Gone

The last post. Sounds kind of mournful, doesn't it. This being the final week of my contract with Abbotsford Right to Life, I'm making my last comments on johnonlife. My next contract, which starts in September, is with that wonderful theatre company in Vancouver, Pacific Theatre, where I will be the general manager.

This post is a bit of a ripoff in a way. I wrote a response to a post in that great blog ProWomanProLife, and have decided to use it as my last comment in my own blog (my apologies to Andrea Mrozek).

So here goes. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more....

People do all kinds of irrational things, even when they are well aware of the potential consequences of their decisions. Why do people smoke? Drink and drive? Drop out of school? Neglect exercise and a good diet? Refuse to see a doctor when they experience odd and fearful symptoms? Have abortions? We all know someone who has paid the price for such decisions.

Seldom is the answer to these questions a rational, carefully thought through, intelligent answer. That’s because there aren’t such answers to these questions. Education regarding the likely consequences of these behaviours is routine in school and workplace settings. Fortunately, these education efforts are slowly having an effect, and society is the healthier for it.

The exception is abortion. Here education is almost completely lacking. Most women are kept in the dark about the harmful consequences of abortion for many women. Any attempt to address the matter is emotionally and vociferously resisted by women’s groups, parliamentarians, post-secondary students’ councils, etc. Consequently, women are duped into thinking that abortion is an nice, hassle free, in-by-nine-out-by-ten-and-back-to-work procedure.

Adding to the difficulty is that we have allowed the “pro-choice” people to narrow the field of argumentation, making stereotyping that much easier. Pro-choice doesn’t mean choosing among long-term solutions to crisis pregnancies in the best interests of the woman and anyone else affected by the decision. It simply means the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, as if there were no other good solutions.

But “pro-life” has also come to mean the choice of whether or not to have an abortion. Neither side concentrates on the long-term solutions. Both sides concentrate only on the fetus--whether it lives or dies. Neither choice is rational in and of itself, in that each is short-term and ignores the context within which the choice is being made and the long-term consequences of making it.

Pro-choice ideology is narrow, short-term, unimaginative, and potentially harmful to the long-run best interests of the decision-maker. I am suggesting that pro-life ideology, as it is understood in society today, is no different. If we want to do women and girls a favour, we will have to become a lot more creative, more daring, harder working, and more intelligent in our advocacy than we are now.

Now I understand that in taking a pro-life position, most of us are doing so on a moral, even theological basis–-the sanctity of life. I believe in this as well. But God didn’t create us just to exist–-to breathe, eat and wet our diapers. He created us to live in a certain positive and fulfilling way and for a certain purpose. People and structures that threaten this way of life and that purpose are to be opposed and destroyed. What is the pro-life movement doing to sanctify life beyond merely getting life started? That is the huge question. Its answer should be the real reason for our existence.

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Now for a few closing remarks and thank yous. Abbotsford Right to Life has been very supportive of my writing endeavours, and has politely overlooked my mistakes while lauding my occasional successes. Thank you to Dorothy Blaak and Arlene Penner for being wonderful colleagues for this past year.

Suzanne Fortin's Big Blue Wave is a treasure trove of information and opinion (although I would advise her to drop some of her bloggers in the interest of greater credibility). I have appreciated her support for what I am trying to do, and I wish her the very best in raising that new baby.

Feminists for Life and ProWomanProLife are doing wonderful work in providing a creative pro-life perspective in a pluralistic society.

Approximately 3100 readers from around the world have logged into my site. While some of you ended up there quite accidentally, I hope that many of you were helped in some way to think through issues. I noticed that the IP addresses appearing in my blog counter included regular readers in the federal and British Columbia governments, as well as with Fraser Health. Thanks for your interest.

Thank you to Terry O'Neill for drawing my blog to the attention of a wider audience in its earlier days. The same to John Hof.

Thanks to everyone who sent in comments to various posts. While I sometimes disagreed with them, I was always challenged to think more thoroughly about the issue in question.

Thanks to my son Steve, who helped me to set up the blog in the first place, who provided guidance with any technical issues, and who did some good research for me on the Internet from time to time. He, along with his sister Julie and their mother Sharon, were my best critics (as usual).

And finally, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.