Month: January 2020

In 1973 my husband and I were working full time, building a house, and hoping for a child. Sadly, I have no recollection of the Supreme Court landmark decision allowing abortion in our country. In fact it wasn’t until our first child was born that I became involved in the pro-life cause at my church in the pro-life ministry. Friendships formed with like minded people and I expressed my views when the subject came up in conversation with people of opposing views and often those who seemed neutral. Back then partial birth abortion or infanticide were not even possibilities.

Although the first March for Life occurred in 1973 when the law was passed, I first attended during President H. W. Bush’s term in the late 1980’s. He was pro-life and as I remember sent messages to the marchers supporting the cause. Barbara Bush on the other hand had decided some years before that life begins with the first breath and ends with the last breath. This fact was revealed in a New York Times article easily accessed through a google search. (Worth reading if you are interested in her reasoning; written by Susan Page taken from her book: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty.) I have a different view on abortion; however, I respect her struggle in arriving at that conclusion.

Our next President Bill Clinton although once campaigning for governor acknowledged the evils of abortion, declared in 1992 he wanted to make abortion safe legal and rare. He became president in January and shortly after I attended the March for Life in DC and it was announced that the new president rescinded the pro-life executive orders in favor of the pro-life cause. It was indeed a sad day for at least some of us. Remember that goal of President Clinton: safe, legal, and rare.

In the light of day in 2020 would anyone truthfully say this has a grain of truth in it?   Except of course, the legal.

Yesterday hundreds of thousands walked from the Mall to the Supreme Court in Washington DC as I watched on EWTN streaming while comfortably sitting at my computer screen. For many years, not nearly all forty-seven, I was among the marchers. The past several years I could not make the trip which began at five am and ended somewhere around eleven pm, an exhausting yet exhilarating day.

Searching my cluttered memory vivid scenes of the various January marches whooshed through my mind and flooded over the banks of blogging, far too many words. Where to begin?

My convictions began before Roe V Wade, just when or why, I cannot say. My earliest memory that the issue of abortion was on my mind and planted in my heart was before 1973 in the late 1960’s. I worked in a hospital hematology lab and two fellow workers were discussing abortion. In hindsight I realize they had an idea of the possibility it would be legalized. These two women were strongly opposed; both were married and one could not have children.

(In my twenties at the time, my focus was work and social life, quite self centered. I had two brothers in Vietnam, the war they insisted was only a conflict. Still aside from that reality, my world was mostly ‘me’.)

Anyhow, back to the point. I joined in to their conversation and plainly and succinctly agreed with them that abortion killed a child and it was totally wrong and gravely offensive. The thing that surprised me was how surprised they were that I, ‘a fluff head’ young woman interested in ‘me’ most of the time could have such a strong conviction. In fact one of them said, “Wow, I never thought you would even know or care about this! You should really Speak Up more.” (Not her exact words but close.)

And some years later when I was married and had my first child, I did speak up, as well as, March for Life. I will continue to sort out memories in the following posts. My how I can go on…