Waiting for Roe

I have looked at the groups gathered outside the Supreme Court after the “leaking” of Justice Alito’s opinion on Roe. Each side is embattled. Weapons are megaphones, signs, jeers; and even profanity and vulgarity. They are waging a war, a contest, a bullying event. I heard Fr. Bill Watson recently on Bookmark share a conversation he had with a colleague in which they discussed how the evil one really tempted Adam and Eve. The clincher they decided was, “You will decide what is good and what is evil. That is the temptation raging on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Anthony Esolen in Crisis magazine (May 16, 2022) puzzled:

What strikes me is that, in all my life, I have never heard a single supporter of the abortion license describe that child as beautiful. If you must level an old neighborhood to build an airport, you may mourn for the houses to be razed, the streams to be choked up, the contours of the land to be effaced, the human memories to be obliterated. We would consider it rather monstrous in you if you did not do so. 

But the supporters of the license to kill the unborn child do not do so. They do not say, “You are right to see the beauty, your affections are just and fitting, and your moral system is admirable. It is, however, too difficult for man. We cannot live by it. We are too weak.”

R.J. Snell speaking on The Journey Home explains that in medieval thinking there really is a unity of the Transcendentals.  Beauty and Truth and the Good are One.

On an individual level, in one response to Dr. Esolen, the supporter of the abortion license cannot see the Beauty of the unborn because it is a threat that is not good. They image the unborn threat as a bear trap on its host.  A “bear trap” is a spring-loaded metal trap with two jaws. When the animal steps in the middle of the trap, the jaws spring up and clamp the animal in place. In some animal species, the animal will attempt to chew its own leg off to escape from the trap. In the animal world, activists cite studies that claim the steel-jawed leg-hold traps are inhumane. In citing studies that claim the steel-jawed leg-hold traps are inhumane, states argue whether or not to ban all or some of this type of trap of the unborn on its host.

       Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

When I was pregnant with my daughter in the 70s, society was intent on justifying Roe. I remember the assault on my ears, “It is just a blob of tissue”. But something fluttered in my uterus. If it was “a blob of tissue” that was fluttering, when would it become my baby? I think it was an Aquinas principle I heard in a philosophy class that spoke/whispered “potency and act” For my baby to be ACTual, it had to have the potency since its origin—its moment of conception. I dismissed “just a blob” as propaganda. But what of the women who had no philosophical terms of reference? They were propagandized. Yet, Science developed the sonogram just when we needed it the most to “look” inside the womb, the Palace of the Child (Japanese notion) and bring to the womb screen all the marvelous growth and activities of development of the beautiful unborn child who is an organism.

        Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

At about the same time society/abortion license activists were working on the “it is a blob” theory, the ritual of the placenta was revived. It is the ancient ritual of planting the placenta, the “after birth”, to hope the newborn would thrive.  There are present-day services that will encapsulate the placenta or make a tincture of the placenta to mix with yogurt or a cup of tea. And so there has been an awareness that there were special properties in the placenta since ancient times worldwide across cultures.

I love to think on the Eternal Law of God’s Design that lies hidden waiting for Science to discover. One of those designs recently discovered, studied, and explored is fetal microchimerism. We’ve long known that the placenta carries the unborn’s blood to the mother for cleaning and “boosting”, but in fetal microchimerism, it has been discovered, the unborn “thanks” Mom by cells escaping from the uterus and spreading through a mother’s body. In the 1990s, scientists found the first clues that cells from both sons and daughters migrate to all Mom’s organs healing the organs when under attack. Will this open a window on the Beauty, on the Good, on the Truth of the unborn? My Body; My Choice: Future health and longevity?

         Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

Out of nowhere one day my 12 year old daughter asked me, “Mom, if I got pregnant would you disown me? Marcy’s Mother said she would disown her if she got pregnant. “Whoa!!! What’s a mother to say???!!! Mom will never disown you (but I want and need to avoid giving you a license to get pregnant)…….. but having a baby is a very special thing and a baby requires  care 24/7. Do you think you are ready to care for a baby all the time?

That conversation took place in the 80s and the conversation with my daughter was about a hypothetical pregnancy. As I go back in memory to that conversation, I realize it is in the context of a friend of my daughter who was of a different race and I never recall a mention of a father of my daughter’s friend or saw her father at a school event. As a volunteer at a pregnancy support center I have taken calls from mothers of 12 year olds 30 years later who have seen us listed under Abortion Alternatives. Maybe they don’t understand that listing or in their heart are they hoping there is a work-around.  When asked how she feels about this, the mother of the pregnant 12 year old invariably answers, “No, I am not for it, but my daughter wants it.” The calling Grandmother will explain she is a single mother who works 2 jobs and there are other children to take care. Despite no desire for an abortion, the circumstances may have prevailed and you may see her entering the back door of the abortion center on Saturday morning after a call to a center that provides abortions. The unborn baby is not a winner. The pregnant 12 year old Mother is not a winner. The Grandmother of the unborn baby is not a winner. The father of the baby is not a winner. He may not know about the baby or he may have been desensitized by society to accept no responsibility.

          Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

Society used to have “safety nets”. I remember the story of 2 Grandmothers chatting together in their rocking chairs. One Grandmother says, “I see your Granddaughter is having a baby……..” “No, she has a tumor,” is the reply.” “Humph!!!! Some tumor: 2-legs; 2-feet!!!” But they all worked together to reach a solution.

There are no winners here because this “pattern” continues and will continue. If Roe is overturned, many will do a victory lap. But there are no winners when society does not halt, does not put the brakes on sexual animal behavior in rational humans. There are no winners when society does not repair the damage to the disintegration of the family.  There are no winners when public health is violated by multiple sexual partners even extending to include all the persons one’s partner has had sexual relations with.

         Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

Data in studies available in a GOOGLE search from the CDC and the Guttmacher Institute on females who have had abortions start with cohorts of females at age 15. Is data not included for girls under 15 purposely omitted to hide incest and human trafficking? This has been an accusation.

Looking further at the data, we see that surgical abortions have decreased. However, medical abortions, that is abortions by pills have increased to a whopping 57% of all abortions. Medical abortions can be performed at home from pills bought on the internet, prescribed over telehealth in some states and will soon be available in pharmacies in some states. Remove that “blob of tissue” at home in private.

         Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

It may be unlikely that the conversation with my daughter would have occurred today because “peers” are consulted instead of parents mainly due to and through social media. Would my daughter’s peers use the conversation with my daughter as an opportunity to show her a sonogram slowly and deliberately as in the National Geographic DVD of Life in the Womb? Would they show her fetal models she could handle to examine the formation and growth rate of a baby? Or, would they tell her to get out of the bear trap however she could?

         Rummaging……..searching into, under, and behind my reaction……

“You will decide what is good and what is evil. That is the temptation raging on the steps of the Supreme Court. CHOOSE LIFE!!!

In full disclosure, I am a Disciple of Louise Summerhill, Founder of Birthright Pregnancy Centers.  The essence of Birthright is LOVE. We love them both--Mother and Baby.

Our weapon is LOVE---no megaphones, no signs, no jeers, no profanity, no vulgarity. No Victory Laps……..

Let us trust the cause of life will yet prevail. BUT IF NOT……..we will not bow down before their idol, nor sacrifice our children to it. We will witness, and not grow faint. We will be strong, and we will grow stronger. For we will strengthen one another.  As on this night.

L’chaim!!! To life!

Paul Greenberg