 
Making Connections: A way to raise awareness of the
harm of Abortion
A key aspect of the healing of a woman who has had an abortion is for her to realize
the connection between the abortion and other problems that have arisen, or have
become worse, since her abortion. By understanding how the abortion is the cause of
so many other problems, she can make more sense of her situation, and proceed
along the path of healing. To fail to see this connection, however, is to continue the
harmful process of denial, thanks to which the abortion can be isolated in a
comfortable corner of the mind, and be considered as disconnected from her other
concerns.
If this is true for an individual, it is also true for our entire society. There are
connections between abortion and the other societal evils we deal with. To fail to
see those connections allows people who regard abortion as evil to regard it as a
purely private evil that does not require their attention. At the same time, it
allows those who justify abortion to continue to justify it without too much mental
consternation.
The challenge for us in the pulpit is not so much to convince our congregation that
abortion is wrong as to convince them that it is any of their business. For some, the
only way to appreciate that they have a duty to step in and actually try to stop
someone else's abortion is to be made to appreciate that more is at stake than that
person's abortion. Not only does the abortion take a life (a fact that, for some
people, is still not enough to spur them to action), but it contributes to problems that
they may have never thought as having a connection with abortion.
One of the many connected issues is violence among young people. Dr. Philip Ney,
for example, has researched the psychological impact of the prevalence of abortion
upon those who survive it. The sense of security, of the value of oneself, and of the
intrinsic worth of one's life, is destroyed by the awareness that one could have been
aborted. Our young people today, directly insulted by the assertion of Roe vs. Wade
that "the word person.does not include the unborn," are being taught to see
themselves -- and hence their classmates -- as disposable. Then we wonder why they
shoot one another. Children will not stop killing children until parents stop killing
children. And that will not happen until we start showing parents the connections.
Father Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
|
|
August 23-26, 2001
volume 12, no. 145
Father Frank Pavone's column in SANCTITY OF LIFE
www.DailyCatholic.org
|
|
|