The Children in the Road

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - January 21, 2005

Thirteen years ago I went to jail for the first time, to interview a pro-life hero for a magazine I had helped to found in college.

Bill Cotter had been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for the "crime" of sitting in the doorway of a Brookline abortion clinic to try to shut down business for a day.

Pro-abortion propaganda and mainstream media often portray pro-lifers — especially those who would do what Bill did — as foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics who at any moment might hijack an airplane. Quite to the contrary, Bill was a soft-spoken, humble, compassionate straight-shooter who was as logical in his response to abortion as he was while designing computer software for a living.

He described what he did as a "reasonable or even, in a way, feeble response to mass murder. It's a direct protection of lives that are in imminent danger of violence and death. The reasonable response to killing in our midst is to stop the killing. It's not simply to object to it, or to write to politicians to address the underlying conditions, although those things need to be done, too. If a child is in the road, we go and yank him out of the road instead of turning our backs, going home and writing to change traffic patterns."

I used Bill's analogy about saving children in danger during a conversation with a woman in October. I had preached on the moral responsibilities of Catholics with regard to pro-abortion politicians and the election and soon after Mass she called to complain about my "politicizing the pulpit."

I asked the woman politely if she shared the Church's teaching on abortion. She replied that she was personally opposed to abortion, but considered herself pro-choice, because she didn't think it was right to tell other women they couldn't choose to have one. When I tried gently to address that issue, she interrupted me and said, "With all the sexual abuse by priests, I can't believe that you would even talk about abortion in the pulpit!"

Priests, in general, are getting used to people using the clergy sex-abuse crisis as an argument against any Church teaching they don't like. But I thought that, since she brought the topic up, it might be an effective way to illustrate the flaw in her position on abortion.

I told her it was PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THE SEX ABUSE SCANDALS that the Church couldn't be silent on abortion. That got her attention. Then I respectfully asked her a few questions:

"Do you agree that the evil in the sex-abuse crisis was two-fold: first, the sin and crime of the abuse itself; and, second, the sin of omission by all those who knew it was going on and didn't do all they could to stop it?"

"That's exactly right, Father."

"Do you think the abuse would still have been wrong if the victim's parents knew about it and allowed it?"

"Of course!"

"And do you think that it still would have been wrong if the perpetrators, rather than abusing the kids, would have killed them instead?"

"Obviously — of course it would."

"Then, honestly, ma'am, I can't see how you can think the Church should be silent about abortion or how you can, in good conscience, say that you're pro-choice but personally opposed to abortion."

She didn't say anything, so I finished the point. "If abortion is the killing of an innocent human being, then to do nothing to try to stop that killing would be just as bad as thinking that sex abuse is wrong and failing to protect kids from the abusers."

"Are you saying that pregnant mothers are analogous to abusers?"

"No. The abortion doctors are analogous to abusers. But just as sex abuse would still be wrong even if parents allowed it, so the killing of a child is wrong even if the parents allow it or choose it. And no law legalizing sex abuse or abortion could ever make either right."

I finished by using Bill Cotter's analogy about children in the road.

She was silent for what seemed like minutes. Then she told me she would get back to me. I still hope she does.

I repeat that conversation here not to relativize the horror of the sexual abuse of minors, but to put the horror of abortion — and the inaction of so many in response to it — in its proper perspective. Just as we should have zero tolerance with response to sexual abuse, so we should have zero tolerance with respect to the ultimate child abuse. Christ expects no less of us with regard to both.

Tomorrow marks the 32nd anniversary of ROE VS. WADE, which put "unwanted" children in the road.

May it also mark an heroic new beginning for all of us in striving to protect and save them.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.