Encounter with Evil

This last Saturday I joined one of my roommates for her weekly prolife work in front of the local abortion clinic. My roommate, Anne Marie, warned me to dress warmly since it was always extremely cold there. I did so, but as we left the house I thought such preparations were unnecessary since the weather didn’t really seem that cold. However, it was fortunate that she had warned me since I discovered that the street in front of the clinic was much colder than the rest of the city. It is rumored among the prolifers that this is the work of the devil, and of that I have no doubt.

We arrived early in the morning, shortly after eight, when only a handful of the sidewalk counselors were there. Those who would form the rosary procession would arrive later. Anne Marie and I spent the morning wandering up and down the sidewalk in an attempt to keep warm as we prayed through all twenty decades of the rosary and tried to hand out prolife pamphlets. No one was allowed to come alone for the “procedure,” and most were accompanied by a husband/boyfriend or sometimes even a mother or sister. The faces of most of the young women were downcast and sad while they were jerked along by their male counterparts. They refused to make eye contact with us, many refused to hear what we had to say or take the pamphlets we offered with abortion facts and pregnancy help information. Many of the men answered curtly on behalf of their woman and wouldn’t even let them answer. Some women were haughty and angry and barely acknowledged our presence.

I was not bothered by the treatment we received, after all it is their salvation and the life of the child which were paramount, but my heart ached as I watched these women, so young and still so beautiful, make their way into the clinic. Did they not know what they were about to do? Did they not know that what they would receive from the Planned Parenthood counselors, which the volunteer prochoice “escorts” kept mentioning trying to get the pregnant women out of our hands, was only a list of lies? Did they not know that in killing their child, they stripped themselves of the beauty and femininity God gave them? Did they not know that they were allowing themselves to be used and abused? Did they not know that submitting to this turned them into mere sex objects and would continue to remain unloved and used only for the man’s gratification? Did they not know that they were perpetuating the vicious cycle of use and abuse, hatred, sin, death, misery, brokenness, and divorce? Did they not know that it would deeply damage their ability to love and close their hearts to any real love of any kind? Did they not know that abortion is murder??? Not to mention the endless list of other psychological, spiritual, and physical ways in which they would be probably permanently damaged. I was also shocked at how young most of the “prochoice” advocates were. I wondered about them too. What brought them to the clinic? Did they have any idea the evil and destruction with which they had allied themselves?

There was a discussion among some of the prolife advocates on the best way to deter people from entering the clinic. One mentioned organizing large groups of people with large, graphic signs in the hopes that it would intimidate people from entering. This, I believe, is the wrong approach. It is true that the prolife movement should perhaps have more organization and needs more people at every clinic. However, intimidation is not the way to deal with it. Perhaps, it would solve the problem at the moment, deterring her temporarily from having an abortion. Perhaps she would go somewhere else. Even if every clinic had that many people, it would still only be a bandaid on a hemorrhage. It must be a ministry, as in general it seems to be, at least with the group I encountered this Saturday. Most women don’t go for abortions “just because.” There are reasons. Often it is out of desperation or coercion. In nursing school we were taught that we don’t just treat the patient, we treat their families too. The same is true in this case. These women come from living and family situations, and yes a society, that perhaps drive them to it. Though they become murderers in the process, they are not alone in the act. There are so many broken and wounded hearts out there, struggling but shackled by confusion, ignorance, and helplessness, and yes selfishness and pride. These women – and men – need and deserve our love and compassion and whatever help can be offered. What is needed is healing and love. Abortion is both a symptom and a cause of the continuing deterioration of society. In the end it is truly the human heart searching for Love but knows not where to find Him.

As Anne Marie and I continued to walk up and down the sidewalk praying, I was feeling very helpless in the wake of so many entering the clinic. I was constantly reminded of Auschwitz. Images of both concentration camps – Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau – came to mind, but even more potent was the sense of oppressive death that I had encountered during my visit there a few years ago. I remembered particularly the gas chambers and the execution courtyard where who knows how many thousands died and where the feeling of evil and death was especially intense, even this many years after the war. I felt a similar sense of evil and death exuding from the abortuary like a poisonous fog. I was also struck by the similarity between the two situations: a brutal extermination of a whole group of people. I was tempted to enter the clinic myself and start yelling “Stop! Stop! Do you know what you are doing?!!” Yet this would be futile and would only end up in my arrest. Grief weighed on me from the death and ruin occurring just a few feet from me. What we were doing seemed so futile, so little in the face of such tragedy, as if it were a little dam trying to the stem the ocean of blood spilled in our nation and throughout the world.

At the end of the morning, I wondered “how many did we reach?” “How many abortions were stopped?” Truly, we don’t know and never will this side of eternity. Yet it is not for us to know. God is in charge. Some were reached, and for those we praise and thank God. For the others, it is in His mercy to deal with them as He knows best and we can only pray and hope that He will bestow His healing and mercy on them. Although in the face of such sadness I was tempted to pray only the Sorrowful Mysteries, I realized that the battle is not ours but the Lord’s, and His is the victory. Indeed, we must hope and rejoice even in the midst of apparent defeat. Later in the morning another of my roommates, Sara, had joined us, and the three of us ended the morning truly joyfully with the Glorious Mysteries and singing hymns to the Lord. Indeed, Christians have the unique position in history that we know throughout this battle from beginning to end, that we have already won.


“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” - Words of Our Lady to the children at Fatima, 1917