The priest being interviewed on the radio spoke of his childhood. He was the 5th child in his family, and definitely an “unplanned pregnancy”. His mom, as she told him, thought she was past her child-bearing years, but she suddenly found herself pregnant again. His mom told him how a neighbor, seeing she was pregnant again told her: “You’re too old to be having more kids. You should get an abortion. It’s easy.” But, the priest explained, my mom was a solid Catholic who valued life, and told the neighbor to go away. “So,” the priest explained, “I am an abortion survivor; my mom chose life. But the knowledge of how close I came to not being allowed life changed my whole perspective on the value of life.”
But he went further. He said: “Everyone today under the age of 50 is an abortion survivor, even as I am, someone who only by the grace of God was allowed to live. If their mom had a neighbor like my mom’s, would they be here today?”
I had never thought of those years of Roe that way. I wonder if all those under the age of 50 realize how lucky they are to be alive, even as they espouse laws (like Proposal 3 in Michigan) which will make abortion part of casual conversation, “a choice,” no more serious than considering whether to wear a sweater or not. “How do I feel about that, today?”
Were they a wanted child by their mom, or one “not too inconvenient”?
Life, a gift of God, shouldn’t be something casually accepted --- or not, because it wasn’t convenient. Abortion is a serious issue about life, not something about making someone “feel better.”
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