I remember the day Roe v. Wade was announced.  I'll admit that it's a strange thing for someone to remember when they were only 14 years old at the time.  But the reason I remember it is that my father was very upset about the ruling.  My family had dinner together almost every night and politics, economics, culture, and society were frequent topics of conversation.  My father was very animated, and I remember it well.  Being only 14 years old, I said something like "I don't see what the big deal is... I mean, don't you think that women should be able to say whether or not they want to have kids?"  He turned to me—he was sitting at the head of the table, and I was sitting to his right—and in a rather harsh tone, he said simply "You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"  I'll never forget it, because it was a tone he had never used with me before.  And he was right.  I really didn't know what the hell I was talking about.  But a few short years later I got the education I needed.

I started college in 1976, just 3½ years after Roe was decided.  To help earn my way through college I started working in the Admitting Office of a world-renowned hospital.  The main thrust of my job was to escort patients being admitted to the hospital to their rooms.  After about 2 years, when I was about 20 years old and a junior in college, I transferred into a job as a medical technician in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  This was when they would train you on the job.  In that job, I drew blood from hundreds of premature babies, and babies born with anything from minor birth defects to conjoined twins.  Babies born with their intestines, or their hearts, or their spines, or even their brains outside their bodies.  Babies born without most of their brains.  Babies born with heart defects, brain defects, limb defects, urinary tract defects, genital defects, Down's Syndrome, and all other manner of chromosomal abnormalities.  I held premature babies that would literally fit into the palm of my hand.  Death was common.  I remember going home to Thanksgiving Day dinner with my family after a shift on which three babies died.  The smallest baby I remember surviving was born weighing only 14 ounces.

There were three large rooms in the NICU with patients in them.  Two of the rooms held 10 babies, each in an "isolette," what are commonly called "incubators."  These two rooms held the critically ill babies.  They were all "babies," even though gestationally they were technically "fetuses."  More on that later.  The third room also held 10 patients.  We affectionately called this room "The Pasture."  It was where the more stable babies went when they had improved enough not to need the critical care provided in the other rooms but were not quite ready to go home.  They were there mostly to feed and grow.

One baby was with us in the NICU for 15 months.  I still remember her real name, but I will call her Takisha here.  For the first 12 months or so, Takisha was critically ill.  The staff spared no effort to resolve every medical issue that arose.  We grew to love her deeply and to celebrate every success and worry over every setback.  It seemed she always took two steps forward and one step back.  Sometimes three steps back.  Nevertheless, Takisha continued to slowly improve and eventually "graduated" to The Pasture.  I remember celebrating her first birthday, after which, her improvement seemed to accelerate.  She was getting ready to go home.  One Sunday I came into work, and I could immediately tell that something was very wrong.  The air was different.  There was no chatter or "Good mornings."  I had left the unit only 12 hours earlier, and everything was fine.  It wasn't long before someone told me that during the night, out of nowhere, Takisha had gone into cardiac arrest and could not be saved.  The effect on the staff was devastating.  Over forty years later, I'm getting choked up as I write this.

Literally on the same floor, down the hall and around the corner, was Labor and Delivery.  And next to that was the "Fertility Control Clinic."  A euphemism if ever there was one.  It was the abortion clinic.  It wasn't "fertility control" at all.  It was "birth control."  And not in the contraceptive sense of that term.  I realized the irony was that what we commonly refer to as "birth control" is really "fertility control" and what they referred to as "fertility control" was really "birth control."  Birth control in its most brutal form.  Both terms intentionally designed to distract from the truth of their purpose.

It also occurred to me that here we were, in the NICU, doing everything humanly possible to save these babies (fetuses, remember?), even when there was very little hope of success, and even at enormous financial and emotional cost.  At the same time, on the same hospital floor, not 100 paces away, they were killing babies who were gestationally older than many of the babies we were trying so desperately to save in the NICU.  I could not help but realize that the only difference between the babies being saved in the NICU and those being killed in the FCC, is that the mothers in the NICU wanted their babies, and those in the FCC didn't.  And I thought "Well, if that's how we decide who gets to live and who doesn't, that someone wants them, then that leads to a very dark place that I don't want to go."

And that realization was the education I needed to understand why my father was so upset about Roe v. Wade.  Now I knew what I was talking about. 

