About a year ago, I had the misfortune of having to tell my mother that her gynecologist was an abortionist.
I was scrolling through Twitter one night when a tweet from a pro-life news site caught my eye. The headline mentioned a Cleveland abortionist who held Ohio’s record for most botched RU-486 abortions. Sure enough, it was about her doctor, Doctor David Burkons.
When I broke the news to my mom and advised her to check out the story and the reports from Operation Rescue, she was speechless. “He was the superstar of the delivery room,” she said. “He was always the one who held and kissed babies.”
Over the next few days, she called other friends of hers who would make the hour trek from the Youngstown area to Cleveland specifically for his kind bedside manner and sharp medical mind. She reported that many of them were just as sickened as she was and sought out different doctors, this time ensuring that they did not perform abortions on the side.
Burkons made headlines again on September 1, in the midst of the Planned Parenthood scandal, for opening a new abortion facility in Cuyahoga Falls, just south of Cleveland.
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At the Cathedral of Saint Paul several weeks ago, the priest celebrating Mass delivered a striking homily: He focused entirely on the Planned Parenthood trafficking scandal.
Father began his homily by saying that he would not go into graphic detail about the videos produced and released by the Center for Medical Progress and moved on to explain that this is as much about human dignity as it is about abortion. Even the most pro-abortion crowd should be appalled by the callousness with which the individuals in the videos speak about the slaughter of babies, the sale of organs, and the desire for profits.
Within minutes, one family walked out and did not return.
This was really a remarkable 15 minutes; outside of monthly Respect Life Masses at Notre Dame, I had never heard a homily explicitly about abortion and protection of the unborn.
Father implored the congregation to watch the videos and confront the blatant evil that is on display therein. He also paid due attention to tangible ways of supporting the pro-life movement and witnessing to women in crisis pregnancies.
Underpinning his points was not any kind of hate or ill will—disgust and despair, certainly—but Father’s heartfelt remarks clearly came from somewhere deep in his soul.
“We cannot convince anyone of anything,” he said, “unless it comes from a place of love.”
This sentiment has been weighing on my heart for quite some time now. Reading about empathy and love of neighbor in Dante, Primo Levi, and Dostoyevsky, among others, during my senior year provided a useful conceptual framework; any encounter with one’s neighbor is an encounter with Christ and the Divine.
While this is of grave importance, actually embracing this truth when confronting the evil of abortion is no easy task. The pro-life cause has become quite adept at demonstrating love and compassion to women in crisis pregnancies or grieving following an abortion.
But what about the folks behind the scenes—folks like David Burkons and clinic staffs that make a living taking lives?
To sit and watch Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, discuss so callously how livers are in high demand; or the medical assistant announce, “It’s another boy”; or Perrin Larton, the procurement manager for Advanced Bioscience Resources, describe shipments of intact fetal tissue as smelling “icky” is positively sickening.
What makes this so disquieting is that they are full, human people. They perpetuate unspeakable acts against women and the unborn but return home to their own families at the end of the day. On display is not only the banality of evil but also the compartmentalization of evil. Sometimes the man who spent his days kissing babies in the delivery room also describes his work taking the lives of the unborn as “rewarding.”
That which makes it so troubling, though, is also the source of hope. Each person is a projection of Divine consciousness. So long as there is true remorse, no living person is beyond redemption.
Activists like Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate, like to reiterate that many pro-choice folks genuinely desire to help women. Many who support abortion rights and end up going into the abortion business claim that abortion is necessary for women so that they can avoid the physical, emotional, and financial challenges associated with birthing and raising an unwanted child. This is misguided love.
Johnson’s nonprofit, And Then There Were None, has had great success using different peaceful and legal tactics to “end abortion from the inside out,” as the organization’s website reads, and to provide support to those who do leave. Groups like And Then There Were None, Operation Rescue, and many others across the country take a holistic approach to the pro-life mission that extends beyond women seeking abortions and promoting adoption, to freeing clinic workers from the industry and exposing its horrors to a broader audience.
Clearly, they are doing something right.
Perhaps concrete action is the key to love in this case—maybe it is a case in which love follows action. Supporting the efforts of the aforementioned organization, praying, and sidewalk counseling: these small motions that humanize and express to abortion providers that our pro-life intentions are pure, seem like a solid place to start.
Blessed Mother Teresa said at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast: “If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all its problems, these problems [of life issues] can never discourage us. We must always remember what God tells us in Scripture: ‘Even if a mother could forget the child in her womb’—something impossible, but even if she could forget—‘I will never forget you.’ And so here I am talking with you. I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people first. And find out about your next-door neighbors. Do you know who they are?”
We are confronting a grave and complex crisis, and the depths of evil grow more dizzying with each video the Center for Medical Progress releases, each clinic that opens, and each headline about a botched procedure. But those perpetuating such evil are in desperate need of love. Even if it takes time for feelings to follow action (and even if those feelings never comes), we must start somewhere. Acting with love is the only way we will convince anyone of anything.
Lilia Draime is a 2015 graduate of Notre Dame and is currently a first year MA student in Catholic studies at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, MN. She makes a mean grilled almond butter and jelly sandwich. Drop her a line at ldraime@alumni.nd.edu.
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