Pro-‘life in abundance’

Pro-‘life in abundance’

‘I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly’ Jn 10:1

Juliet Joly
Jan. 29, 2020 

    I consider myself pro-life. But what does it mean to be pro-life?  Why are babies’ lives worth protecting, and for that matter, why should the old, the sick, and vulnerable individuals’ lives be defended at all costs?
    I work as a religion teacher for freshmen and sophomore classes at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, VA. I love my school very much because God is answering a desire of mine: my colleagues and I have reached a very serious, beautiful level of judgment in the milieu in which we collaborate and educate.  In short, I have found friends among my colleagues, and this has given me great joy and filled me with gratitude. 

     In the week leading up to this year’s March for Life on Friday, Jan. 24, which was a day without classes for O’Connell to encourage everyone to attend the March, the school held an assembly featuring two women who are both renowned pro-life speakers. Both have had abortions, and both are recovering from the trauma and pain that accompanied the procedures. Their witnesses were profound and true, and further confirmed my awareness that the culture that surrounds abortion in our country is often one of lies, associating the decision to abort with a sense of false empowerment for women, neglecting to acknowledge the deep, tragic suffering experienced by most women in the aftermath of abortion.
    In an assembly that revealed so much truth, exposed so much deceit, and suggested the profound healing power of God’s forgiveness even after abortion, why was I left so unconvinced? What was it about the witnesses of these women that left me desiring even more? I felt uncharacteristically rebellious, like a teenager rejecting everything my parents had taught me.  I became almost visibly disgruntled by the preachy obviousness of the women’s arguments.  Moreover, I recognized that among my students who are teenagers, most of whom are struggling profoundly with the Church’s views on morality as communicated by the catechism (and unfortunately also falsely by the popular culture), many at best most certainly felt their questions to be unrepresented in the dialogue on stage. 

     With my mind full and racing, I hurriedly walked to my fourth period class that immediately followed the assembly, aware that those rowdy, uninhibited 24 young people of diverse backgrounds would certainly raise questions in the wake of the dialogue we’d just witnessed. Scenarios started rolling through my mind of how to address their questions, and what to cut out of my lesson to make space for them to process the assembly. I even thought of reminding our administration that after such a provocative assembly, we must be aware that students would be full of questions and to allow space in our schedule with our fourth period classes to allow for this. 

     I love my fourth period class.  Many of them are good friends and I see how they support one another.  As soon as I walked in, though I’d planned to discuss the differences between “expiation,” “satisfaction,” “redemption” and other key terms related to Jesus’ work of salvation, Jason immediately questioned me, “Are we going to talk about the assembly?”

      What ensued was a 45 minute dialogue during my 85 minute block, only interrupted by the bell that broke up the class with lunch. Some amazingly beautiful observations, questions and attempted answers ensued. 

Photo courtesy of the Seattle Times.

     Margaret, a very curious young woman who attended public school until high school, was never baptized and doesn’t identify with any religion, made an interesting comment about the perceived need for abortion, especially for women and families who cannot take care of a child. She remarked on the horribly limited success of our American foster care system and that it is an abomination that children have to suffer through it. My response surprised me. I commented on the fact that human life presents challenges. Everyone undergoes profound challenges and injustices in life. Even people who grow up in generally easy circumstances with loving and supportive families face heartache, tragedy, and injustice. Who are we to deprive others of the experience of growth, maturity, and the need to depend on others (and ultimately Another) provoked by challenging life circumstances?  I was essentially suggesting it didn’t make sense to abort as an act of mercy, neither for the child nor the family.  I made it clear that the foster care and other social systems that make human flourishing difficult need profound renovation— we literally need to re-novat, “make new again,” and also re- innovate the way we design and run these systems. And we, as Christians, what ideas do we have?!  Does our encounter with Christ and our “figliolanza,” our belonging, to God our Father as members of his family, seriously generate a new creativity in us?  Can we claim to be co-creators of his kingdom on Earth?  I thus implored my students: we need sincere, generous, thoughtful people loving our children and working in jobs to achieve this end. Because the end of life after all is to be loved and thus in turn learn to love. In that moment I invited my students to be open to pursuing careers that would enable them to proffer the sort of widespread social change that would give all children the chance to be loved deeply. We need to beg Christ to convert our own and everyone else’s hearts, open them to experience the joy of embracing life starting with our own, and create a world in which everyone is welcome and loved. Who if not Christ advocates such radical conversion?

    I asked my student Margaret, “In your opinion, would it be better if the homeless, if impoverished men and women, whose mental health may be comprised, who maybe hold no job and drain our welfare system and receive free ER treatment— would it better if such individuals never existed?  Would our world be better without them?  Is our world even a little better that they exist, that they give us opportunities to be generous and open our hearts and wallets to others, and bring us so decisively outside of our heads when we encounter them?”  My own questions struck me deeply and left the class silent for a moment. I am reminded of Jesus’s reproach of the disciples, “the poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11). Maybe Jesus was saying that as long as our systems of social services remain inadequate, but if we embrace all life, we must look at all people as belonging to us, they are us; they too are part of His body.   

