Down the street from where I practice in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, is Rosalie Hall. Rosalie Hall began in 1914 when the Misericordia Sisters opened St. Mary’s Infant Home on Bond Street for maternity and infant care of single women and their children. This later moved to Jarvis Street, where they also began St. Mary’s Hospital. In 1956, both the hospital and the home were moved to Scarborough and opened as the Scarborough General Hospital and Rosalie Hall.
Over the years, I have often watched young women stroll their babies on the sidewalk adjoining Rosalie Hall and Scarborough General Hospital. I have even had the privilege of sometimes treating these young women who chose the services of Rosalie Hall over abortion. Rosalie Hall offers its services, without discrimination, to women ages 12 – 25 who are single and pregnant. The program provides housing, an early learning childcare centre, accredited secondary school education for the single mothers, access to medical care, counseling, parenting support, mental health support and so on. It is a comprehensive model of care for single, pregnant women and mothers, which deserves to be studied, copied, and funded for broader application.
Many single women who face an unplanned pregnancy end up aborting because they feel judged, shamed, condemned, alone, or bereft of family or community supports. We may consider ourselves more tolerant or more forgiving than our biblical predecessors who stoned women caught in the sin of fornication or adultery, but we really are no different now when we toss our words, actions, or judgement towards them as “stones.” Our modern-day stones may not actually kill pregnant mothers, but they can cause them significant emotional and spiritual harm, which can lead to a decision favouring abortion.
Even if a young woman can find the strength to overcome the fear, shame, or guilt of an unplanned pregnancy, and even if she has moral support, she can still find herself confused, lost and overwhelmed by what lies ahead. How is becoming a mother going to impact her education? Where will she live and how will she afford housing and everything her child will need? How will she afford or access day care so she can attend school or work? Suddenly, she not only has her own needs, expenses, and personal development to worry about, but that of her unborn child as well. When a single, pregnant woman searches the internet to find supports and tries to understand and co-ordinate these as separate entities, the task can be overwhelming – unless one can find a comprehensive centre like Rosalie Hall. Otherwise, it becomes a lot easier to just get an abortion, which is exactly what happens in too many cases of unplanned pregnancy in single women.
According to Statistics Canada between, 1974 and 2005 the proportion of live births to induced abortions steadily dropped from 6.6:1 to 3.5:1 in women of all ages; and from 2.5:1 to 1:1.2 in women under 20 years of age. There are no statistics shown past 2005, but assuming these trends have continued, induced abortions have further surpassed live births in the under 20 age group between 2005 and the present. Global News reported that in 2005, a total of 96,815 abortions were performed in Canadian women, while 1.2 million were performed in American women. Not surprisingly, another Statistics Canada report indicates that the abortion rate is 2 to 3 times higher in single Canadian women compared to married Canadian women. The number of currently operating abortion clinics, which far outnumber pregnancy support centres like Rosalie Hall, also attests to this.
I often wonder what would happen to the abortion rate, and the adoption rate for that matter, if we had more centres like Rosalie Hall, where a welcoming community supports single mothers by providing the funding, planning, co-ordination, and provision of all required services under one roof, enabling these women to upgrade, to continue their education, or to work, while raising their children. As in the past, when many single women left their communities to hide their pregnancy due to stigma, a place like Rosalie Hall can also provide a safe, private haven for them until the birth – and even the subsequent adoption if that is what they wish – of their child. As good as this sounds, although more Rosalie Halls would probably lower the abortion rate, they would not eliminate it. Even with every support in place, some women will still choose abortion.
When abortion was illegal in North America, many women sought termination of their pregnancy from amateur back-alley medical facilities or from toxic folk remedies. This resulted in the death of approximately 4,000 to 6,000 women in Canada, between 1921 and 1946. When Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed access to abortion and contraception in 1966, women found ways around the ban, resulting in 10,000 maternal deaths as a result of unsafe procedures and hundreds of thousands of children being turned over to wither away in state orphanages. Clearly, force does not work, nor is it necessarily a traditional Christian approach. St. Basil’s approach in the 4th century AD acknowledged this problem among Christian women, by providing a period of penance and repentance while recognizing abortion as an attack upon oneself and an equivalent to murder.
Although the annual abortion rates in most countries far surpass the maternal casualties from abortion, the double tragedy of losing both mother and child has been significantly mitigated by legalizing abortion clinics – the only secular justification for their existence – much like the provision of a “safe supply” of illicit drugs to drug addicts to prevent their death from accidental overdosing. The rationale here is that if the medical profession does not provide a non-judgmental and safe way of doing something unsafe, wrong, immoral, or illegal, people will still find a way to get or do what they want regardless, and in a more dangerous way. The same rationale is behind the provision of free needles or free condoms in community clinics.
These provisions neither encourage nor dissuade people from engaging in unsafe, immoral, or illegal behaviour, but they do make the behaviour safer, which is why I strongly encourage contraception to my single, sexually active patients and to my married patients who do not wish to bear more children – because not having contraception does not alter sexual behaviour and the end result, whether married or single, will often be – an abortion.
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Choice is what everything boils down to. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe in our fundamental God-given Freedom, but freedom without boundaries leads to the slavery of sin, which is why God gave us rules, so that we could safely (spiritually and physically) navigate our freedom. It is our choice whether to navigate our freedom according to God’s rules, or our own standard. My responsibility as a physician, is not to interfere with my patient’s choice, but to properly inform that choice. All too often, however, people think they are properly informed when they are not.
