Up next: Mining babies

What Daniel said to me:

"I know, Erin, you can't concern yourself with those things. Your utter boredom and disinterest in unjust war, torture, and the death penalty show you are a conservative first and someone committed to pro-life issues second. You distrust government in almost every sector, yet feel comfortable with them policing doctor's offices, torturing individuals, and waging unjust wars."

What I said:

"Abortion is not a health care decision. It is the direct and intentional taking of an innocent human life. As a Catholic, I know it is a damnable evil (literally). As a human being, I know it's killing, and morally wrong.

"Calling abortion a health care decision is like calling slavery a private property rights decision. I don't know how morally stunted a person has to be not to see that."

Which one of us got personal, Daniel? I didn't even directly address you; I said, and I believe, that there is a moral shortcoming in thinking of abortion as a health care decision, as if the child's tiny body being torn to pieces matters not at all.

We'll never agree on abortion, Daniel, because you think the unborn child is disposable. It's as simple as that.

You know what really saddens me, Daniel?

That you think pregnant women are "incubators."

I've known a few women in crisis pregnancies. Not one of them thought of herself as an "incubator." They all thought of themselves as a mother.

Sure, they might have wished that pregnancy might not have happened when it did. Some of them thought the pills they were taking or the condoms they insisted be used would have kept pregnancy from happening--but it did.

But not one of them would have killed the child because their decision to engage in reproductive activity actually led to reproduction. Not one of them would have seen it as anything other than deeply selfish, abhorrent, even evil to take the child's life because they ended up pregnant at a time that wasn't ideal for them--why punish the child, who was innocent, for their choices as grown women? Not one of them viewed herself as a human incubator with some kind of foreign aggressor taking up space in her womb--every one of them accepted motherhood with grace, and most didn't place the child for adoption; most took on the duties and lives of single mothers with love, humor, and dignity.

They loved their children, these women. One of them was a classmate of mine in college, and I remember little "Steve," (not his real name) whom she would sometimes bring with her; there was no shortage of volunteers to help her look after him while she studied. How sweet to get my alumni magazine and see that "Steve" is doing well in high school now. How beautiful his mother's love for him, and her devotion to this child who was not planned, but who was still welcomed.

When you call pregnant women "incubators," you devalue motherhood, and dehumanize and mechanize our incredible gift of maternity. I'm sad for you if the women you know think of pregnancy this way: nine months of "forced incubation" or "imprisonment" which are much, much better avoided by paying someone to kill the child, so that the woman can just be the mother of a dead baby instead of a living one. I can't imagine what experiences in your life have led to you thinking of God's beautiful gift of pregnancy as some kind of robotic "incubation" that women must avoid at all costs, even at the cost of killing their tiny unborn daughters or sons.

I pray for you, Daniel, I really do, all the time. I know that you know that's not some passive-aggressive fake statement, either; my particular prayers go up for you when I'm at Mass or praying the rosary.

Daniel, how is the fetus a part of the woman's body? If she's carrying a male child, does she suddenly have a penis?

And I'm not uninterested in the women. I've talked with post-abortive women and read their stories. I've heard about how they still cry, shake, or vomit ten years after their abortion if they hear a vacuum cleaner start, or hear a sudden wail of a newborn. I've heard about the tremendous guilt they suffer when they have a subsequent pregnancy and give birth. I've heard of their loneliness, depression, despair, and even suicide attempts when they realize they didn't "make a health decision" or "terminate a pregnancy" but killed their own precious irreplaceable child.

I'm glad you acknowledge that the fetus is growing and developing inside her mother's body. I don't know how you can say to the developing child, "I'm sorry, but your life is expendable, because otherwise your mother isn't free."

I don't think of pregnant women as incubators--I know they are mothers. And even if they kill the child they are still mothers--mothers who decided to kill their own offspring, and are now the mothers of dead children whom they will never know, hold, kiss, love--abortion is the triumph of selfishness over love, in fact.