of a doubt to try to give life to her baby.

That is what God expects from us as mothers, it is the responsibility he entrusts to us as mothers. We must stop taking it upon ourselves to decide for him that he is wrong.

It's important to remember that your friend's primary obligation to her daughter was to help her get to heaven, not avoid suffering. But I can't imagine the strength it would take to do what God was apparently asking of your friend; of course, either decision would be extremely painful. I suspect she has more regrets this way than she would have had she decided differently.

Legalwise? If we get to the point where abortion is so unpopular that laws can be passed banning it in the US, your friend wouldn't have to agonize over which alternative she'd have to suffer through, and the medical professionals with her would help her get through her ordeal.

I am pro-choice. However, I am NOT pro-abortion.

I would never consider such a procedure myself simply because I decided not to have a baby after becoming pregnant, which is why I never put myself in the position of dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.

I respect your views on abortion as birth control. I find the idea that pregnancy can simply be "undone" to be abhorrent.

However, this piece leaves out a very important part of this argument. What about the women who desperately want to be pregnant, desperately want to have their child, but are faced with a life-threatening emergency that guarantees the death of the child and threatens the life of the woman?

There are instances in which it is not possible for the child to survive, but termination of the pregnancy may save the life of the mother. In these instances, I believe that banning abortion removes the ability of doctors to make medical decisions about how best to treat their patients.

Before you rail against me, please know that my sister faced a life-threatening emergency during child birth. Thankfully, she was far enough along that they were able to induce labor and my beautiful, 3-pound nephew was born tiny but healthy.

If she had faced this complication just a few weeks earlier, that probably would not have been as option. My beautiful nephew would have faced certain death, but inducing labor and attempting child birth would have meant death for his mother as well.

As much as I would have grieved the loss of my nephew, it would have been twice as devastating to grieve the loss of them both. If it's possible to save one, should we not use modern medicine to do all that we can?

Well now that we've reinstated them; can't I just get an indulgence after every abortion and still be okay?