Over the years I've matured in that realization to understand that some of the mothers do, in fact, choose to abort their babies with great pain, sadness, and reluctance.  Nevertheless, the fact remains that they abort their baby to solve some problem.  They love their baby in the abstract, the baby they have conceived in their imagination.  But the baby they have conceived in their womb, the one who has some abnormality, the one who was created in difficult circumstances, the one who came at the "wrong" time, not so much.  At least not enough to choose to bring them to birth.

After graduation from college, I continued to work in the NICU for several more years and eventually moved to a new job as a Critical Care Technician in Cardiac Anesthesia, working closely with the anesthesiologist on open heart surgeries.  I saw many more deaths, and many more lives saved.  Both children and adults, but mostly adults.  I worked there until I finished a second bachelor's degree.  Eventually I left the hospital to pursue a career as a computer programmer.  After about 5 years working in other industries, I returned to the health care industry, applying computers to the practice of medicine and to medical research.  After 13 years, I returned to the same hospital where I had worked while in college, and I continued to work there for the next 27 years.  During that time, I earned my master's degree in medical informatics from Northwestern University.

Those experiences at the hospital had a profoundly formative effect on both my career, and the rest of my life.  I became unabashedly prolife.  My prolife outlook is not only cast in concrete but is also based on personal experience.  I did not come to it blithely.  It is not naive.  It is not without compassion, nor without a personal, concrete, real understanding of the difficulties people face in life.  It has come from both happy and traumatic experiences.  And what I am left with is this:  "Well, if that's how we decide who gets to live and who doesn't, that someone wants them, then that leads to a very dark place that I don't want to go."

Once we decided that there are problems that can only be solved by killing babies, we crossed a line where The Fatal Solution becomes an acceptable solution to a problem, if the problem is important enough to us.  War becomes easier.  Assassination becomes easier.   Suicide becomes easier.  Killing our masculinity or femininity, even symbolically killing our identities, to re-create ourselves in our preferred image becomes acceptable if we feel we cannot live as we were created.

I do not want to live in a world where a homeless person's life is considered expendable because they have no one who wants them, or where an old woman is pressured to take her own life because her children can't be burdened with her, or where a baby can be left to die after surviving an abortion because his mother doesn't want him, or where a disabled child is denied care because some doctor decides the child's life isn't worth living, or where an adult child can decide that his father's life should end because he has dementia.

In such a world, politicians will more easily decide that my son's life is expendable in a war.  They will decide that old people are too much of a burden on the Social Security system.  People will decide that death is a solution to more and more problems.

If killing a baby is ever an acceptable solution to a problem, then there can be no reason to say that destroying another person's life for political purposes is not acceptable, if the political purpose is important enough to us.

If we decide that killing a baby is ever a reasonable thing to do, then there is nothing we won't do if the problem to be solved is important enough to us.

I realize that what I have said here will offend many people.  But I must say it.  In his spiritual classic The Way, St. Josemaría writes "Listen to a man of God, an old campaigner, as he argues: 'So I won't yield an inch? And why should I, if I am convinced of the truth of my ideals? You, on the other hand, are very ready to compromise… Would you agree that two and two are three and a half? You wouldn't? Surely for friendship's sake you will yield in such a little thing?'  And why won't you? Simply because, for the first time, you feel convinced that you possess the truth, and you have come over to my way of thinking!" ³

One of the great temptations we all face is the temptation to do something we know is wrong so that good may come of it.  But giving in to that temptation always causes more harm than good, even if that harm is not readily visible, or easily identified.  The broken hearts suffered by women who have had abortions attest to this.  The good that the babies who were aborted could not grow up to do will never be known or quantified, but what is known is that they will never be able to do it.  By giving in to this temptation, we say that we know better than God.  Even if the baby being aborted was conceived in an evil way, deciding that it is better to kill the baby than to nurture her, is denying that God is capable of drawing good even out of evil, and that he has a plan for that baby that will make the world a better place and enrich the life of the mother, if only she will let God take charge and do the good he has in mind.

This essay would be incomplete if I failed to put this truth into the context of God's mercy and forgiveness.  We are all sinners.  And while I have never participated in abortion in any way, I have sinned greatly, sometimes in ways that are just as grievous as abortion.  But our heavenly father is eager to forgive.  He stands on the top of the hill, peering out to the horizon, anticipating the first sign of our return.  The instant he sees us coming, he runs to us to throw his arms around us and clothe us with his mercy, and restore us to his household. (cf. Luke 15:11-32)  We do not have to earn his mercy, or prove to him that we are worthy of it.  It is on permanent offer.  We only need to say "yes" to it, with sincere sorrow in our hearts.