For instance, because abortion is legal and easily accessible, too many of my single, sexually active women think they can use abortion as a form of contraception. These women think that if they are sexually careless, abortion becomes an easy choice; but it is not an informed choice. Many years ago, a single, pregnant woman in my practice panicked. Instead of waiting to arrange an abortion at a nearby hospital, she rushed to an abortion clinic, where she underwent the procedure under physical restraint and without an anesthetic. Thankfully, she survived the gruesome ordeal, and was able to achieve a planned pregnancy afterwards. She had not asked about this clinic because she assumed she would receive the same treatment there as at the hospital.
People need to know that even when done in a controlled, medical environment such as an accredited hospital, abortion carries similar risks for complications as does any other surgical procedure, the commonest of which are bleeding and infection (which can lead to infertility). There are also mental health risks from feelings of guilt, shame, or regret after the procedure, which can be long lasting. The physical and mental health risks from using appropriate contraception are lower by far. It goes without saying that the best form of contraception which carries no risks (for pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and painful regrets) is abstinence, the rule God has lovingly given us to protect us.
However, my ability as a family doctor to counteract the overwhelming influence of peer pressure, the entertainment industry and the unconstrained permissiveness of the sexual revolution is very limited. One strategy I use, is to inform my young patients before they become sexually active with words like, “Contrary to what your friends or the media might tell you, there is no such thing as starting sex too late in life, but there is such a thing as starting too early. Whenever you think you are ready to start, please come and talk to me.” My hope is that this advice will at least delay the onset of sexual activity. I hope that it will validate and strengthen those who are inclined to pursue abstinence longer, and at the same time remove any barriers from those who will need contraception, to seeking it sooner. To those sexually active women who do not use or sometimes use contraception, I pose the question, “If you got pregnant would you keep the baby?” If the answer is “no,” “I’m not sure,” or “probably not” she immediately receives counseling on contraception. In my practice, if a male or female, has chosen to be sexually active but has not chosen parenthood or more children, they need to make one more choice – what type of contraception they are going to use, because abortion is not a form of contraception. There is no way of knowing how effective these conversations are in preventing abortion, but this is how I try to mitigate abortion in a fallen world…one baby at a time.
Since we are living in an Era of Apostasy, where secular laws and God’s laws have continuously diverged because of declining numbers of faithful voters, politicians have increasingly made “right wrong” and “wrong right” just to get elected. This does not mean that as Christians we should compromise or remain silent. What it does mean is that there will not be a shift in the legal framework until there is a shift in societal beliefs and behaviours. This shift will only happen when we successfully spread the word of God so that Christian values return to the majority. Considering the extent of our apostasy, this may seem unrealistic, but if we co-operate with God, all things are possible.
A marvelous example of Christian co-operation with God, and in stark contrast to Ceausescu’s forced attempts to increase Romania’s birth rate by simultaneously banning abortion and contraception, is Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church. He is credited with single-handedly increasing Georgia’s birth rate by as much as 24% without any public demonstrations or government lobbying. When faced with a declining Georgian population, low birth rates and high abortion rates in 2007, the church leader announced that he would personally baptize and become the godfather to any child born to a married couple who already had 2 or more children. This modern-day saint has been conducting mass baptisms of hundreds of children every three months since 2007, having baptized over 40,000 babies to date. In 2013, the government of Georgia jumped on board by expanding its financial incentives for childbearing with extended paid and unpaid parental leave and baby bonuses.
Fertility changes of this magnitude are uncommon, but Georgia is unique with its relatively homogeneous society and one highly respected religious leader who embraced his people with divine love and wisdom. North America has never seen and never will see that kind of social homogeneity (nor has it yet seen that type of self-sacrificial church leadership) but Christian homogeneity is still possible. In parallel to our Christianizing efforts, our more realistic ‘good works’ can lie in the areas of education, prevention, and the provision of alternative options to the funding of abortion and abortion-based research – like the funding of ethical research and more Rosalie Halls.
So, what does all this mean about my choices as an Orthodox Christian living in this fallen world where so many people misuse their God-given freedom? Where are my choices as a conscientious individual? Where are my choices, period? If others have been given the right to choose an abortion, must I support that right with my tax dollars? Do I also have to fund the use of aborted baby parts or cells in research and the drugs that I prescribe or take when I don’t want to prescribe or take such products? I do not parade Pro-life placards in front of hospitals or clinics that perform abortions because, as I have already made the case, it is not realistic in present-day society to eliminate the ‘demand’ for abortions, or to force Christian ethics upon a population that will revert to back-alley procedures. Even after in-depth counseling on their pregnancy options, someone who is determined to undergo an abortion will find a way of exercising their free will regardless of the legalities or the availability of pregnancy support centers like Rosalie Hall.
While wondering about my choices, I was reminded by a friend that during my adolescence, my parents had to check off on their annual income tax forms, whether they wanted to support the Public School system or the Catholic School system. This choice in our Canadian tax system no longer exists but imagine responding to something like: (i) Please select whether you wish to support abortion clinics or comprehensive pregnancy support centers. (ii) Please select whether you wish to support the use of aborted baby parts/cells in research or alternative cells in research. I cannot think of a simpler, or a more equitable way of giving everyone a voice and the freedom to choose in a society which is so diverse in creed and opinion. I would much rather advocate for this type of change than waste time and resources protesting outside abortion clinics or scrutinizing whether the next political candidate is going to be too liberal with my ethics. Simply put, I want / deserve the freedom to put my money where my mouth is.
