Valued and Loved

CW: Brief description of intimate partner violence

“I don’t want to play God and decide who lives and who dies,” Helen said reluctantly. Nevertheless, she still thought that abortion was needed in many difficult circumstances. If a woman felt unready, or was battling poverty, how could she care for the child? She spoke at length of her concern for women and girls in bad situations, and I did my best to listen intently. “I agree with you that getting pregnant when you’re in a bad situation would be really scary,” I said to her. “A woman facing that definitely needs our help. Imagine with me, though, that there’s a woman who during pregnancy is in a good situation. Her finances are stable, and her partner is supportive. But after she gives birth, things change–she suddenly loses her job, and her partner walks out on her.”

I paused, then asked: “Would it be OK for her to kill her newborn baby, because she’s facing so many difficulties?” “Of course not,” Helen answered. “I agree,” I said. “So, if it wouldn’t be OK to kill a born child because the mom is facing so many difficulties, why would it be OK to kill a pre-born child for the same reason?” Behind me, on our signs, were photos of the broken bodies of aborted children.

Helen thought about this, and then gave voice to the painful memories that fuelled her support for abortion. “My mother was horribly abused and beaten while she was pregnant with me,” she told me. “And she was very poor. She should have just gotten an abortion. Things would have gone better, and been easier for her.”

In a few short sentences, she conveyed layers of trauma. Her mother was a survivor of assault, and so was she. The abuser had treated both women like worthless trash.

Many people can have a hard time valuing pre-born children if they don’t first know their own value. I wanted Helen to know the truth: that she and her mom were precious and worthy of care.

“I’m so sorry your mom went through that,” I said to her. “That should have never happened to her. If you don’t mind me asking, is she safe? Is the abuser still in her life?” Thankfully, her mom had escaped the situation, but had then endured great poverty. Helen truly believed that it would have been better if her mother had aborted her.

“Do you think your mom feels the same way?” I asked gently. “Do you think she wishes she’d had an abortion?” I was prepared for the response to be Yes, because I have met people whose parents have said just that. I was glad that Yes was not the answer given. “No, she would never say that,” Helen immediately replied. “She would say that she would go back and choose me all over again.” I asked some more questions about Helen’s story, and she told me that she was now caring for her aging mom. 

“Leaving aside abortion for a moment”, I said, “I just want to emphasize that it really sounds like your mom’s life is actually better for having you in it. She loves you, and you love her, and she knows that you love her. And you’re helping to care for her now. There are so many people who wish they had that kind of love in their life. So I just want to emphasize that her life is better with you in it, and I don’t think we should assume that her life would have been better without you.”  

Something shifted in the tone of our conversation, at that point; she seemed moved, and became more open to the pro-life perspective. 

Our value as humans is not contingent on whether other people love us, but it can be incredibly hard to know our own worth until we have experienced the love of other people–and ultimately, the love of God. 

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.

Pope St. John Paul II, REDEMPTOR HOMINIS

Helen and I went on to discuss many other aspects of the abortion debate, such as whether pre-born children were equally valuable to born children. We talked about the legal and cultural shifts needed to protect the pre-born and support women and girls. Helen spoke with conviction about how important it is for a man to step up and support his partner during pregnancy, rather than pressuring her to have an abortion just so he can evade the responsibility of fatherhood. 

As outreach was ending, I asked Helen, “Thinking about abortion in light of what we’ve discussed, do you think there’s any situation where it’s OK?” She thought about this question, then told me that she was still unsure about cases where the woman’s life was in danger or the baby had a terminal illness. I encouraged her to keep thinking about the issue, since abortion profoundly affected so many people. We shook hands and I thanked her for stopping to speak with me.