There once was a Marianist provincial whose favorite expression was: “The aberrations of the human mind defy description.” I often think of that phrase when I read accounts of events in our world. For example, Michigan papers last month carried the story of a woman abortionist (and assistant professor at the University of Michigan), Dr. Lisa Harris, who wrote frankly about an experience she had when she was 18 weeks pregnant and was in the process of aborting another woman’s 18- week-old baby. She said, “There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and ‘thump, thump’ in my abdomen. Instantly tears were streaming from my eyes, without me being aware of what was going on … It was one of the more raw moments in my life.” One would think that this would be a wake-up call concerning what she was doing. But rather it became an opportunity for her to declare that these raw emotions should not affect an abortionist’s calling. The violence of abortions should be admitted, she says, but women should also reflect again on their rights as women. “I consider declining a woman’s request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence,” she added.
This woman abortionist specializes in late-term abortions in the second trimester when the body parts of the child are easily identifiable. At this time, the abortionist must have strong convictions concerning the correctness of the procedure, writes Dr. Harris. It will enable a woman to have “the basis for a stronger (pro-choice) movement.” Such an attitude boggles the mind! Taking a life violently while preparing to bring a life into the world and finding in this experience a basis for continuing the killings.
Earlier this month, another abortionist, Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Baptist minister, gave a jarring interview to a Dallas TV station. He stated that he realizes when he performs abortions he is engaged in “killing” — but he has no trouble with that. Boyd has been operating an abortion clinic since 1973, the year in which abortion was legalized by Roe vs. Wade. He too specializes in late-term abortions and says that he prays often and about the abortions he performs. (I wonder what kind of prayers these are?) It is interesting to note that Boyd says that he has left the Baptist Church and joined the Unitarian Church (a church largely bereft of traditional dogmatic and moral positions).
Recently the Constitutional Court of the country of Columbia made a ruling that all hospitals in the land, secular or religious, must have doctors who are willing to perform abortions and that Catholic schools must teach students about their abortion “rights.” Of course, Catholic hospitals and schools cannot obey this ruling. But it is frightening to see the extent to which secular forces in Catholic countries will go in order to undermine the influence of Catholic teaching in regard to basic morality. Because of the controversy generated, the Columbian Council of State has put the decision on hold. But secular politicians are waiting for the first opportunity to reinstate it. If that happens we will see a church-state conflict as never before in the country.
I was shocked also by the report of an Oct. 30 Dennis Miller’s Internet radio show. Miller had as guest the militant atheist Christopher Hitchens. This anti-Catholic writer used the occasion to insult Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud. Millions of people are much worse off because of her life. It’s a shame there is no hell for your b…… to go to.” This is not the first time that Hitchens has gone after Mother Teresa. In reply to the statement, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights noted how beloved Mother Teresa is throughout the world but especially in India. She is second only to Gandhi, according to him, as India’s most revered person. Donohue concludes: “Hitchens is obsessed by Mother Teresa. She is a very telling commentary on his psyche, a constant reminder that reason without faith is a dark hole.”
Our Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has often in the past two years talked of faith and reason. The two are mutually related and complementary. Mother Teresa was not only a saint because of her faith but a worker of miracles of charity as well. And because of her faith, she was one of the most vocal outspoken defenders of children, the unborn and the marginalized. This is something that a man like Hitchens, learned as he is, cannot comprehend. A blindness clouds his vision. And that of abortionists too.
Father John A. Leies, SM, STD, is president emeritus of St. Mary’s University and was formerly head of the Theology Department there.