As a physician and as a human being, I should be able to approach all women in need with compassion and understanding, while at the same time distancing myself from participating in what I consider to be immoral or unethical. Rather than spending valuable time and resources trying to unsuccessfully eliminate another person’s choice by changing legislation, why don’t Pro-lifers start with the more doable process of changing taxation? If government-subsidized abortion is here to stay in the secular legal framework, can we at least demand that only those who support it contribute to that fund, so that the rest of us can take a step towards disassociating our tax dollars from activities we don’t agree with? Our tax dollars could go towards funding more places like ethical research, like Rosalie Hall, and much needed education and early prevention programs. If we collectively start advocating for more democratic income tax choice, we stand a better chance of mitigating abortion…#onebabyatatime.
Irene Polidoulis MD CCFP FCFP
Assistant Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and member of the Orthodox Church in Canada
Earlier I mentioned a local direct action pro-life organization here in St. Paul that is one of the organizations I have been involved with over the past three decades. They are tireless.
Their monthly newsletter just came out, and their education director wrote a piece about the new “Hearbeat Law” in Texas:
“In one of most significant developments since abortion was legalized across the country in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, about 85% of abortions have been banned in Texas since September 1. Babies with detectable heartbeats (generally around 5-6 weeks after the last menstrual period, which is 3-4 weeks after conception) are no longer allowed to be killed in Texas, due to that state’s Heartbeat Law. Exceptions are allowed if the mother’s life is at risk. Abortion advocates had tried to block the law by appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it ruled 5-4 not to issue an injunction, without yet ruling on the merits of the law itself.
“The law is different than the heartbeat laws in about a dozen other states, all of which have been enjoined by the courts.
The Texas law includes a private enforcement mechanism that allows private individuals, rather than the state, to file lawsuits against abortionists who violate the law and others who help a woman get an illegal abortion. The woman herself cannot be sued. If successful, the defendant would have to pay a fine of $10,000 or more per abortion to the person filing the civil suit.
“The Biden administration, abortionists and other abortion advocates are desperately searching for a way to get rid of this
law, but as of this writing, they have been losing in court. In the meantime, an estimated 100 to 150 babies a day are being saved. (Of course, pro-lifers don’t believe this law goes far enough; we want abortions banned from the moment of conception. But we can be grateful for the lives that are being saved while we work to save all lives from abortion.)
“The day before the ban went into effect, the staff of Whole Woman’s abortion mill in Fort Worth, Texas (same chain as the Whole Woman’s in Bloomington, Minn.) killed 67 babies, with the 83-year-old abortionist killing until midnight. According to reports, pro-lifers remained outside in the dark until the mill closed, continuing to try and save lives.
“We asked two sidewalk counseling leaders in Texas to describe the situation on the ground since September 1. ‘The abortion centers have reduced their hours, fewer staff are coming in to the offices, and more women who are undecided about their pregnancies are going to the pregnancy help centers,’ said Joanne Underwood, the Sidewalk Counseling Director of the Convert-to-Life ministry, Diocese of Dallas. ‘One thing that goes unreported for the most part is the $100 million the state of Texas has allocated to grant organizations that help moms and families. This is not a new fund, it’s been in place, but the amount was increased to support more moms and families.’
“John Pisciotta, leader of Sidewalk Advocates of America in Waco, Texas, said that client visits have ‘surged’ since September 1 at the Care Net pregnancy help center across the street from the Planned Parenthood (PP) abortion mill where he sidewalk counsels. ‘Texas law requires a physician to counsel the mom and perform the abortion, whether surgical or chemical,’ John said. ‘Also, a mom must visit the abortion facility twice because of the 24-hour waiting period. The exception is a mom that lives over 100 miles from any abortion facility.’
“‘While the abortion side of PP in Waco is closed, the birth control/abortion counseling side is open for business Monday through Thursday.’ (PP is offering to help women with travel expenses and finding an out-of-state abortionist.) ‘It is encouraging that business on the non-abortion side of Planned Parenthood Waco is very slow,’ said John.’Even so,our sidewalk counseling ministry continues to drive clients away from Planned Parenthood for whatever reason they
entered.’
“The Texas legislature has also recently passed a law limiting the distribution of the abortion pill. It states, ‘A manufacturer, supplier, physician, or any other person may not provide to a patient any abortion-inducing drug by courier, delivery, or mail service.’ This law is set to take effect on December 2.
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My point in sharing this is to demonstrate that this work is going on all over the country, and has been for decades. Anyone who wishes to get involved at the front lines, saving one child at a time, has ample opportunity to do so in every city across the country, and there are pregnancy help centers in rural areas as well if not actual abortuaries.
Dr. Polidoulis has described her own involvement one on one, and when her clients leave her office any one of us can find a place to stand in the gap between her office and the abortion mills in our own neighborhoods, as well as in every state’s legislature. There are plenty of ways to mitigate abortion in a fallen world one baby at a time. You just have to be willing to find one of them.
I don’t think you understand, or else I have offended you by saying that “prescribing” contraception is the wrong thing to do too much.
Loving babies is a subset for me. Yes, as a child I knew I wanted to be a wife, mom, and homemaker. I wanted a lot of kids. I got married in 1980 and began my political and legislative pro-life activism, but I was propelled into a more personal activism by the stillbirth of my first baby in 1984. I was 8 months pregnant with him when I was in a head on automobile accident.
Adam’s death made me think about women who were arranging that kind of grief for themselves by having abortions. When I had recovered from the my injuries a year later, I took a job working with two other women who had experienced miscarriage and stillbirth and had founded a private nonprofit agency they called the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Center. We published an extensive line of perintal bereavement literature, a monthly newsletter, we established an international list of support groups and we offered workships and conferences for doctors, funeral directors, nurses; anyone who might come into contact with pregnant women and their families and experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant death. That is a whole other story.
