Beyond Choice

By Julia Smucker

While traveling recently, I saw a button on someone’s backpack that proclaimed, “My body, my choice.” The allusion was clear, and I pondered how much importance our society places on choice. We all make choices, but is it an absolute value by which to measure everything else? Can there be choice without responsibility? Equally striking was the word “my,” carrying with it the idea that choice is a private possession, that one person can make choices in isolation. Should my choices matter only to me – even if another body is dependent on mine?

The individualism implied in this slogan has driven the abortion debate in endless circles. The tendency on both sides to frame their arguments almost exclusively in terms of individual rights has led to something of a stalemate in the public square: a woman’s right to choose comes up against a child’s right to live. Individuals do of course have genuine rights that must be respected, but to move beyond the current dead ends, something more is needed. The individual does not exist in isolation, but rather in relation to and as part of community and society. Rights do not exist in isolation, but rather they relate to certain values.

Considering values helps to shed light on the meaning of rights. We can affirm a number of positive goods at once, but also insist that these goods be rightly prioritized. Nobody is likely to deny that life is a good, and, when kept in healthy perspective, so is choice.

But when anyone’s choice is deemed more valuable than anyone’s life, the priority of values is out of order. When a woman’s choice not to be pregnant trumps the life of her child, when parents’ choices endanger their children either before or after they are born, when a disturbed man’s choice to stockpile an armory results in the death of innocents, when someone’s choice to die solely on their own terms becomes more precious to them than life itself – in all of these cases, choice has been made an idol, at a grave human cost.

When understood in relation to what is most valuable, rights can bring real depth to the conversation. For instance, Catholics believe that a person’s right to life neither begins nor ends at birth but extends throughout one’s natural life. And since this right is rooted in the dignity we all share as bearers of the image of God, it is bigger than the right to simply remain alive. This informs how we should treat everyone, especially those whose human dignity is most often disregarded: the unborn, the poor, immigrants, the imprisoned, the ill and the disabled. To see life as a value and a right is to recognize that all people deserve to be treated with dignity.

When human dignity, or even life itself, is subordinated to individual choice, it often leads to what Blessed John Paul II famously termed the “culture of death.” If we’re to find a cure for this social ill, it requires a recognition that human beings are made to live interdependently. Our choices are not ours alone: they affect others beyond ourselves. And no choice is of greater value than any life.

Julia Smucker holds an master’s degree in systematics from Saint John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota. Since being received into the Catholic Church in 2010, she has sought to integrate the gifts of her Mennonite heritage within her newfound ecclesial home. Her commitment to nonviolence has found deep resonance with Catholic teaching on the dignity of all human life. She is a regular contributor to the group blog Vox Nova.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."

The Potential to Be

By Sarah Vabulas

Potential. Every person has it. It’s a lot to live up to – to fulfill my potential.

What does this mean exactly? For Catholics, it means each person has dignity, that each of us is so much more than we may appear to be at any given time. We are each created to love God more every day and find God in every person despite our differences. Unfortunately, I often find myself lost amidst today’s culture, which makes recognizing God even more difficult.  I struggle to find balance in my work, my family, my social life and my prayer life. Fortunately, my family and friends continuously remind me to discern my potential.

We face daily choices of how to fulfill our individual potential (including the choice not to fulfill it). Living in a culture more confused about the truth than ever is exhausting. People, young and old, are searching for truth. When those of us who are faithful Catholics stand up for our values in the face of tough choices (whether at home or in the voting booth) we are often called intolerant. But we cannot and should not separate our faith from our ability to make crucial decisions.

Every day we are faced with choices in our relationships. Whether it be in a friendship, within a family, or in a romance, these choices affect not only ourselves but those around us. As a 29-year-old woman, I watch my peers make choices that don’t always enable them to fulfill their greatest potential. However, unlike millions of children each year, they have the gift of life to try.

My heart breaks when I hear reports of the number of abortions that take place each day in our country. We live in a great nation, one with even greater potential. Yet due to any number of reasons and a government that allows it, millions of children are not given the chance to find their potential because of abortion.

Abortion robs the dignity not only of the tiny human person who loses his or her life but of the mother and father who make this life-altering choice. The Roe v. Wade decision occurred 10 years before my birth. I shudder to think of the possibilities, the potential, of the number of my peers that didn’t get their shot at life. I often wonder how the world would be different.

My generation is full of loneliness. We are all searching for deeper community and a connection with the world. I can’t help but think that because we allow such monstrosities as abortion, this culture shift won’t change. And lately I’ve been wrestling with the intolerance of violence against children and the tolerance for abortion. To me, these things are the same.

To defeat the tolerance for abortion, we must change hearts. It is up to my generation to do so. If we recognize the potential in every life, I believe that we will live in a world where we no longer have to wonder if we are we missing a generation of friends, colleagues, leaders and heroes because of abortion. 

We are each called to fulfill the potential in ourselves. It’s as simple as that. But it’s a shame a million of us each year aren’t given the same chance to live up to it.

Sarah Vabulas, AKA “Vabs,” is a graduate of Saint Mary’s College at Notre Dame where she studied communications and theology. She has a social media presence known as the Catholic Drinkie where she blogs about her love for the Catholic faith and her pursuit of community and a tasty beverage. She coordinates the 20/30 Somethings group at her parish, the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."

What Children Teach Us About Abortion

By Mary DeTurris Poust

As deeply committed as I've been to the pro-life effort over the years--going on marches to Washington, standing up in college classes to argue my point, writing columns and feature stories and blog posts--I have to admit that the shock value of abortion can begin to fade when you fight the same fight year after year, decade upon decade. We know all too well the horrors of abortion, but after a while I have found myself getting numb to that harsh reality, tired of having to say the same thing over and over.

