More often than you might think, I hear about a woman who, through my direct group of friends/acquaintances is considering abortion. Has it scheduled. Sometimes I hear the reasons. Sometimes I don’t. I always offer the help I believe is most appropriate. In matters of life or death, this is not a time to be “Canadian.” I don’t aim to be obnoxious, either. I just aim to speak my mind, hopefully, with compassion.
This time all I could do was offer a simple encouragement to my friend who is friends with the woman scheduled for an abortion. I strongly encouraged her to speak her mind with this woman; to raise some hopeful options. (This is a woman who is saying she will get an abortion, but also desperately wanted a child.)
These moments always highlight a couple of things for me:
1. That in a very concrete way there is a baby right now who may not be by the end of the week
2. That we have created spaces and we fund them and therefore sanction them where women can arrive pregnant and leave not pregnant but the fact remains that they are, before and after, mothers
3. That behind the masses and statistics of abortion there are always individual people
4. That my first concern is always for the born mother, and secondarily for the unborn child. That was my response last night when I heard of this case and it came naturally to me, not as some PR spin as pro-choicers want you to believe. Aborting her very much wanted child does damage to women–damage no one but the most ideological contest
5. That turning away or saying “it’s her choice” is just about the most terrible response anyone could possibly have. Why do we think of this as respectful?
There are few things so tragic as loss of life, however that happens. But what is worse is when we sanction the loss of life and then tell everyone to shut up about their grief. In the current circumstance, I don’t know the woman. Therefore, I can’t reach out to her. I’m told I shouldn’t care. Call me crazy, and many do, but when someone is signing for the death of their own child, I care about it and it weighs on me. I wish I could do more. That’s all.
by 
Yes, yes, yes to number 5! I can’t get over how our culture values choice so much, that we are unable to call out bad choices when they come up. Instead, we leave women alone and then blame them for their hurt if they choose abortion and end up hurting for it.