I'm reposting what I wrote a few years ago: It says what I think about marching — and when you can't march — and saving the unborn. Maybe you are sad that you can't make it to the March for Life this year…
Rededicate yourself to God's plan of marriage in whatever way you can. That is the key. Don't lose heart, and don't be surprised when the remedy for what is overwhelming, huge, and evil is what is small, humble, and good.
Today is a sad day.
It's hard for me to believe that it's been forty years since the Supreme Court of the United States made abortion legal.
I ask you to think of one thing on this day when we unite in offering to God our sorrow for this terrible reality of babies taken from their mothers' wombs.
Abortion is the result of forgetting that God had a plan for man and woman.
It's not a terrible evil that befalls the child randomly.
Rather, abortion on the scale that we witness today in America is the logical consequence of forgetting that a baby is meant to be the expression of love between a man and a woman who have pledged themselves to unity.
Marriage is the solution to abortion.
Of course, we will always have abortion and all the other ills of our human nature with us. We will always have to fight this fight. With the sheer numbers of babies being killed, it's very good to march on Washington. It's good to fight for just laws. It's very good to try to give witness at an abortion clinic and pray there.
We have to rescue babies.
Rescuing babies is pulling them out of the stream of death as they come by, at great risk to ourselves. It's reaching out to their mothers who are being sucked under by the maelstrom.
And then some of us must climb upriver to see who or what is throwing them in at the top.
If we want to solve the problem of abortion as a way of life, which is what we have today in our country, we must think of how the babies and their sad mothers are being thrown into the river of death.
Then we must acknowledge and proclaim that a baby is safest when it's born to a mother and a father who have promised before God and man that they will form a family.
Marriage doesn't just happen, and isn't one option among many. It's an institution that requires great commitment from every person in society, for the simple reason (among many complex ones) that when families are formed through marriage, the weak are given their best chance at being protected.
Today, possibly the greatest act of love for the unborn that you could make is striving your utmost to heal and promote and maintain and provide for and respect marriage.
Know that your own marriage is a good for the whole community. Every person you know — and many you will never see — benefits from your fidelity, your struggle, your resolve to love and honor your spouse. Your sufferings are a fitting incense rising to God — they are not in vain.
When you appreciate your husband as the protector and provider of this safe haven for you and your children, you help the unborn.
When he loves and protects you and your children, he offers society a church in miniature — a sanctuary — and babies everywhere are safer.
Know that when you raise your children to love and respect marriage by treating their own bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit, you are fighting abortion with all your might. Every watchful, protective moment you spend guarding your children's purity is a blow against the scourge of abortion.
When you teach your children to internalize the reality that they have a precious gift to give to someone, a gift that, in its turn, will enrich the whole community and the whole world, you do something noble for the fight for the unborn.
When you protect your young children from hearing about offenses against purity and witnessing acts and sights that can only disturb them, you strengthen the fight against abortion.
Know that when you help friends thinking of divorce, showing them that their unity means the world to you — or when you speak to a young woman of respect for her body or to a young man of respect for women, you turn the tide against the violence done to the smallest infant in the womb.
When you show that you believe a child is safest with a mother and a father in a family, and meant by God to be there, you work for the unborn.
Every person can love and respect marriage, God's plan, by his acts. Be convinced that marriage will heal society, and then act accordingly.
Diana says
Best article EVER on abortion, because you have gotten to the root of the issue. Thank you.
KaraL says
Where is the image you used from? It’s beautiful!
Teresa says
I would love to know the same, Leila. This is a beautiful image of Divine Mercy.
Teresa says
Dear Leila –
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this essay.
This is wisdom – and truth – that I can cling to and that gives me hope and peace.
God bless you for your own witness and love.