Enter my 12-year-old daughter, Olivia, who has not yet been jaded by the larger society's blasé view of unborn babies and its acceptance of abortion on demand. Children, it seems, know intuitively that there is something terribly wrong with abortion, something incomprehensible. They have not yet been entangled in the relentless drumbeat of "my body, my choice." They can still see clearly and with honesty.

Maybe it's because children are so much closer to life inside the womb. Maybe it's because they recognize the scary possibility that someone could have chosen to end their own life before it had begun. Maybe it's because children are so pure and untainted by cynicism and selfishness and fear that they recoil at the suggestion that anyone anywhere at any time would willingly choose to kill their unborn child and see it as the "better" option, the lesser of two evils.

It's not an easy thing, to sit down with your 10-year-old or 12-year-old or 16-year-old and talk about abortion. Even as a committed pro-lifer, discussing abortion feels like I am betraying them somehow, like my role in the adult human family ties me to this evil in our midst because I have been unable to stop it, because I have carried babies in my womb and should never ever become numb to the prospect of someone ending such a life. And my children stare at me incredulous, sure I can't be right about this, about the numbers, about the methods, about the reasons.

Up until now they've assumed--probably because they spend so much time in Catholic circles where people are mostly pro-life--that their view, our view is "normal" or popular, and I've had to tell them quite bluntly, especially as they begin to spread their wings and voice opinions in public, that they face an uphill battle, that they will be made to feel they are ignorant or intolerant or hateful because they believe a life that begins at conception should be protected and nurtured from that point until natural death. It's not easy to prepare your children for the awful words you know will be thrown at them if and when they decide to share their views as they get older. My 16-year-old son has already learned to be quiet in some instances at his public school rather than risk being branded a hater because he is pro-life.

What does that say about us, about our society, about this 40-year battle that shows no sign of letting up, especially in my own state of New York, where the radical so-called "Reproductive Health Act" is being pushed so fiercely by our governor that his State of the State address sounded more like a NARAL rally?

This is where we live, not just geographically, but spiritually, intellectually. We live in a collective mindset that refuses to listen to reason, refuses to listen to the science of ultrasound, refuses to listen to the heartbeat that proclaims the right to life with less fanfare but more power than any politician pounding out propaganda from a podium. But we can also hope that the world may yet learn to listen to the wisdom of children, who know better than we adults that, in the words of Dr. Seuss, "A person's a person, no matter how small."


Mary DeTurris Poust has written for Catholic and secular publications for nearly 30 years. She is the author of six books, including the recently released "Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God" and "Everyday Divine: A Catholic Guide to Active Spirituality." She blogs at Not Strictly Spiritual and is the co-host of "Guided by Grace," a show for Catholic women on Telecare TV. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and three children.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."

The Pro-Life Movement: Illuminated by Technology

By Lisa Hendey

As we mark the dismal occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, my techy mind can't help but ponder the changes the world has gone through since 1973. The year abortion-on-demand became the law of the land, the bar code was invented, the first handheld cellular call was placed, and laser discs were all the rage. It was also the birth year for both Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, geniuses whose lives would dramatically impact our own, and whose mothers chose life.

More recent technological developments have made the prospect of falling in love with our unborn children seemingly more compelling than it's been since Elizabeth felt St. John the Baptist stir in her womb at Mary's greeting.

Pregnant moms today have access to ultrasound technology that delivers high resolution, four-dimensional images of their unborn children. A search for "pregnancy apps" in the iTunes store reveals scores of apps that help parents track a baby's developments from the moment of conception. One such app, Baby Center's My Pregnancy Today, provides images of fetal development designed by medical experts that help a mother watch a baby grow day by day.

Given tools like these, the typical pro-abortion arguments seem more difficult to defend than ever before. And it seems hardly coincidental that the advent of this technology coincides with statistical evidence of an increasingly pro-life culture. In 2009, a majority of Americans said they were pro-life, a first.

"I think technology that gives us a 'window to the womb' has had a significant impact on the abortion debate," says Josh Brahm, director of education and public relations for Right to Life of Central California. "Between 3D ultrasound images and documentaries like National Geographic's Biology of Prenatal Development DVD, intelligent people just can't bring themselves to call an unborn child a 'clump of cells' anymore."

Brahm also notes that pro-life activists aren't the only ones making these assertions, that atheist Christopher Hitchens said that "unborn child" is a real concept "underlined by all the recent findings of embryology." As someone who relentlessly savaged religion in favor of science and reason, it's difficult to write off Hitchens as someone trying to cloud scientific fact with a religious agenda (anti-religious, sure...).

In addition to apps and ultrasound technology, social media have given the pro-life movement a significant boost. While only half of Catholics are even aware of the presence their church has online, it's almost impossible to go on Facebook without seeing the endless stream of mom-to-be status updates, sonogram pictures, gender announcements, vlogs and other examples of pregnancy being celebrated, from its earliest weeks, as the joyful coming of another human being.

Ultimately, technology alone will not provide the answers we seek to the heartbreak of 55 million children lost to abortion. And yet armed with knowledge, with evidence, but most especially with conviction and compassion, we move forward. Each of us is called to be a part of the solution, to employ the tools in our hands, but especially the love in our hearts, to stem the tide of this tragedy.


Lisa M. Hendey is the founder and editor of www.CatholicMom.com and the author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms. She lives with her family in the Diocese of Fresno, California.

For the week of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this blog is featuring guest posts by Catholic bloggers who participated in the November 2012 USCCB event, "An Encounter with Social Media: Bishops and Bloggers Dialogue."