(LifeSiteNews) — In the shadowlands of human history, even in the glare of the Middle Eastern sun, the fell spirits move always toward the throats of the most innocent. The master of these spirits demands more and more sacrificial victims. The men who serve these spirits, being cowards, choose those most easily overpowered. Thus it is that child sacrifice returns to us, even after an epoch of being driven underground.
It is with an understanding of this that I present the great SPIRITUAL urgency of pro-life rescues. Last week, I gave my 20, mostly practical, reasons for such rescues. But the most profound, and likely most feared, reasons for rescuing involve the radical identification with abortion victims that rescuing provides. Such radical identification enhances the spiritual strength of arms of the pro-life cause.
When Pope Francis called for Catholics to “accompany” marginalized people, I understood the call. It is a call to move past the labels and make ourselves present in the very lives of these people. It is what I have tried to do with my career in human services. We try, of course, to help those less fortunate, but even if we can’t provide aid, our presence as they endure trials is a major spiritual comfort. To offer this we must be their friends/brothers. As such is their personhood recognized and their humanity respected. Now, no one is more marginalized in America than the unborn child. Their mothers, too, experience the piercing aloneness (far more devastating than “loneliness”) imposed upon them when they experience a crisis pregnancy. They are thrown abortion, like tissue, to smother their bothersome tears. Into these killing fields come pro-lifers to sidewalk counsel, to offer crisis pregnancy centers and other help. Identification begins here.
In the opening pages of the tubercular Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court announced that they were not going to deal with the question of when human life begins. In so doing they shut down the entire argument for the unborn and against abortion. They also established the unbreakable template that has shielded courts from having to address biology, scientific fact, or fetal development. Instead, courts invent categories to put the cases under “women’s rights,” “access”, property rights, states rights – never babies’ rights. Even the Republican half-measure (see previous articles), the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, didn’t go there. So the unborn have no voice in any court that decides their life and death. Virtually every court, which means every JUDGE, refuses to allow discussion of the lives of the unborn. So the unborn are not just marginalized, they are actively denied existence. Not only are they not persons, to our courts they have never existed!?!?
So rescuers sit and lay themselves down, not just to prevent the abortionist killing, but to testify to the truth of the baby’s existence. The rescuer puts himself or herself in harm’s way to share, however weakly, the threat the child is under. In some rescues we do not speak, just as the voices of the unborn are muted in abortion. In rescue, sometimes we may refuse to provide our identification since the unborn are given no names. We do not walk away from the abortion mill when ordered because the unborn cannot and are not allowed to walk away from the mill. We choose helplessness, as the children are helpless. Vulnerable to the designs and actions of wicked men and women, be they abortionist, law enforcement, or court. We accept the abuse and suffering willingly, since the unborn baby has no choice but to accept even worse. And we owe NOTHING to a law enforcement bent to cannibalistic law!
READ: Elderly jailed pro-lifer allowed to see doctor, released from 20-hour lockdown after LifeSite report
By our helplessness, our unjust arrest, unjust trials, and unjust imprisonment, we draw closer.
It is more difficult for our corrupted courts to deny the existence of rescuers (though the media will try). We prepare for these rescues with much prayer and fasting, pleading with Jesus to unite our suffering with the babies’ suffering through HIS suffering. Remembering always that “the angels of these little ones constantly hold My Father’s Face in their hands.” (Matthew 18:10). If you quibble that our actions are more physical than spiritual, I respond that these are linked. The greatest SPIRITUAL events of all history were the PHYSICAL crucifixion and Resurrection of a human Body.
And it may not be long, as the societal acceptance of violence against pro-lifers grows, that the ultimate sacrifice may be demanded of us. Please spare me the jingoism that “it can’t happen here.” America has already extinguished hundreds of millions of lives, and our government acts like the Soviet Union in defense of aborting.
The radical identification with the unborn was pioneered by Joan Andrews Bell decades ago, and Mary Wagner has added to the legacy. Joan’s prison letters formed a book on the subject, whose title sums up radical identification: “You Reject Them, You Reject Me.” This article would have been greatly improved if I had access to the beautiful writings of these faithful ladies, but alas, I am currently imprisoned following their lead and therefore have no access to their writings.