Carol says
Amen sister…preach on!
anonymous says
How would you talk to someone who has had a late-term abortion of a (much wanted) baby who had a severe version of spinal bifida? A dear friend is struggling with this. She is married and this would have been her second child with her husband. She never thought she would have an abortion, but said her husband couldn’t face the prospects of raising a kid with such high needs, and though she initially felt optimistic, she lost hope when she started to read the odds and imagine how radically her life would change. She is still experiencing PTSD, regret and a conviction that she killed her child. I want to provide her support and love, but also, when she says “I feel like I killed my child,” I don’t know what to say. I feel like I can’t just say “you did, but I’m so sorry for your whole family’s loss.” — that sounds so callous and I’m scared it will push her further into depression. She does not believe in God, or is at most a pantheist (raised Hindu), so telling her that God can forgive her and that she may see her little one again, or that the child is praying for them and looking out for them — does not provide any solace. I really don’t know how to help her but my heart aches for her.
Dixie says
Anonymous, I am so sorry for your friend and her family and also for the agony you must feel in trying to figure out how best to stand by her.
It sounds as though she knows deep down that the abortion was the killing of her child. But everyone is saying to her, “no, no, honey, of course you didn’t kill your child.” How can she heal from the tremendous grief, guilt, and depression that she is experiencing when no one will acknowledge to her what she knows happened? It may be that God is calling you at some point to affirm the truth to her, even though it seems like a terrible thing to say. She may hate you, leave your friendship, etc.; but that seed of truth may save her later on. Or she may cling to you for help.
Isn’t this how so many people end up having an abortion in the first place? Everyone is encouraging them to “make the responsible choice;” those who disagree are silent, not wanting to offend and knowing that the law allows abortion. If she is regretting her choice because she worries that it was not what she was told it would be, then she needs other to help her as she walks through the hard place of truth and forgiveness.
The lie that it was not killing her child is not strong enough to overcome her knowledge of the baby having lived inside her. As long as everyone keeps comforting her with this lie — or by sidestepping the truth in trying to help her, which I completely understand — how will she heal? The lie is just not strong enough.
I am not trained in this; others are, so I hope they will chime in to correct me if what I am saying is a big mistake.
God will guide you!
Maybe a first step would be to call your local Project Rachel (hopeafterabortion dot com) and ask them to help you help your friend. Even though your friend is not a Christian, they will almost certainly be able to offer some advice to you.
If you are Catholic or otherwise comfortable with it, pray for the intercession of Servant of God Dorothy Day. She had an abortion, and later a living child.
God bless you!
Dixie says
(To be clear, I am not suggesting in any way that Anonymous has been silent or says things like “you didn’t kill your baby” or bears any guilt whatsoever for this abortion. I just mean to say that that is probably most of what she is hearing from most sources.)
anonymous says
I’m not sure what her friends and family are saying to her. I’m sure some are saying she didn’t kill the baby. I think others are saying that she did but that her life is more important than a life not yet fully-formed. And her parents, who are also grieving, are saying things like the baby will come back to them in another life. But my friend asks “Why would he want to come to a family that killed him?”
I basically agreed when she said she killed her baby but said that hopefully baby would be able to forgive and understand that my friend was making this (albeit wrong) decision from a place of both love for the little one and fear and love for her family. I don’t think that was very consoling.
A lot of her decision WAS based on the notion of the child suffering terribly in life. I sort of gently meandered around the idea that while we all wish to avoid suffering for our children, that my friend couldn’t really predict how suffering would affect the child’s quality of life, and how something that sounds awful and horrible for her may not be so for a person who had lived their whole life dealing with that limitation.
Also, I sort of danced around the idea that suffering has some redemptive value. (She would probably reject that wholesale though.)
To be honest, I also blame her husband’s weakness and lack of fortitude, which I think is what tipped her in the decision. His immediate reaction was “we can’t do this,” and I don’t think he ever wavered too much towards the notion of saving the baby. I didn’t think it was productive to point that out but did mention that decisions about family are joint decisions between husband and wife and so it was natural that his opinion and feelings would weigh heavily in the calculation.