Read and meditate on the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

In this essay, I am not expressing any opinion on the role of civil law with regard to abortion or any other "life issue," although I may address that in the future.  My opinions on that have changed over the years and will surprise some, but that's for another time.  Rather, I am only trying to accomplish three things:  1) to convey my thoughts about why abortion is always a moral evil that should be avoided by all people and in all circumstances; 2) to encourage those who do not agree with me to reconsider their position; and 3) to encourage all those who have had an abortion, or encouraged or assisted someone to have an abortion, to acknowledge the gravity of their failure and to seek the guaranteed mercy and forgiveness of God.

If anyone is offended by the things that I say in this essay, I do not apologize.  I have tried my best to be true to the maxim that "charity without truth is not charity, and truth without charity is not truth."  I apologize only to the extent that I have failed in that.  If you choose to terminate our friendship, I will mourn that loss and will always remain ready to resume it in the future.

¹  Evangelium Vitae.  Paragraph 12.  1995.  Pope St. John Paul II.  www.vatican.va.

²  Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

³  The Way.  Number 395.  1934. Josemaría Escrivá.

⁴  Luke 15:11-32.

4) She's not a likeable person. Really not likeable, unless you're an aging and unattractive governor of California looking for something on the side. She's phony. She took credit for other people's work and ran from her own mistakes. She slept her way to power. Not likeable at all. Less than a year ago the Main Stream Media™ was tearing her apart over the fact that she had done nothing in her first three years in office. Then she became the media’s darling once they could no longer cover for Biden’s dementia, but the people didn’t buy it.

5) She constantly lied or ran away from her record. She WAS the border czar, and she helped opened the floodgates and kept them open for four years. She talked like she was tough on crime but her record shows that she backed the antifa riots and was soft on hard criminals. She claimed to have "raised children" when the truth is she gained a stepdaughter when the girl was 15. That's not "raising children". The false claim that Trump wanted a national ban on abortion (I personally would support that, of course, but he never said it). Even the mainstream media was appalled at some of the whoppers she told during the debate, with Politifact taking her down on a number of points.

6) She could not have picked a worse, more pathetic VP. He was even more unlikeable than she, and even sicker than she. A disgusting, despicable excuse for a man. Men hated him for his denigration of men. Women hated him for his denigration of women. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. His ”stolen valor” loomed large in this election. His lies were more blatantly obvious than hers, and his attempts to do an end-around them were hilariously bad. He was put forward as "the face of masculinity", to which anyone with a brain responding with incredulous, mocking laughter. An awful performance from an awful man. He couldn’t even help her win his home state, a state that Biden won 4 years ago. Almost anyone else would have been a better choice.

7) She hid the fact that her boss has had dementia for at least the last 3 years. She was part of the coverup, "in the room" as she said. Had every been honest and that fact had been acknowledged earlier, the Dems would have had the opportunity to prep and groom Biden's successor - anyone would have been better, from Shapiro to Newsom. Instead, she aided in the coverup, perhaps in order to establish herself as the go-to for the Dems once the truth came out. Regardless of her intent, whether it was selfish or just stupid, she was still a willing and active participant in the coverup, a very dangerous act to leave this country a rudderless ship, and the voters held her accountable for her role.

8) She's part of the War Party. She wants war, she wants to poke Russia in the eye, she wants to maintain unrest in the Middle East. Americans are tired of the constant beating of that war drum. We're tired of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars going to Ukraine to fight our proxy war with Russia. Enough.

9) She's a socialist, and America does not need or want her brand of socialism. She tries to run from it but she can't help herself. The capital gains tax fiasco and the lack of any solid fiscal policy of any kind showed her true colors. She was caught flat-footed whenever she was asked about these issues.

10) Word Salad Queen™. 'Nuff said.

11) She could never give a straight answer to a question. Her CNN interview – which was intended to be a friendly, softball conversation - was abysmal. The Fox interview (a sign of desperation that she even agreed to the interview) was even worse. Her mis-directions and answer avoidance were obvious and painful to endure.