From there I began my simultaneous volunteer work at a crisis pregnancy center that also operated an adoption agency, and I began to sidewalk counsel. I also participated in doing rescues when Randall Terry started Operation Rescue.
I was an evangelical.
I was chrismated in 1991, and as I matured in the Orthodox faith, I realized that conception was a precursor to abortion. If a person has the mindset that a child is optional; that they can choose a child or not, it isn’t a huge leap to go from doing that prior to conception to doing it afterward.
Over the years, I experienced a similar gamut of horrible things women do/did. Informing women is exactly what we did. Informing people is persuasive all on its own. And if you think telling someone that they are doing the wrong thing is a nice conversation, I don’t know what to say.
As I already said, I am all for the Orthodox Church focusing on and opening as many crisis pregnancy centers, or shepherding home ministries, or homes where women can live in a dormitory situation like Rosalie Hall.
You wrote “So, in the article, when I talk about contraception, it is for those women who WILL BE sexually active and WILL NOT keep a pregnancy.” I understand. It’s not unlike when parents who give their teens a prophylactic or the Pill because they are afraid their children will be or are sexually active. But I can’t help but continue to maintain that it’s not a truly good (and the word “good” comes from the name of God) thing to offer. One of the cardinal rules we had at the crisis pregnancy center is that we do not refer for abortions, nor do we offer the option of contraception. The options we offered were either to raise the baby or give it up for adoption.
Obviously you and I do not agree about the fundamenal question here, but I do hope that what you wrote will inspire people to participate in the struggle against killing unborn children. Since some methods of”contraception” accomplish that, it cannot be part of that struggle.
Rosalie Hall does not offer abortions and it does not offer contraception. It is not a medical facility.
The mothers have their own physicians whom they see outside of Rosalie Hall, anyone they choose. If they choose to use contraception (or not) they make this decision on their own with the guidance of their doctor, who is not connected to Rosalie Hall.
Rosalie Hall is a place where they live, attend school, attend support programs, and raise their children with the support of an in-house day care until they are ready to embark on their own.
The fundamental question here is not about contraception. The fundamental question is very simple. It’s about whether or not you support the idea that we should be able to choose a Rosalie Hall type of stream for our tax dollars.
Since the Rosalie Hall model is not involved with any contraceptive issues, I assume that your answer would be “yes.”
I hope I have clarified this issue for the other readers and commentators as well, and I apologize if the article caused any confusion.
Oh my gosh, Dr. Polidoulis.
I understand what Rosalie Hall is. It’s a home for unwed mothers.
And there have been a number of legislative efforts over the past 3 decades to get Congress to fund them.
I applaud those. I participated in those. I encourage every Orthodox Christian to do the same.
“The article actually supports an increased birthrate and policies which increase the birthrate. Multiple people have tried to tell you that. The focus is entirely different – using the tax code / government funding to allow pro-lifers to fund comprehensive alternatives to abortion, focusing on individual cases, focusing on pro-family legislation, getting the Church involved in encouraging families. Those are the topics the article actually focuses on. Editorially, every single line connected to contraception could be cut and the article’s focus would not change. And maybe we should have done just that, since it actually isn’t anything more than background on the way Dr. Irene runs her practice. We thought it interesting as it shows the daily dilemmas that a physician faces. We rarely get that perspective, so it was good (in our opinion) to get people thinking about how all this plays out in the real world of medicine.”
I do understand that. I guess, as someone who spent a decade attempting to accompish things legislatively and politically and seeing that focus fail spectacularly, I’m a little jaded. I apologize.
Anyone who wants to try that again, feel free. I may be too cynical.
I am more interested now in a more personal approach. Sidewalk counseling, crisis pregnancy work, and frankly, Orthodox “evangelism”, so to speak. Unfortunately we do not seem to have the leadership of our hierarchs or clergy. There are exceptions, of course. But until the Church focuses on re-Christianizing American culture, I don’t see a legislative, political effort as offering much hope.
No one is disagreeing with you on this.
We have spent so much effort in lobbying, campaigning, etc. and, in the end, we have so little to show for it. Which is why we are looking for other solutions. Sidewalk counseling works. It would work even better with more housing for pregnant mothers and a more comprehensive package of help from them.
Have you ever thought about writing up your experiences in with crisis pregnancy centers, sidewalk counseling, etc.? If you go to Lifesitenews, for example, the crisis pregnancy centers information is buried deep: https://lifefacts.lifesitenews.com/abortion/pregnant-need-help/
Why isn’t a practical, pragmatic approach not front and center? There is more focus on signing petitions than on helping mothers and babies. This is an unbalanced approach, and we need to refocus. And, yes, there needs to be more emphasis on Christianizing our culture.
Dear Ronda,
I am glad you are finally able to understand the focus of the article. It seems to me that both of us have been traumatized by abortion. Putting it simply, you love babies but became jaded after years of trying to change policies at the government level. I love babies too. I have three that I cherished more than life itself and I wish I could have had more. Although I have never participated in lobbying activities, I was traumatized each time I could not convince patients, sometimes after several counseling sessions, to keep their babies. I have actually never succeeded, except once and not because of anything I did but because the pregnant woman’s mother promised her she would help her raise her fourth child – we’re talking about a married, Orthodox woman on her fourth and unplanned pregnancy.
For those patients who aborted, I would remember their appointment for the procedure like it was singed in my brain, and when the day arrived, I went about my work feeling absolutely gutted, knowing a child was dying that day…I was going to put this in my article but I thought it would have been too emotional.