Photo courtesy of cnn.com.

     Another student, Nathan, raised the question of rich white men in certain states who are passing legislation to make abortion illegal— a move he lamented would negatively affect the lives of impoverished, usually minority women who need access to abortion. I realize that legislation cannot heal the evil of abortion nor educate the human heart, though certainly it would guarantee that more children would be born. Is it enough that all children are born?  Is killing children really the evil of abortion?  I am reminded of the witness of the Holy Innocents— children who we remember every December 27 as martyrs, children whose mission was achieved by the mercy of God allowing the fulfillment of his incomprehensibly mysterious will.  Why did Christ embrace the children who surrounded him, the lepers, the possessed, the poor, the adulteress, the woman, the blind?  He ate dinner with Zaccheus the tax collector and even Matthew, another publican, was handpicked to be among his best friends. Jesus’s very life was the reason the lives of the publican, the adulteress, the woman in general, the physically disabled, the leper, the child, even the dead—mattered. I dare say Jesus’s very life, a life of pure love, forgiveness, and hope—a human life of a loving God in our midst—is the only reason any of our human lives matter. Though it might help save lives, making abortion illegal doesn’t help us learn why life is beautiful. Legislation doesn’t change the human heart.    

     Some students expressed the horrors of abortion and the tragedy of lives cut short.  What’s fascinating, I shared with my students, is that if we know of Christ’s loving presence in our human lives, not even abortion has the final word for individuals whose lives are cut short by abortion. I cited the women’s witnesses and conversion experiences. Their aborted babies changed their mothers’ lives in a permanent way, spiritually giving them a reason to heal and return to God, and very practically giving them a new career direction— to preach the truth of life and the horrors of rejecting life— in other words, the goodness in accepting God’s will and the desolation in rejecting it. I asked my students: if we measure our lives based on how much we change others’ lives for the better, can’t we see just how profound an impact those women’s children have left on them, on us, and on everyone who hear their witnesses?  Can any of us the living say we’ve left so great of an impact in the world? And these are people who never breathed a breath of earthly air!  It’s worth noting here that even aborted babies who are forgotten by the world’s memory carry a value and meaning we can’t begin to identify or quantify. God loves his children, knows them, and wants them even if they die young.  God’s measure of the value of a human life is so gratuitously, perfectly greater than our puny measures of what brings meaning and purpose to our lives. 

Dr. Elvira Paraviccini is director of a neonatal hospice in New York City.  Photo courtesy of bioeticanews.it.

     After our lunch break I wanted to share with my students examples of hope in the world today, which was my original lesson.  Before dividing them into groups to study the work of Elvira Paraviccini, the work of Rose Busingye, Fr. José’s judgment on technology, and Marco Bersanellis’s judgment on the value of studying, I shared my final thoughts on what I mean when I say I am pro-life. I expressed that images of aborted fetuses left me feeling repelled by the very movement whose pro-life message was attractive. I recall discussing with friends in the CL movement years ago how fighting violence with images of violence seemed to generate indignance and even hatred toward the other, further widening the chasm between the cultures of life and death, and confusing what we mean by a culture of life.  So what IS a culture of life?  Why should life be lived fully?  Why is everyone’s life worth living?  I shared with my students that only an exceptional, undeniable experience of Christ incarnate today— an infinitely beautiful, loving, compelling encounter with the divine though frail human flesh— is the only thing that can profoundly educate us as to why giving birth to a child is an objectively good thing, a blessing to the child’s parents, a gift to the child’s family and a boon to the entire world.  I hope my students could perceive a continuity between our abortion discussion and the examples they studied of people living challenging circumstances with hope!

      What moved me about our conversation last week was multi-fold. I was moved by my own freedom in front of my students, humbly admitting when I didn’t know an answer, acknowledging their deeply help beliefs, and communicating the value of life as Christ through His Church has shown it to me.  I was moved by my students’ freedom in a class in which they weren’t afraid to ask hard questions and they accurately perceived their thoughts and experiences to have value. I was moved by my provocation at the beginning of our discussion to really listen with openness to one another, to acknowledge we come from different backgrounds, but to remember the truth that each one of us has a human heart: that is, we can have a conversation in unity and love because I’d taught them that each of us is seeking truth, justice, beauty, goodness, and love.  I thank Fr. Giussani for teaching us a language to discuss in a way that in grace brought our class community together— I am acutely aware that such a dialogue would not occur in most places, and would have instead further deepened the divide between those holding such divergent beliefs. 

     I am humbled and deeply grateful to have witnessed a day in which Jesus Christ invited a culture of true life in Him to generate something new and attractive among my students and me.  The beautiful culture of His life has begun in our classroom at Bishop O’Connell High School. 

Note: Students' names changed for privacy.