Praying Away Reproductive Freedom of Choice
by
John J. Dunphy
(Originally published in the 3/28/20 edition of The Telegraph of Alton, IL)
I was driving down East Third Street in Alton when a sign on the fence that surrounds St. Mary’s Catholic School caught my eye. It reads: “40 Days for Life. Pray to End Abortion.” The sign also carried a web site address, and I logged on when I returned to my book shop.
40 Days for Life is an anti-abortion organization that identifies itself as “the Beginning of the End for Abortion.” It asks Americans to “pray for an end to abortion in your community February 26 — April 5.” 40 Days For Life’s web site includes some interesting figures. “271 Babies Saved Since Feb. 26!” the site boasted when I checked it out on March 23.
Other figures were equally intriguing. “Since 2007, 16,742 Lives Saved, 106 Abortion Centers Closed, 196 Abortion Workers Quit.” Assuming that these numbers are accurate, it would seem to indicate that praying for an end to abortion bears pretty tangible results. Additional perusal of this web site showed me that 40 Days for Life utilizes other means as well.
In a section of the web site titled “Our Mission,” we learn that prayer should be complemented by fasting during this 40-day period. We also learn that “The visible, public centerpiece of 40 Days for Life is a focused, 40-day, non-stop, round-the-clock prayer vigil outside a single Planned Parenthood center or other abortion facility in your community.”
Prayer definitely takes a backseat with the implementation of “community outreach,” which includes “media outreach” in the form of “targeted news stories, talk shows, and editorials.” 40 Days of Prayer participants meet with local pastors and “other church leaders.” This movement then mounts “a door-to-door petition and education drive” that “reaches out to every household in your town or city.”
The coronavirus pandemic threw a monkey-wrench into this year’s 40 Days for Life operation. Shawn Carney, president and CEO of this organization, posted a special message on the web site announcing, “it’s with a heavy heart that I have decided to end the public vigil portion of the spring 40 Days for Life campaign effectively immediately due to the Coronavirus pandemic.” During the remainder of the campaign, “we will unite in prayer, fasting and spiritual union to pray for an end to abortion and this pandemic.”
Forty Days for Life obviously regards prayer as an effective means to end legalized abortion. I respectfully disagree. Those Americans who oppose the right of women to reproductive freedom of choice have been praying for an end to abortion for 47 years now. The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 1973 handed down its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion across the United States. If God has turned a deaf ear to almost a half-century of prayers to end abortion in our nation, one would almost have to assume that it’s not the abomination in His sight that anti-abortion activists claim.
I was hardly surprised to see such a sign outside a Catholic school. The Roman Catholic denomination strongly opposed abortion well before Roe v. Wade. During my senior year (1971–1972) at Marquette Catholic High School, our all-boys religion class listened to our priest-teacher condemn abortion. He taught us that abortion was part of a triptych of sin that included birth control and marrying a non-Catholic.
Father tested our power of reasoning by asking this question: “What would be a legitimate reason for marrying a non-Catholic girl?” A student replied, “If you get the girl pregnant?” Father said that indeed was a legitimate reason. Another student raised his hand to offer this answer: “True love?” Father grimly replied no. Well, so much for true love.
The Catholic Church professes to have an overwhelming concern for the unborn. I wish that it demonstrated an equal amount of concern for the already-born, such as the thousands of Catholic children over the decades who have been victimized by its clergy.
John J. Dunphy’s books include Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois and Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Invetigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945–1947.