Just like I have only a handful of virgins in my practice, I also have another handful of people, usually women, who re-adopted a life of abstinence. In my world, people like you are in a tiny minority. I do NOT push contraception on all my sexually active patients – only those who tell me without hesitation that they would not keep a child if they got pregnant.
When you have been in practice as long as I have, you get to know your patients pretty well. You get to know who is responsible and who is not, and who can be persuaded and who cannot – most of the time. You would never think a married, faithful, Orthodox woman with a “supportive” husband would not have an abortion, but you would be surprised.
Because of confidentiality I cannot divulge some of the horrible things some women have done or gone through in my practice because they picked the wrong father, or because their husbands bailed out on them, or because they were in denial for months that they were pregnant, or because their pregnancy caught them by surprise and they just freaked out. None of these women’s children survived.
So, as I said before, I have never been able to convince a woman not to undergo an abortion, and I have never been able to convince a woman to change her lifestyle to revert back to abstinence, and not for a lack of trying. I think i may have been able to persuade some promiscuous women to cut back on the number of their partners – maybe.
From your conversations on this blog, it sounded like you think a nice conversation with someone can make them give up being sexually active because you did it…and indeed, some people have done it, but not because of me…because of their relationship with God.
I am powerless in convincing people, so I have become very good at informing people. By the time people come to me, 99% of the time they have already made up their moral minds. They just want information. If they ask me my Christian opinion on a matter, then I give it, but I cannot moralize them without judging them, and judging a patient is a big no-no. Imagine if your doctor judged you.
So, in the article, when I talk about contraception, it is for those women who WILL BE sexually active and WILL NOT keep a pregnancy. This, and the statistics on abortions was the “fallen world” part. The mitigating part was the funding of more Rosalie Halls AND contraception for those women who WILL NOT change their lifestyle and WILL NOT keep a baby, even if you gave them the moon on a silver platter.
You cannot change people unless they want to change (you already know this, otherwise you would not be cynical or jaded) My job as a doctor is not to change people, but to protect them. Those who want to change don’t come to me. They find a good priest to do that with, as they should. As a Christian, though, I want to help those who want to be helped. Changing people’s minds does not work, but building is a different matter. Building a Rosalie Hall is like building a church. Put it there, and the people will come, of their own accord. So, the question now is, how do we build more Rosalie Halls?
In my dreams, there is one next door to or across the street from every hospital and every abortion clinic, and I would love to put one in full view of Planned Parenthood.
I wanted this article to spark an interest, a dream, a drive, a new direction, a mission. You know what I mean? Because as you said yourself, or perhaps the folks at OR said it, the old methods don’t work.
Okay, I can’t respond underneath my own comments, so I’ll do it here.
To the OR staff: Speaking as someone who spent ten years as a full time pro-life activist until I had children of my own and have been involved for the past 30 years part time, I get a little tired of people asking me why the “pro-life movement” didn’t do this or that.
The real question is what did YOU do. Why do you not see yourself as part of the “pro-life movement”?
The pro-life movement should be every Christian person in America.
Many of us were working on the political side. Running campaigns, for example Ron Paul’s in 2008 and 2012. And we would have been better off focusing on what you were doing. So yes, we all failed to focus on what would really matter. That was the point of the article.
I agree with the point of the article. One baby at a time. I just don’t like the idea of preventing one baby at a time.
To my mind, the immature young person who is being sexually active is a kind of “baby” to save, one at a time. I don’t mean to minimize the role of an Orthodox Christian physician in that young person’s life. And I love the fact that we could have a discussion about this. I appreciate that this doctor was willing to share her experience with her own practice.
And if indeed we were to have another candidate like Ron Paul (and my younger daughter and I were Ron Paul delegates to the Minnesota State Convention in 2012 and were extremely upset about what happened to him at the National Convention) I would have to get involved at a political, legislative level again, even though I am handicapped by my own cynicism. 🙂
I think that the notion of mitigating abortion is misconceived. That is not the appropriate way to describe the work of Rosalie Hall, although it does appear appropriate to describe the advocacy of contraception in this way. Obviously you can mitigate abortion by controlling human reproduction, but this is not the Orthodox way, and nor is it how we should follow Christ in a fallen world.
Thank you, Chris! I couldn’t have said it better. I tried! 🙂
I wrote something last night, but I don’t know if I posted it properly. It was in response to the idea that a young person isn’t going to stop sexual activity once they have begun. I pointed out that actually there are young people who have done so; I did. And one of my sisters also did. If you start out with that belief, you won’t get any other result.
I’m also uncomfortable with the idea that preventing the conception of a child is good. A child is not a punishment, although a certain recent president characterized it that way with regard to his fears for his own daughters. Either God is involved in the conception of every human being, or He isn’t. I’m not suggesting that sexual activity outside of marriage is fine; it’s not. But the conception of a child to very young, immature people is a good consequence to very bad behavior. The only good consequence.
You are correct and stopping sexual activity not only is possible, but is the position the Church should take. The Church should never be involved in recommending contraception or excusing premarital / extramarital relations. The family physician, however, that is a different situation. The first option is to discourage extramarital activity. If that does not work, then what is the responsibility of a doctor as opposed to a priest or even just a garden-variety-Orthodox who is doing some kind of counseling? The physician is working in private, one-on-one, and trying to help just one person. The family physician is responsible for that person’s health and safety going forward in a way a “counselor” is not.
