Come Stand With Me

The past few weeks of spending the occasional hour in front of the abortion clinic as part of Forty Days for Life have been illuminating. As much for the things we witness as for the people who have shouted insults, waved with only one finger, or joined us in our vigil. What has surprised me the most is the lack of choice on the part of the girls and young women we see entering the clinic, and the broken spirits we see leaving it.

If you are pro-choice, or even a fence-straddler on the issue, I invite you to come and stand with me and see what I see from the sidewalk. Stand peacefully and bear witness to the girls who are too young to legally consent to sexual activity who are brought in by older men. These young girls, all of whom have been molested (they can’t consent…remember?) and yet the police are never called. The girls are sent home for this to happen again. How is this protecting them?

Stand with me and see the young women brought by mothers and/or boyfriends who beg not to have this done to them. Hear them plead “Please don’t kill my baby” and then see them a few hours later, wailing like a wounded animal. They know. They know that something precious has been taken from them. How does a doctor do elective procedures on a woman who begs him not to? Why isn’t this a crime?

Come and see the strong arm tactics of these girls’ loved ones who give them terrible ultimatums while standing in the parking lot. Is coercion the same as choice?

I don’t think this is what you fought for, and yet it is the direct child of it. Not all the clients of this clinic seem unhappy about their decisions, but enough do that you could come any day and be assured of witnessing their pain.

Be honest about it. Be honest with yourself. If abortion is a good thing, then witness what it truly is. Come and look this horror in the face. See the pain that it brings into the lives of these abused and bullied women. Come and see the truth and then be honest with yourself about what you have seen. This is wrong. Not just for the children who are dead, but for their mothers who never wanted them to be that way. Come and stand with me.