The “March for Women’s Lives” which took place in Washington, DC this past spring was quite an event. Hundreds of thousands of women and men of all ages took to the streets of the nation’s capital to protest policies that limit women’s “reproductive freedoms.” We all know that what this protest really demanded was the unrestricted freedom for a mother to kill her unborn child, under the auspices of “choice.”
A group of about a dozen or so seminarians, including me, from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, decided we would go to Washington to pray for those involved in the march, to defend the rights of both women and unborn children against the horrors of abortion, and to witness to the “culture of life” (as our Holy Father has called it).
When we arrived in Washington, there was a place reserved for clergy along the sidewalks, which was barricaded off from the road where the actual march would take place. Although most of us were only seminarians, we were given permission to wear our clerical attire as a witness to the Church, so most people there thought that we were priests.
The march began in a very civil manner, that is, until it reached the point on the street where we had congregated. When the marchers caught sight of us, many began to shout obscenities, mocking the Church and the priesthood. For over three hours, we quietly prayed the rosary and the Divine Mercy chaplet while being barraged by a steady stream of taunts and jeers from the marchers. We were called pedophiles, perverts, rapists, bigots, liars, devil worshippers, and just about every obscene name one could think of. There was a constant chant of “get your rosaries off my ovaries,” and “not the Church, not the state, women should decide their fate.” Some even went so far as to mimic lewd sexual acts in front of us. A fellow seminarian and I were spat upon by one marcher. At one point, a few male marchers were able to get around the barriers and came right up behind us to taunt us, hoping to instigate a response. I have to admit that, a few times, I was very close to losing my poise. But we were not there to get into any fights; we were there to pray.
We stayed for almost the entire march, and finally when time came to leave, we were reluctant to get on the metro because it would be packed with so many of these people who had so viciously mistreated us. Thankfully, most people on the metro were more civil towards us. Maybe the fact that there was no longer a barrier separating us made them a little less audacious. I was able to enter into a fairly civil conversation with a woman who wanted to know how I could possibly support an ideology that tells women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. The fact that the woman’s argument was driven by a conviction that the unborn child was simply part of her own body and not a separate human person at least exhibited some semblance of logic. However, once I convinced her that it is not logical to believe that simply because the child is still in the womb of its mother that it is not a human being, she proceeded to engage in an ad hominem attack (attacking the person rather than the argument). She questioned how I could possibly make any sort of argument since I was associated with a group that had committed so many immoral atrocities. She thought that since I was in a roman collar, I must be a child abuser. I responded saying that I had never done any of those things, and regardless of what I have done, it does not change the argument regarding abortion.
Unfortunately, we had to get on our trains, so the conversation was abruptly ended, and we made it back to the seminary without any further incident.
My reason for writing this article is not to elicit sympathy for the abuse that we were subjected to; when one makes a decision to follow Christ, he should expect this sort of thing. However, I hope to expose the irony of such a situation. Most proponents of abortion are always touting a philosophy of toleration — everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe. Yet, if a group of men decide to peacefully defend a contrary position, they may be subjected to malicious abuse and intolerant hatred.
That being said, however, I have to reiterate my earlier point that the abortion issue is not about the character of pro-lifers or even the hatred and abuse that we were subjected to from those proponents of abortion. The abortion issue is about whether or not a woman should have the right to kill her unborn child, and the damage that abortion does to both the woman and the child. For those who would deny that the unborn child is actually a human person, even though medical science and reason both confirm this, there is not much that can be said. An argument can only be successful if people are willing to listen to reason. Unfortunately, the abortion issue is no longer an argument of reason, rather it is one that attempts to skirt reason. We must all continue to pray for an end to abortion and a greater sanctity and dignity towards all human life.
The author of this article is a second-year seminarian at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmittsburg, Maryland. Please keep him and all seminarians who are so courageous in answering God's call to be private (and public) witnesses for truth.
