Being truly pro-life

It is encouraging that throughout South Africa, Catholic homes are increasingly being established for pregnant women in troubled circumstances.

The latest such home, Divine Mercy House in Brakpan, opened its doors in late July, while the Mater Domini Home in Cape Town will celebrate its fifth birthday in September.

In South Africa the concept of these homes was spearheaded in the archdiocese of Durban under the guidance of Fr Massimo Biancalani.

The importance of these homes cannot be overstated. For mothers who have nowhere else to go, they provide a sanctuary and often the only alternative to having an abortion.

The homes speak the language of compassion and mercy, in emulation of Our Lord. And it is this language which will reach pregnant women who are faced with difficult choices, in ways that labelling them or issuing threats of automatic excommunication will not.

The Church must, of course, continue to argue against the Termination of Pregnancy Act. We must oppose the aggressive implementation of a policy which seems to regard every abortion as some sort of success.

But we must also be cautious about how, in different situations, we articulate our feelings about abortion. A slogan or a strategy that works in one context might have no benefit in other circumstances.

It is a limitation in our pro-life initiatives that the compassionate dimension of the Church’s response is not widely known.

The pro-choice lobby arguably benefits when the pro-life position is perceived to lack a compassionate dimension, caricaturing it as unreasonable, oppressive and anti-women.

We must acknowledge, however, that most of the people who support abortion-on-demand are principled people who occupy their standpoint with good intentions, even if we fundamentally disagree with them and regard their position as facilitating an evil which they cannot see.

While we cannot compromise our opposition to abortion, we must also seek the common ground in our efforts to save unborn lives.

We will not convince the current legislators that life is sacred because it begins at conception. In South Africa, there is no prospect that the abortion law will be overturned. Our primary objective, therefore, must be containment, as the bishops of Southern Africa have repeatedly acknowledged.

For the pro-life message to be seen as credible by those who do not believe that life begins at conception, the Church must find ways of making known its constructive ministries to pregnant women in troubled circumstances and to women who are suffering post-abortion trauma.

These homes, and not the placards with angry slogans, must become the public face of our pro-life mission.

It is right to protest against abortion as a matter of principle. But our opposition to abortion must be seen to be backed up by action.

And in that, our advocacy efforts should be geared towards petitioning the government to amend the legislation so that public resources may be allocated to homes that offer alternatives to abortion without being party to the facilitation of termination. This would serve the common good.

There is no reason for the government to regard the 233 legal abortions it facilitates every day as a victory, even if it does not share the Church’s moral perspective. Every abortion is a tragedy. Every abortion is a life killed.

And behind most abortions, there are stories of human tragedy. Added to that is the profound psychological trauma many women experience after an abortion.

Many women will still make use of access to abortions, as the law allows them to. But the government must also give concrete support to alternative options, such as those offered by Church institutions and by independent organisations such as Birthright.

The state should seek to reduce abortions by supporting and creating relevant social services and structures, which in turn would give proper meaning to the term “choice” in the Abortion Act’s title.

It is our job now to persuade the government of this.