I feel that,
as in the time of the Desert Fathers, the young are fleeing the
cities-wandering over the face of the land, living after a fashion in voluntary
poverty and manual labor, seeming to be inactive in the “peace movement.” I
know they are still a part of it-just as Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers’
Movement is also part of it, committed to non-violence, even while they resist,
fighting for their lives and their families’ lives. (They, together with the
blacks, feel and have stated this, that birth control and abortion are
genocide.)
I agree with
them and say-make room for children, don’t do away with them. Up and down and
on both sides of the Hudson River religious orders own thousands of acres of
land , cultivated, landscaped, but not growing food for the hungry or founding
villages for the families or schools for the children.
Dorothy
Day Open Letter to Fr.Dan
Berrigan On Pilgrimage 1972
It’s not often mentioned and perhaps not
widely known that before her conversion Dorothy Day had an abortion. In her
novel The Eleventh Virgin she describes her character having an abortion and then
being deserted by her partner afterwards. This was indeed Dorothy Day’s own
personal experience when 22 years old. She doubted that she would ever get
pregnant again and she refers to this fear in her book, The Long Loneliness.
Pelvic sepsis following this illegal and possibly unsterile procedure was not
unusual and the consequent Fallopian tube obstruction could result in sterility.
She rarely wrote about abortion but was profoundly remorseful of her lifestyle
before her conversion. In the Long Loneliness she describes how very blessed
she felt when in 1925 she realised that she had become pregnant with her
partner Forster Batterham. One can only surmise how her faith journey was
influenced by the remorse of her earlier abortion and her bliss at becoming
pregnant again.
This time
this new life would be welcomed and baptised into the Catholic Church even if
she was to lose the man she deeply loved.
Many might
say what right have I have to even raise the issue of abortion in this paper because
I am a man. We are all touched by human life but as a medical doctor and
specialist anaesthetist I was particularly involved as I was asked to anaesthetise
for abortions several times and refused.
I always
noticed who was Catholic in the anaesthetic department by seeing who were
claiming their legal right under the 1967 Abortion Act to be conscientious
objectors. One colleague even said that he wished that he was Catholic so that
he could refuse despite the fact that the legal right to refuse also applies to
any person on simply conscience grounds. In my personal experience I don’t
recall any other person refusing who wasn’t a Catholic. I should always be
grateful to Cardinal Heenan who obtained that legal concession in 1967.
When I hear
the many criticisms of the institutional Church I thank God how its intervention
in 1967 protected my mind and soul.
There are
probably two reasons why I could never have been a specialist in obstetrics and
gynaecology. The first is that I don’t think I could have suffered well the
severe sleep deprivation and secondly of how to negotiate the 1967 Abortion
Act. As a young doctor with no friends in high places the last thing I needed
was being a “troublesome” junior doctor with inconvenient scruples.
There are
two Lenten witnesses I do when possible in London. The first is the one that
the Catholic Worker reader would find not unusual. This is the marking of the
Ministry of Defence building as a sign of Christian opposition to nuclear war
preparations. The second is praying at an abortion clinic which this year was
in Ealing London at the Marie Stopes clinic. I encourage the reader to
experience both. Both require a commitment to non-violence. I was pleased to be
asked to not only sign an online promise of non-violence both verbal and
physical before the witness at the abortion clinic but also asked to sign a
hard copy when I arrived. The antiabortionists pray the Rosary and I saw no
intimidation of the patients going into the clinic. Their focus on the Rosary
meant that there was little eye contact with the pro-abortion demonstrators
which removed any spirit of judgement and antagonism and their prayer was
combined with practical support for those women who decide to change their
decision.
Would
Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin have approved of my witness for peace at the
Ministry of Defence? Would they have approved my witness for life at the
abortion clinic? Would they see the connection between the two at a time when
over 180,000 abortions are carried out in UK each year and when Parliament
voted against a ban on sex selective abortion in 2015? Can you make a call to choose life in one
issue and ignore the other? The first century Bethlehem massacre of the
innocents was then a gender discrimination against the male child whereas the
global gender select abortion is now a discrimination against the female child.
A topic perhaps
for a round-table discussion and clarification of thought?
Ray Towey
raytowey@btinternet.com