12) She hates parents, actual parents. Her cackling glee when she said "with a stroke of my pen" she could threaten parents with jail, make them lose their jobs, and destroy their lives if their kids skipped school, was absolutely dreadful. She thought it was a good thing to destroy families by putting parents in jail and taking away their livelihood simply because their kids skipped school. Anyone who saw that video had to be horrified.

13) JD Vance. One of the consequences of picking such an awful VP for the Democrat ticket is that it made the pick of JD Vance that much better. Vance had poise and grace, while Walz had neither. Vance never talked down to his interviewers, he acknowledged and apologized for any mistakes he made, he offered thoughtful ideas, and didn't choke. He was intelligent and interesting. Tim was a mess, and while they let him on the rally stage and made him appear in some embarrassing videos, they kept him away from interviews (except for the staged ones) because of his rank stupidity.

14) The coverup of her husband Doug Emhoff's affair with his child's elementary school teacher didn't help. By not responding to the story she only deepened America's distrust. We know there was a payment, there was probably a paid abortion in there, too (the Daily Mail reported “the teacher became pregnant in 2009, but did not have the baby”). Revolting behavior from another disgusting man. Every man in her life – Willie Brown, Doug Emhoff, and Tim Walz – is repulsive.

15) She couldn't run from her record in helping create a brutal economy for many Americans. Government spending increased 22% during her administration, a huge driver of the inflation spike. She tried to belittle it, or put the blame on Trump, 
but no one, even her most ardent supporters, believed that.

16) She flipped-flopped repeatedly, and obviously. "Closing the border". “Banning fracking”. "Free sex change operations for immigrants". She said all those things, then not only flipped her position, she subsequently denied having those positions in the first place. Bizarre behavior in a world where there are long paper and video trails of everything she’s ever done (or not done).

17) She mocked Christianity. Most of this nation is Christian. Christians who might otherwise have voted for her don't take kindly to being told "you must be at the wrong rally". That was a big last-minute fail.

18) She tried vainly to paint Trump as "a threat to democracy". Every legal voter in this election lived through Trump's first term. We all survived, the economy flourished (at least until the covid lockdowns), and no one was thrown into the gulag. He was not a tyrant. He did not abolish the Constitution or mobilize the feds against American citizens (unlike the Obama administration, when the IRS specifically and unequivocally targeted conservative citizens and non-profits and dragged them through Hell). The false narrative came back to bite her.

19) She couldn't separate herself from the Biden administration. It became clear (well, at least the media glommed on to what we already knew) that Biden couldn't run because of dementia, and it became equally clear that that's been the case for some time. If you can't run in 2024, then you cannot be president in 2024, too – so why was he still in office, and what has he done for the last 3+ years?  In any thoughtful person's mind there can be only one of two conclusions: 1) Harris was running things in Biden’s absence (extremely unlikely), or 2) someone else - call it the deep state - was running things, and in a Harris presidency, would continue to run things (most likely). Neither conclusion helped her one iota.

20) No one who voted for her did so because they liked her. They did so because they hated Trump (or, at least they hated the media's portrayal of Trump). She put way too much emphasis on claiming that Trump was mean and a bully. While her most ardent supporters grabbed that with both hands, most Americans don't care if their president sends out "mean tweets". 
 

Another reason was brought to my attention after I first published this, courtesy of Matt Walsh:

21) She placed way too much emphasis on celebrity endorsements. Given her lack of substance, her campaign was basically built around celebrity endorsements.  She touted and celebrated each such endorsement. She invited Beyonce to sing at her rally, but that backfired when she wasn’t paid and refused to sing, leaving thousands of attendees angry and frustrated.  She invited Cardi B to speak at her rally, but that turned into an embarrassing debacle when the teleprompter failed, leaving Cardi B mumbling and inarticulately thrashing around until someone brought her speech to her on a phone (and even then, it was pathetic).  Bruce Springsteen DID play at her rally, but he sounded so incredibly bad that it might have been better if he had just tipped his hat to the crowd.  And when the Diddy Posse joins the endorsement party, those endorsements are going to drive away far more voters than they attract.

None of this is to say that Trump was or is perfect. He had four years already.  He didn't build the wall. He didn't drain the swamp. He surrounded himself with the wrong people in his first admin. He should have fired Fauci from the beginning. America wasn't looking for a perfect president, they know what Trump has to offer, and they accepted Trump with all of his shortcomings.

There you have it. Your mileage may vary.