Saturday, January 22, 2005
Life: What is being asked?
This post on open book today led to this comment:
Many of us would be moved speechless by viewing such a scene. My exposure to city violence, the stories of sexual and physical abuse from friends and family, and reading on the history and aftermath of human warfare was enough to steer me toward pacifism. Pacifism shored up my own beliefs against abortion.
However, many St Blog's participants continue to misunderstand and ridicule pacifism as a coherent and sound philosophy from which to operate as a Catholic.
The dynamic of abortion on demand is more complex for many people than witnessing graphic pictures and beocoming a convert. Likewise pacifism is far more than seeing violence perpetrated on innocent people and deciding to abjure rendering harm. Some commentators have difficulty getting around their perception of my "dissent," and it must be asked if pro-lifer extremists inflict their own damage to the cause by their actions or words. Sometimes those actions or words are enough to stop people before they get to the pictures.
And this immediate reply:
Todd:
I posted this link on this day as a way of memorializing the victims of abortion in a way that recognizes the truth about their deaths.
I didn't post it, really, as an opportunity for you to enter the thread and immediately try to direct it in the direction you see fit. You have your own blog for that, I believe.
Your disdain for prolifers, thousands of whom are out marching today, and all of whom understand perhaps even more deeply than you do the complexities of abortion and have their own difficult journeys that have taken them to a place of advocacy for the preborn, is tiresome.
For once, let's just think of others - the children lost, the children whose lives hang in the balance this very day, the girls and women who are wrestling with decisions, past, present and future...and resist the temptation to draw attention to ourselves. Deal?
On Amy's first point, I entirely agree. In her second, there are two simple solutions: First, to write essays unsullied by commentary, just post without a comment connection. The second? Suggestion taken.
The third paragraph essentially boils down to this: From the point of view of many Catholics/pro-lifers, I take an unconventional approach. For this, I'm told what I think and how my views are somehow inferior to the enlightened majority. What puzzles me is the strong and earnest desire among pro-lifers to convert the doubters, fence-sitters, and rigorous pro-choice folks to the reality of their views. The puzzlement is not so much that I doubt Amy's or anyone else's sincerity. Or even that they are occasionally successful. But I'm curious that people who are expecting an earth-shattering openness from pro-choice souls to a change a precious personal worldview, are themselves so close-minded to those who are in basic agreement with the Cause. The casual dismissal of a consistent pro-life ethic is virtually St Blog's Gospel. Opposition to the death penalty, for example, and mentioning it in the same breath as abortion, is tantamount to heresy in the online parish hall.
On that point, I'm unsympathetic. If you think advocacy for the poor, for death row inmates, for peace, and for other life issues pollutes the pure stream for the unborn, I think you've missed the boat. If it's not your issue, fine. Leave it be and focus where you believed are called to focus. If one person's one hour advocacy for foster care reform, death penalty abolition, or the end to the Iraq War is one hour lost for the unborn, then what of that one hour reading a good book, listening to music, or indulging in coffeeklatch conversation with friend? It is a moral good to advocate on behalf of others for a good cause. If that good cannot be acknowledged as one does one's own work, then indeed I think the pro-life (or anti-abortion) movement is doomed to a frustration of failure for its proponents.
I offer a different way of looking at things, a way admittedly out of sync from the St Blog's Groupthink. Amy suggests I'm drawing attention to myself. That may not be entirely false. All of us who blog are fond of our own thoughts, otherwise we'd keep them to ourselves. But to suggest that tomorrow is some kind of holiday for people to say, "Just let us say what we think about the horror of abortion and don't inconvenience us with other details," well, that strikes me as a fruitless path if the conversion of others is the end-of-the-road expectation.
It's been a long time since I marched or protested. I used to do it with friends about issues here and there. I tended then and lean now to rely more on the power of the intellect or personal persuasion. I think I talked a good friend out of having an abortion once; I'm not sure the consideration was really a serious one, and I was too shocked to investigate further. I hope I've helped people to pray about life issues--that's my job after all.
Against the clicker of tens of millions of abortion deaths worldwide, what can I offer on the life side of the ledger? One maybe? What more do I need to qualify as credible?