Ideally I want to gently point her to the notion that God can forgive acknowledged and repented sins but after growing up in the Bible Belt and having to deal with bullying and boneheaded attempts at conversion from people in school, any hint of religious talk freaks her out. So tough.
Deirdre says
Anonymous, that is heartbreaking. I am so sorry to read about it.
I agree with Dixie and about keeping Project Rachel on the horizon. No doubt your friend will be struggling with this for a long time. I would imagine that the conversation will be ongoing.
I just want to mention care for the first child in this case. Abortion affects siblings. If you can have any influence in protecting the older sibling from the reality that his/her younger sibling was aborted, that would be a blessing for the family. It can be highly traumatic for a child to realize that his/her mother and father made that decision; at the same time, it’s probably something that he or she will also have to come to terms with later in life (hopefully not before adulthood).
I’ll be praying for your friend.
Mrs. B. says
I would also encourage you to keep Project Rachel in mind for your friend in this sad situation, or something similar available in your area, whenever she feels ready to talk to someone. They have counselors that I’m sure are trained to talk even to non-Christian women. “Trained” sounds cold and unsympathetic, but I agree with you that in these cases it’s very hard even for a good friend to know what to say.
I have no idea how your friend will find peace again – it sounds like God is knocking on her door, since her conscience seems to see the truth. It can be very difficult even for a Christian to trust God’s action in a hard situation, so I can’t even imagine the fear and confusion a non-Christian must experience. I’ll pray for her, too, and for her husband as well.
Leila says
Dear Anonymous — That’s so sad.
The comments that are here to offer you suggestions are very good ones. I would only add that in cases like this one, sometimes your help has to begin quite remotely. By that I mean that you might find that all you can do is pray for her and maybe offer up some little reparation for her suffering and for her sin, which is a sin, however conditioned her intention may be.
And it may be that you can ask her questions. “How are you doing?” “What makes you feel that way?” “What do you think about it?” “Are you angry at all?” (I agree with you that a woman is always going to be angry with her husband in such cases, whether she admits it or not. His vocation is to protect her and their children. No doubt he is also more or less incapable of rising above our society’s norms, but still.)
I think that sometimes we take a lot for granted. What about the question, “Do you know that there is Someone who can forgive sins?” You may have to be prepared to tell the story of Salvation starting with Creation! Creation, The Fall, the 10 Commandments, Our Lady, The Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Church.
She may not know…. she probably doesn’t. (Do you know the story of St. Martin Porres? This is how he started baptizing the slaves. He tended to their sicknesses and exposure and then told them of their salvation. Very inspiring to know how to begin!)
Just keep asking her questions. Keep praying and the Holy Spirit will send you the words you need. Even if she stops talking to you after a while, keep praying. I know you will. You are a good friend.
Elizabethanne says
This brought me to tears. Thank you for this reminder and assurance that tough days our seasons in family life and married live ate part of the same fight as the larger pro-life movement.
Ona says
This is such a rich piece Leila . God has gifted you with an amazing ministry in building the culture of life. In a world full of sound & fury, your quiet & gentle spirit is a healing balm to all our souls! Thank you for sharing your wisdom. You & your family are a blessing to all of us here. May God bless you & your family in this much needed ministry!
Michelle says
This is a beautiful piece. You are doing God’s work with this blog.
Kirsten says
This is beautiful. Thank you!
I would also love to hear your thoughts on explaining abortion to children. My oldest is 3 so we are not there yet, but how do you feel about introducing such a topic? I of course want to shield them from the horror of it, but at the same time it is a reality of our sinful world. If you don’t mind my asking, I’d love to hear your wisdom on it!
Leila says
Dear Kirsten,
Our job as parents is to protect our children. This world is fallen, and soon enough they find out that there is evil in the world.
To do our job in this situation, we must have an understanding of the mind of the child and the proper development of the child.
How to go about that? One way is memory. Try to remember as much as you can about how you found out about things in general when you were little. Try to remember how old you were and what you thought at different stages of your life. Try to recover a sense of the trust you had in adults to handle things well (I hope you had this trust — maybe not, but maybe you can figure out how a child would have it and that it would be a good thing to have).