But to be honest, we’ve gotten off on this tangent that really isn’t the thrust of the article. Since ROE, we have wasted a ton of resources on politics to absolutely little avail. Are you familiar with the Sanctity of Life Act introduced by Rep. Ron Paul in 2005? “The bill would have amended the federal judicial code to remove Supreme Court and district court jurisdiction to review cases arising out of any statute, ordinance, rule, regulation, or practice, or any act interpreting such a measure, on the grounds that such measure: (1) protects the rights of human persons between conception and birth; or (2) prohibits, limits, or regulates the performance of abortions or the provision of public funds, facilities, personnel, or other assistance for abortions.”
Congress has the right to determine the scope of activity for the Supreme Court and the Federal Courts. The Act would have defined personhood at conception and would have removed the ability of federal courts to review cases arising from the act. In other words, Roe would be gone instantly as an issue and any state wishing to limit or abolish abortion could do so legislatively. It got zero traction. Why? Because abortion benefits both sides. The constant fighting over Supreme Court approvals influences presidential and Senate politics. Instead of focusing on a legislative solution that would end this debate at the national level, both political sides would rather fundraise off the future of the Supreme Court.
It was all a titanic grift. President Trump may have actually upset that apple cart by appointing justices that might over turn Roe. Who knows? What I do know is that spending hundreds of millions of pro-life dollars on presidential politics was never necessary nor was it productive. Now we are seeing legislative successes in Texas and possibly other states, but whether they will hold up in court is anyone’s guess. What is also true is that in the majority of our states and most foreign countries, the political climate does not favor abortion bans.
So in many places, we need other solutions for the here and now. Among those solutions must be some ideas on how to encourage family formation. The current inflationary environment is crushing young people. Young couples can’t make rent, much less have babies. College-educated, hard working young people in their 20’s are living paycheck to paycheck, and are refusing to have babies because they have trouble paying for gas, rent, and groceries. Our fertility is nosediving.
Outlawing abortion, while a worthy goal, won’t help form more young families. We desperately need pro-family policies of the kinds you see in Russia, Hungary, Georgia, etc. Heck, even just the ones we had in America prior to the “feminist” revolution which helped destroy the expectation of a one-income family. Thank you Chamber of Commerce for backing that in order to increase the labor pool and depress wages.
So really the major thrust of this article is we need to focus on assistance to women with pregnancies for which they are not financially or socially ready. Some of those pregnancies will be women who are married, perhaps, but who can’t afford rent much less a baby. We need babies. God loves babies. We need to figure out how to help more babies come into the world in healthy, happy situations. While we can’t necessarily waive a wand and get an anti-abortion law, helping babies and their mothers is something we can do. Part of this solution could be lobbying for family-supportive policies, part funding private programs, part working the tax code.
All through this, the Church should just keep doing what the Church does – telling the truth and trying to save souls. Transforming people through the Gospel.
We need a multi-faceted approach. Many of these approaches are much more effective than every four years (for us Americans) having a parade of Republican presidential candidates promising us that they will appoint the next Antonin Scalia who will then vote to overturn Roe and Casey (assuming they get the right case) and return abortion control to the states, most of who won’t outlaw it anyway. That focus has killed millions of babies, and we need better strategies not to kill millions more.
“If that does not work, then what is the responsibility of a doctor as opposed to a priest or even just a garden-variety-Orthodox who is doing some kind of counseling? The physician is working in private, one-on-one, and trying to help just one person. The family physician is responsible for that person’s health and safety going forward in a way a ‘counselor’ is not.”
I don’t know the answer other than that advising someone to do a smaller evil can’t be it.
Yes, as an enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter, I am aware of what he introduced in 2005, and his son has carried that work even further:
https://www.thethinkingconservative.com/rand-paul-life-at-conception-act-national-pro-life-alliance/
“So really the major thrust of this article is we need to focus on assistance to women with pregnancies for which they are not financially or socially ready.”
Yes. That is exactly what the thousands of crisis pregnancy centers across this country do, and most of the people doing it are volunteers and they are spectacularly successful in spite of the war against them from so many quarters.
https://www.hli.org/resources/crisis-pregnancy-center-movement/
If every Orthodox Christian supported these efforts instead of focusing on contraception, which is, to my mind, just a collection of gimmicks peddled by Big Pharma, most of which wreak havoc on the delicate reproductive system in a woman’s body. Yet another reason NOT to advise any young woman to use them.
Then let’s put a pin in the discussion on contraceptive counseling done by a physician.
So you know about the 2005 bill. Why didn’t the pro-life movement embrace it? Why didn’t we get 24/7 phone banking? It just went away. Why?
Now, the govt funds Planned Parenthood to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. When has the pro-life movement ever demanded funding for crisis pregnancy centers? Do we even try to get our own fair share of our own tax dollars? If not, why not?
Thank you, James.
I don’t even feel comfortable posting this because of the overt encouragement for the use of so-called contraceptives.
For one thing, the things we call contraceptives are not all “against conception”. Some of them function as an actual abortion in the sense that they chemically or physically prevent an already conceived little person from settling into the lining of his or her mother’s womb.
Beyond that, the Fathers of the Church condemned any form of contraception. I don’t think many Orthodox Christians are aware of that.
https://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/sacred-seed-sacred-chamber/
Good points, Ronda. Before this article, did you ever spend time thinking about what an Orthodox MD goes through trying practice medicine in this environment with sexually active teens and adult women who do not want the children God will gift them with? What struck most of us reading this post was the way she is constantly fighting through one moral dilemma after another. It was exhausting reading it, much less living it. Is this article really an endorsement of contraception as a positive good? Dr. Irene actually endorsed abstinence is very positive terms.
