Strangers and Soldiers

Losing our humanity in the abortion debate

06/26/2022

Lk 9:51-62 When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village. As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to rest his head.”

On Friday, June 24, the United States Supreme Court in the case of “Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health Organization” issued a decision overturning the 1973 Roe versus Wade and the 1992 Planned Parenthood versus Casey decisions that provided legal protection for abortion. Legalized abortion became the law of the land in 1973, and in 2022 it is no longer the law of the land. June 24, 2022 is a historic day in our nation’s history, no matter what side of the abortion debate you stand on.

Now, I am personally pleased by the high court’s ruling. Why? Well, any nation that cannot protect its most vulnerable citizens – and no one is more vulnerable than an unborn baby – cannot claim to be a great nation. It is providential perhaps that the decision was issued on June 24, this year the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and normally the Birthday of John the Baptist. It happens that six of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Roman Catholic, so the timing may not have been entirely accidental.

When I was in the seminary in Maryland, a classmate of mine was adamantly prolife. He encouraged me to go with him and a group of seminarians to a nearby town, called Hagerstown, and pray the rosary in front of an abortion clinic. To be completely honest, I really did not want to go. One Saturday morning I was looking for an excuse not to go, when my friend placed his hand on my arm, looked me squarely in the eye and said: “They’re killing babies, John, let’s go.”

Hard to argue with that, I thought, so I went. As I stood on the sidewalk, feeling very awkward and a little scared, I would see an occasional lady walk into the clinic, usually with someone else. I never approached anyone or said anything because I don’t like confrontation. But I just repeated my Hail Mary’s for those ladies and their babies.

I began to notice, though, that the ladies who were going into the clinic also looked nervous and scared, kind of like me. In other words, they really did not want to be there, just like I did not want to be there. Every now and then I would catch the eye of a young lady and we would lock eyes for a moment and see the mutual fear and uncertainty in each other’s faces, and we know we both wanted to be a million miles away from there.

We felt like enemy soldiers looking at each other from across the front lines and wishing we were anywhere but there. And we were indeed pawns in a vast war. The prolife side calls this a “war on the unborn” because babies are attacked. The prochoice side calls this a “war on women” because women feel attacked. Just like during the American Civil War, the North called it the “Civil War” but Southerners called it “The War of Northern Aggression”. Each side see the war through its own eyes and finds its own justifications.

But for a split second when our eyes locked, it felt like time stood still, and momentarily, we did not think about the war, we just saw two human beings. I saw a young lady whose eyes were filled with shock, uncertainty, guilt, fear and sadness. For her part, she saw a young seminarian clutching his rosary, looking spooked, surprised, sad, afraid, angry, and nervous. Who knows, we might have been friends if we had met in any other time and place, maybe even best friends.

But on that day, we stared at each other as strangers and soldiers in a war we did not fully understand, and did not really want to fight. And that is what happens in every war: we lose a little of our humanity. But for a split second of grace we got our humanity back. And that is the true toll of every war that has ever been waged on earth. More than the loss of life – which is tragic – is the loss of our humanity, which may be worse. The first affects our body, the second touches our soul. When we lose our humanity, there are no victors in the war.

So, on June 24, 2022, a battle in this war was won by the prolife side, waging the “War for the Unborn”. And a set-back was suffered by the prochoice side, fighting the “War for Women”. But this outcome of the Supreme Court decision only means that the theater of the war will move from the Supreme Court to the chambers of Congress: just like World War II was fought sometimes in the European theater, and at other times in the Pacific theater. That great war also made us lose our humanity. How so? We stopped looking at German and Japanese as fellow human beings, but only as “Krauts” and “Japs”. That loss of humanity was the real casualty of war, and in that sense, both sides lost.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am very grateful to God for the recent Supreme Court decision. And I pray many babies will be saved because of it. But I also pray for all those young ladies who feel they have no choice but abortion, like that lady I locked eyes with in Hagerstown 30 years ago. For a very small second we saw each other as two people, not as two pawns in a war. Wars always entail heavy losses, not just the body count, but also the soul count, like when we lose of our humanity. That’s what they mean when they say: “win the battle but lose the war.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!