Another way is to read books written by wise people for children. This blog is all about that! Check out the Library Project posts (found in the menu bar). Classic children’s literature contains a lot of hidden wisdom for adults about how to approach introducing them to issues that can be overwhelming.
Another way is to read books written by wise books about children. Again, the Library Project has suggestions (search “foundational”).
Do your best to give your child the chance to develop without being oppressed by evil. Believe me, when your child discovers that there are people who would take the life of a tiny baby, he will receive a deep wound. Try to postpone that day.
Many times our children are thinking about things without letting on. Be alert. If you see that he has read or noticed something, just maybe ask, “What did you think of that?” Be ready to answer his questions. Try to give the most general answers you can. It’s not that we don’t want them to know! It’s that we don’t want them to know too soon. Knowing too soon — say, before puberty — about such terrible things can affect their development adversely. A child can really be harmed by too much “reality” before he has an understanding of the great world beyond the safety of home (and one used to be able to say, school, but no more)!
Just as we don’t harvest a fruit until it’s ready, we don’t thrust things on the child before his development is to the point where he can bear them. No one can tell you when this will be, but God gives each parent the grace to discern what’s best for the child — it’s just important to do your homework as well. It takes a lot of thinking and praying and studying!
Mrs. B. says
Leila’s great answer reminded me of a passage in Corrie Ten Boom’s autobiography, The Hiding Place. She was still a child, around 10, and she heard a line in a poem one day in school, about a young man still not touched by “sexsin”. The word stayed with her, but she sort of felt that it was a touchy subject. She asked her father what that meant, one day that they were riding on a train together. He didn’t say anything, but when it was time to get off, he asked her to carry the heavy suitcase they had with them. She answered that it was too heavy for her. So her father told her the same happens with knowledge: some knowledge is too heavy for children, and it would be an awful father one who asked a child to carry too heavy a load.
And then he said the same thing Leila said: children need to trust the parents to carry those loads for them, until they are strong enough to bear them. And Corrie writes how wonderful she felt, thinking that all her hard questions’ answers were entrusted to her father.
It’s not about keeping them in the dark at all – it’s about being wise and wait, working with them to make them ready one day.
Claire says
Amen, dear sister
Leila says
Thanks, all. You are very kind!
For those who asked, I love that image also. I’m not sure where it’s from originally. You can purchase it here:
http://www.ignatius.com/Products/DIVM-O/divine-mercy.aspx
Anne says
I love this. I believe it to be true…and I am a Protestant.
I am also, now, a divorced woman…who wanted, and fought to save, her marriage…but whose husband at the time decided not to, after 15 years of marriage, and went with “I don’t love you anymore.” And it tears my heart up that my kids are now seeing this, and it’s a huge chink in the armour. I pray that God will be bigger than that to them, but it wrenches my heart nonetheless.
Mrs. B. says
I’m so sorry, Anne… This happened in my husband’s family as well, when he was growing up: 15 years of marriage, and then his parents divorced, same reason as yours. You’re a good mother: keep close to your children, very close – even if they are teenagers and seem to understand and take things calmly. Your love and your prayers mean a lot to them. Hugs and prayers for you, dear fellow reader!
Suz says
Anne, I’m in the same spot. 13 years of marriage and he left for another woman. No matter how hard I fought, I couldn’t save my marriage. The hardest part has been knowing my kids are growing up with this example. So I do my best to hold it up as an example of what NOT to do and be. And I pray. A lot.
Anne says
Oh Suz I’m so sorry. I truly feel your pain and will pray for you. It’s a hard road as a single mother. Do you have support around you?
Polly says
Thank you for this. I just read a horrendous essay in support of abortion that sent me into a sort of midday depressive state. I came here to read this (which I’d read before) and feel better, less helpless, more hopeful, and guided.
Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.