We read the contraception comments as being equivalent to giving clean needles to an addict – a triage measure to stop greater pain in a very, very fallen world. We did not see any glowing recommendation about how contraception can make women free to pursue their dreams or establish equity among the sexes or any of that kind. Much less encouraging contraception because we need to reduce the birthrate for “climate change.” Dr. Irene actually endorsed policies that resulted in a higher birthrate. Babies are good.
If you notice, her first line of argument when dealing with young people is to try and delay their initiation of sexual activity. Only then, does she go into contraception. This is purely a nod towards trying to reduce an evil greater evil through a lesser evil. Hopefully she knows the difference, as an MD, between which contraceptive methods are better or worse from a moral stand point.
In an Orthodox context, that would never be acceptable. We don’t fight evil with evil. But what about an Orthodox MD practicing medicine among the heterodox / non-religious? I would never tell an Orthodox kid to use contraception, I would tell the kid not to have sex. The kid is Orthodox, and should respect the moral teachings of his church. That would be my only answer. But what about this situation, where an MD is dealing with individuals with no moral perspective at all?
So then that brings up another question – how can we help reduce the need for contraception? How can we combat those influences that push sex on our young people, and so bring more to the Faith and to the moral teachings of the Church? The Doctor outlined the sorts of influences she is up against trying to keep her young patients from prostituting their bodies. It is a tough fight. Why is she so alone in that fight? What are we doing about it?
I see this article less of an endorsement of contraception, than a sign on a map of “You are here.” We don’t like here. So what can we do about not being here? The same as the situation with abortion – what can we do better? How can we save babies in the real world, not just do our own version of “virtue signaling” by saying all the right things.
So one of the great joys and burdens of publishing this blog is that we don’t do a lot of “ivory tower” kind of writing. By that I mean academic Theologians discussing topics in comfortable offices. We do publish priests. These are men in the trenches responsible for real souls. We publish doctors and nurses, whose perspectives are still not often considered despite having spent almost two years in a “pandemic.” We publish statisticians, business professionals, academics from outside theology, bishops who are close to their people, and others who are all just trying to navigate life in the Orthodox Faith. These are all perspectives that are rarely covered elsewhere. We aren’t necessarily providing answers every time, but we hope that we are at least provoking new lines of thought.
Thanks for reading, Ronda!
That reminds me of something one of the priests at my former parish said to meonce about abortion.
He said “Ronda, sometimes there are just no good choices.”
To that, I would counter that there are always good choices.
To answer your question, long before I read this article — during the 80s — I worked for ten years in a crisis pregnancy center as a volunteer. We were constantly faced with these kinds of “conundrums” — the conundrum of the temptation to sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage.
I’ll tell you the worst conundrum I remember. A middle-aged mother of three and the wife of an evangelical Christian pastor called our crisis hotline. She was contemplating an abortion because she was pregnant by the 17-year old black foster child she and her husband had taken into their home. She and her husband were white, and her husband had had a vasectomy. Talk about a hard case! 🙂
I don’t see what is so difficult about explaining to a young person — as we did thousands of times in the center — the variety of negative consequences they will experience by engaging in sexual activity before they are married. A person doesn’t need to understand a moral question morally if they have no moral compass. But they certainly can understand self interest. Morality can always be expressed as a matter of human needs. If a young person is taught — by any caring adult in his or her life — that they are hurting themselves most of all by engaging in sexual activity prior to marriage, perhaps that could be the only caring adult who ever actually cared enough to tell them the truth and challenge them to expect more of themselves.
And since the context here is saving babies in the real world, one at a time, I would offer yet another option in our arsenal, and that is sidewalk counseling. There is an organization here in St. Paul (and there are certainly organizations like it all over the country) that sends trained volunteers to abortion cinics to speak to girls and women who are headed into these clinics to keep appointments for abortion. We simply offer them help. And support. What do you need to change your mind? We can help you find it and we will be there for you all the way through and beyond the birth of your baby.
Thousands of babies’ lives have been saved like that, on the public sidewalk, one baby at a time. Their moms often come back on the anniversary of their babies’ rescue and bring flowers and say thank you.
https://plam.org/babies-saved/
Dear Ronda, Alnedha and OR Staff,
It seems I have struck a nerve with this article with some of the readership. It was a very difficult, but I felt much needed, article to write, because I expected it to strike a few nerves, so to speak. So here goes…
First off, I would like to thank the OR staff for validating my position and this article with their comments. I was getting worried that no one was actually paying attention to what I was saying, but the OR staff “got it,” and I feel they explained it very well.
To you, Ronda, I would like to clarify a few things. First, you brought up a very good point about not all contraceptives being equal. This is true. I did not go into a long discussion on this topic since it was not within the scope of the article, but since you brought it up, it is true that the Intra-uterine device, or IUD, does not prevent conception (union of the sperm and egg); it prevents implantation. I have never endorsed this method of contraception and I have never prescribed it or inserted an IUD in any patient. When patients want to know what their contraceptive options are, I tell them how all contraceptive methods work and that I do not insert IUDs for the reasons I already explained. If they decide to use an IUD they have to get it elsewhere.
The second point I wish to clarify is this: I have never met anyone who already tasted the forbidden fruit (had sex) and decided to go back to abstinence – I only have about a handful of virgins in my practice, and I have a very conservative practice compared to most. The vast majority of my patients who seek contraception are already sexually active. It is too late to counsel these people that “you are never too old to start having sex but there is such a thing as being too young.” When an already sexually active woman comes to me without contraception on board, this is an emergency – a disaster waiting to happen – if I don’t encourage her to use contraception right away. Trying to change a person’s lifestyle at this point is unrealistic as well as inappropriate, because I am not a spiritual father counselling a penitent individual during confession; I am a physician, to whom people come for protection, having already made their life choices. These individuals never leave without a discussion on contraception and on the importance of limiting the number of their partners. I work in a fallen world. Very few of my patients are faithful Christians, even though most of them are Christian on paper and even Orthodox on paper. When I confess about my conundrums in medical practice to any spiritual father, he knows immediately what I am talking about.
