Call me as soon as you get back
Shimek, Joseph
CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET BACK Joseph Shimek When I walked into the Na-tional Office of Post-Abor-tion Reconciliation and Heal-ing (NOPARH), on the grounds of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, I had...
...I had already spent time as a prolife activist on my college campus...
...When I showed up for work that first day, I walked into the whirlwind that surrounds its founder, Vicki Thorn...
...This assumes a level of moral abstraction that many of us have trouble achieving...
...No woman chooses abortion easily, and no abortion provider readily describes the reality of postabortion trauma...
...The caller had had an abortion, and felt guilty, depressed, alone...
...We had held informational fairs, hosted speakers, and sponsored fundraisers for local women and children in need...
...During that time, I discovered much about what makes a woman, or a couple, choose abortion...
...It's ironic...
...As long as the well-being of women is understood to be in potential conflict with the life of a fetus, then the fetus will lose every time...
...Every third child dies by choice...
...Hanging up the phone Thorn said to me, "She doesn't even think she deserves a cup of coffee...
...We also employed tactics intended to catch people's attention...
...So began my apprenticeship with Vicki Thorn...
...NOPARH is not thought of as a "prolife" initiative because it doesn't get involved until after an abortion has been performed...
...It's not like exercising your right to vote...
...At that point, Thorn was simply trying to get her to leave the house, to take a walk and buy herself some coffee...
...She was on the phone, seated behind a large desk piled high with papers...
...When I hesitated in the doorway, Thorn called me into her office and I took a seat...
...Still, it promotes life-affirming solutions to complex human problems...
...strategy...
...It was only some years later that I would be able to appreciate the tragedy of that student's situation- as well as the insensitivity of our tactics...
...Abortions are traumatic for women...
...I listened in, trying to piece together the other end of the conversation from the bits I was picking up from Thorn...
...Rather, it makes you the mother of a baby who died an unnatural death...
...Therein lies the unmentioned crux of the abortion controversy...
...Rather, they are most misleading when they cast abortion as a self-affirming option...
...for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy...
...It's that they dispute the equality of the fetus and the mother...
...It's more like cutting off your arm to free yourself from a steel trap...
...In that regard, it has much to teach those of us who wear the prolife label...
...They think that once their opponents see that the fetus is really a human being, they will recognize the injustice of abortion...
...Rather than mere legal prohibition, that should be the emphasis of any practical pro-life strategy...
...Abortion doesn't magically make you un-pregnant...
...We once put postcards in campus mailboxes that read: "This card has been placed in every third mailbox...
...CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET BACK Joseph Shimek When I walked into the Na-tional Office of Post-Abor-tion Reconciliation and Heal-ing (NOPARH), on the grounds of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, I had no idea I was beginning an internship that would change the way I thought about the abortion debate...
...For many people, that's the principle that comes into play in thinking about abortion...
...She regretted her choice, and hated herself for it...
...It could have been you...
...Prolife activists assume that, because they are galvanized by arguments focusing on the rights of the fetus, everyone else will be, too...
...Inversely, in order to help and protect an unborn child, you must first uplift and empower that child's mother...
...The lesson to be learned from NOPARH is that, in the long run, the welfare and dignity of a mother cannot be promoted at the expense of her child...
...It is a desperate last resort...
...It's not necessarily that they deny the humanity of the fetus...
...Call me as soon as you get back," she instructed...
...In 1990, she established NOPARH as an international clearinghouse for such efforts...
...Prolife activists ignore this at their movement's peril...
...Our social lives are organized around the idea that we bear greater moral responsibility for the people closest to us, to the individuals we know and love best...
...Despite what the prolife movement would have us believe, those who promote abortion are not at their most dishonest when arguing the moral or psychological insignificance of a fetus...
...When something hurts or destroys a mother's offspring, it harms her as well...
...Terminating a pregnancy is not really an empowering choice...
...That is, it's almost unnatural to expect people to side with an embryo they can't even see, rather than with the wife, daughter, or girlfriend who's standing (and often suffering) right in front of them...
...Long after the fact, I learned that we had put one of our postcards in the mailbox of a student who had recently had an abortion, and that she had been so traumatized by the procedure that she eventually left school...
...Thorn is an energetic fif thy-three-year-old, who started Project Rachel in 1984 to assist women who had an abortion...
...The biblical figure Rachel, who weeps for her lost children (Jeremiah 31:15), is eventually addressed by God: "Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears...
Vol. 130 • March 2003 • No. 5
