Written by Kathy Clubb
Last Friday, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the US Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision on abortion law, concluding that abortion is not a Constitutional right and consequently overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Anticipating the tension that has marked the United States since a draft opinion was leaked several months ago, the judges stated that they “do not pretend to know how our political system or society will react to today’s decision,” but that “even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.”[1]
The Justices’ candour showed an all-too-rare willingness to disregard the zeitgeist and concentrate on the spirit and letter of the law: in this case, the US Constitution. While pro-lifers have been rejoicing ever since, the news was greeted with horror by anti-life advocates around the world.
Roe vs Wade, the 1973 law which protected the rights of women to access abortion on the basis of their medical privacy, was a highly symbolic one for abortion advocates everywhere. Its potential downfall had been heralded as a great leap backward for men and women everywhere who rely on abortion to protect them from the unwanted consequences of their sexual activity. Their distaste for losing that valuable tool had already unleashed violent reprisals against moral and legislative powers-that-be.
Earlier this month, a pro-abortion activist was charged with attempted murder for being found with a gun, crowbar and pepper spray near the home of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. The homes and neighbourhoods of all the conservative justices had been targeted by rowdy and aggressive abortion activists in the weeks leading up to the decision, receiving tacit and sometimes explicit support from pro-abortion politicians. Following the release of the decision, the addresses of the judges were again released on social media, with calls from anti-life groups to harass them at their private homes.
Other targets have been pregnancy centres and churches, which have been vandalised, and in some cases firebombed. Those attacks began after the leak and have continued since the ruling was handed down. The irony of destroying sources of support for pregnant women while accusing pro-lifers of disregarding born children seems lost on the anti-life crowd.
Churches, especially Catholic ones, have also been targeted. Footage has circulated online of loud male and female abortion advocates interrupting Masses. Tabernacles have been broken open and, in some cases, stolen. Consecrated hosts have been spilt on the ground. Leading up to Mother’s Day, one group of foul-mouthed women known as “Ruth Sent Us” called for Catholic Churches to be targeted, even threatening to burn consecrated hosts.
Abortion proponents tried to whip up the hysteria as the expected day of the court’s ruling drew near. One militant group called “Jane’s Revenge” released an overt call to violence against anyone who opposes abortion, and included language often employed by witches:
“You have seen that we are real. We are not merely pushing empty words. We are not one group, but many. We were unsurprised to see thirty days come and thirty days pass with no sign of consilience.”
“From here forward, any anti-choice group who closes their doors and stops operating will no longer be a target but until you do, it’s open season, and we know where your operations are. The infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive.”
“You are already one of us – everyone with the urge to paint, to burn, to cut, to jam. Now is the time. Go forth and manifest the things you wish to see. Stay safe and practice your cursive. Jane’s Revenge.”[2]
Chillingly, the word “many” brings to mind the “Legion” of demons which inhabited a possessed man in the Bible. The universal call to violence by “Jane’s Revenge” was dubbed a “Night of Rage”, and although there have been a number of aggressive protests and incidents since the ruling was given, these have thankfully been less severe and less numerous than was expected.
But what is at the heart of these violent reprisals? Is this mayhem and sacrilege giving our culture a glimpse of the spirit which drives women to kill their children and of the terrible toll it takes on their souls? Are the screams and cursing really the pleas of men and women who can’t imagine life without abortion or rather, are these cries from the depths of their despair-filled lives which have been made meaningless by years of fornication, hatred of God or the aftermath of abortion?
John Horvat offers five points on which the pro-life community needs to focus which provide an antidote to the demonic and destructive abortion culture that has led us to this point: promoting true freedom, not license; promoting purity and resisting the gender ideology that has infected the ranks of conservatives; encouraging conservative politicians to unite around the pro-life cause; ensuring that pro-lifers always act lawfully; returning a religious basis to the pro-life cause (something FLI has always held essential) because the left definitely acknowledges that God is central to this issue.
Another suggestion could be added to that list: re-educating people on the meaning of true love. Love has all but lost its meaning since the gender ideologues stole that word, along with the rainbow, for their propaganda campaign. Society must be reminded that true love is sacrificial, whether that be love between spouses or between parents and their children. The pro-abortion lobby has successfully convinced the public that it is they who love, by liberating women from the shackles of “forced birth” and that it is the pro-life community, with their insistence on adhering to reality, who are the haters. Above all, it is the love of God of which those desperate souls are most in need. They need to hear of His healing and His forgiveness and of His great desire to show them mercy.
When William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” he could well have had in mind our 21st century world, wracked as it is by tensions between those who express “love” by killing their children, and those who express “hate” by trying to stop them.
While there may be little point in trying to convince a hardened anti-life advocate that her body and her choice end when a little child’s pre-born body and choice become part of the equation, we need to remember that for every furious tattooed abortion activist, there are a thousand silent, grieving women and men, ashamed of the wrong they have done, but unable to find a way back from their despair. Let us be the ones who help to turn hatred into love, and let those suffering souls know that neither we, nor God, will scorn a truly repentant heart.
