Abortion: A Right but not a Good

by Adrian J. Reimers

Abortion is not a good thing for a woman. It may be a constitutional right. It may solve a particular problem. But abortion is never a good thing. It is very bad for the baby, who is a distinct living human being from the time of conception. Because it kills the baby, abortion is seriously wrong. What we often fail to see, though, is that the abortion is also bad for the mother who aborts.

When a woman conceives a child, her body begins preparing for motherhood. As her body produces progesterone, the uterus enlarges. The breasts prepare for lactation. She gets “morning sickness”. Her mother or sister may recognize a change in her complexion – the “pregnancy mask” that men can never see. The natural focus of her body changes as it prepares to nurture and foster the new life within it. Like an athlete in training, her body is preparing for a dramatic and decisive event.

These changes are not merely biological. As her body changes focus, the mother’s emotions respond, fostering a certain inwardness, reflectiveness, and sensitivity. At the first sign of movement in her womb, the mother begins to caress her belly and even to talk to the little one within. In everything she does, the pregnant mother experiences a certain secret. She is hiding something special, something that belongs to her and that no one else knows or can know until the right time. The biological changes to her body reflect the fuller human reality that she is working to create a new life. Not only her body, but her soul too is wrapped up in the work of giving life.

Abortion interrupts this. The woman leaving the abortion clinic feels empty. She is frustrated. Following the deepest capacity of her nature to love, her body had been investing itself in that new life. Suddenly it has all stopped. To put it in masculine terms, she has trained and psyched herself up for the game – and then left the stadium to go home. But the frustration is deeper than that of an athlete who doesn’t get to play. The game is something outside the athlete. The baby is within the mother. A little self is already developing inside her. Even at four weeks, the fetus has brain cells for feeling and thinking. The secret she hides is alive. It is a little someone that only she knows. The abortion interrupts this.

This frustration works itself out in very practical ways. It hurts the mother’s body. For example, an abortion can result in sterility or complications in future pregnancies. But the greatest damage is to her spirit. Leaving the abortion clinic, she feels empty and violated. This is only the beginning. On her lost baby’s would-be birthday, the tears come. Two years later, she sees a 2-year-old and wonders wistfully, “What would mine have looked like?” She may not be able to use a vacuum cleaner, because a suction machine killed her baby. Unless she freezes her heart completely, guilt forces itself to the fore. In Japan, mothers build little shrines to their aborted children to beg their forgiveness. And indeed, how many of their American counterparts weep for the chance to say “I’m sorry,” to the child they had taken.

Because abortion is bad for women it has to be sold to them. Abortion advocates say that the abortion decision should be between the woman and her doctor. Usually that doctor is a professional abortionist, and abortionists sell abortions. Abortion clinics don’t work for free (unlike such organizations as Hannah’s House, which is staffed by volunteers and depends on donations). But the strongest, most insistent voices selling abortion are those around her. Her parents scold, “Get rid of it or get out!” The boyfriend bullies, “I’m pro-choice, and your choice is between me and having that kid. Get rid of it!” Or her husband whines, “We can’t afford it. Besides, I don’t want you fat. Get rid of it!” The secret she cherishes is an ‘it’ to get rid of. For every man in a paper or a pulpit saying publicly that abortion is wrong, there are dozens pressuring and browbeating the women they are supposed to love. Most women have to be sold and scolded to embrace abortion. Then we call it the woman’s choice.

Abortion is bad for a woman. It hurts her body and wounds her heart. It is not something a woman wants. To bear a child is a deeply human, creative act. Abortion is a technological, mechanical solution to an economic or material problem. Abortion frustrates this most creative act a human person can do. It leaves a mother feeling guilty, an empty, violated shell.