From Joezette MacKay, Pietermaritzburg
Responding to Sharon West’s letter of November 13, I have been Catholic my whole life but was at the same time pro-choice in “special” circumstances. A lot of my fellow Catholics would get confused and asked how I could be Catholic and pro-choice as, honestly, the two have no commonality. But I couldn’t understand how would I keep a child born out of rape—surely the “hated monster”, as Ms West puts it,should not be born.
That was until I read Mother Theresa’s biography in which she said: “No child created is a mistake.” I asked myself, could that be true? If I believed that all life came from God, how could I be an advocate for abortion in any circumstance? This gave me serious food for thought.
After some time I was given another book to read, The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers, and that confirmed for me that if I proclaim that God is the author and finisher of all life, then I have to believe that as much as the child was created out of an act of violence, he or she is still a human person who deserves to be loved and cared for.
No child created by the Creator deserves anything less than the opportunity to live. With God’s strength—not our own—we can overcome any circumstance we face. I believe that with every fibre of my being.
I am also a registered nurse by profession and I’ve seen how abortion under any circumstance can have devastating psychological effects which hang like a dark cloud over the female who decides to take that road.
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