As I pointed out in the article, counseling in favour of abstinence needs to take place before the onset of sexual activity and not after. This type of counseling should ideally be part of a faith-based type of sex education for youth. You will get a lot further with your teenagers when you counsel them about the benefits of blessed abstinence and the pitfalls of premarital sex if you talk to them BEFORE puberty, BEFORE they start thinking with their hormones, which is not a logical state to be in. This also goes along with counseling on peer pressure and experimenting with street drugs etc. etc. These subjects should be addressed in Sunday Schools and in sermons to the youth to help them make wise, safe and God pleasing choices as they grow up. PREVENTION, PREVENTION, PREVENTION!
I disagree with the priest who said that “sometimes there are no good choices” Isn’t funding a pregnancy support centre a good choice? What is NOT a good choice is when you are a married woman taking in a 17 year old foster child and (his colour does not matter) you have sex with him. Now THAT, is DEFINITELY NOT a good choice, which shows what a fallen world we live in. Still, one bad choice opens up new choice possibilities, some of them right or good and some of them wrong or bad. I don’t know what happened to that married woman who got pregnant by the 17 year old, but if both she and her husband were God-fearing and forgiving people, hopefully they both chose to keep the child and raise it together. Or, tey could have given the child up for adoption. One of those options would have been the right and God-pleasing thing to do because two wrongs don’t make a right. Getting an abortion because you would end up with a black baby and then EVERYONE would know your sin because you and your husband are white, does not justify the pride of wanting to hide your sin. Sure, we are too ashamed to confess or admit our sins, especially in public, but we are not too ashamed of doing them!
What you are doing on the side walk to change the minds of girls who are lining up for an abortion, offering them what they need to keep their baby, is FANTASTIC! It is exactly the sort of arsenal Rosalie Hall is as well. We are on the same page here. But it takes money to run a Rosalie Hall. It also takes money for you to promise a pregnant girl that you will give her whatever she needs to keep her baby, right? Where does that money come from? There are so many abortions going on in the country, that it would be impossible to fund-raise all the money needed to help ALL these young women keep their children – but if we had a pool of money, tax money, yours and mine, already ear marked for pregnancy support instead of abortion clinics, wouldn’t that make things a lot easier? a lot more doable? The resources are already there. All we have to do is make some noise to mobilize them to a different stream, wouldn’t you agree?
For example, If we had tax choice and 50% of the population chose to fund pregnancy support centers on their tax forms instead of abortion clinics, imagine how much good one could do with all that money…
Which brings me to Almedha…no matter how strongly you disagree with taxation, you still have to pay your taxes, and a portion of that still funds abortion clinics. Why on earth would you NOT want to have a choice on that matter? This isn’t about the ethics of politicians or “their” democracy. Don’t you want to have a say about where YOUR tax money is going when the they are taking it from you anyway?
This was the whole point of the article…#onebabyatatime, but for some reason, everyone missed the forest for the trees.
No. They take my labor at gun-point. I walk away. I will NOT entangle myself in the worldy POLITICS, only the power and will of God to save the world my neighbors and myself, with whatever He leaves me with .Lord have mercy.
I assume that you do know that our most merciful Lord has given us tears of repentance, and His very words to give in pray and counsel , in mercy and gratitude for the TRUTH.Not a stone, but His bread, and,as He also said to our St.Photini, so should we give this gladly.
Matthew 6:24
Hi Ronda,
I don’t think this article is a blanket “promotion” or “acceptance” of contraception. When reading the fine print, it’s clear that the doctor is encouraging avoidance of as many abortions as possible, and certainly for those who are set in endulging in carnal passions no matter what, that includes pregnancy prevention technology that is widely available today. Nobody is questioning our Patristic interpretation of Genesis 38: 1-20, the story of Aunan, from which the Greek word Aunanismos is also derived.
When reading this article, we have to put it into context, so it’s not misinterpreted… The days of “you look at her, you marry her” are long gone, and nowadays many people don’t even believe in Christian ethics, they don’t think twice about having an abortion, yet they still visit doctors for advice…a doctor who values life will naturally recommend the “lesser of two Christian infractions” in this case.
You look at her you marry her?
Never heard that before.
I am certainly not suggesting that forcing two young immature people to marry simply because they have participated in the creation of a child. One of my little sisters conceived a child outside of wedlock. It occurred when she and a date were drunk. She did not love the man, and she was far too immature to be a married woman. As her big sister, I begged her not to marry him. We can all help you and he take care of this baby. Don’t do something just to cover up your shame. Don’t make another mistake. You can always get married later if that turns out to be a good choice.
She went ahead married him. It was a typical shotgun wedding.
The tragedy for my sister was that on the very day she married him, little did she know that her little baby had already died. She miscarried almost immediately.
And there she was. Married and miserable. She was thrust into a situation that only a mature person who has prepared herself for marriage ought to enter. Married to a young man who was infatuated with her.
Her reaction to her situation was to continue being promiscuous and drinking.
Eventually she had more children, some by her husband, some not. And eventually she and he were divorced.
I can’t bring myself to the point of choosing a lesser evil when a good choice is possible. And a good choice is always possible. Giving truly good advice (as in God advice) is not optional for an Orthodox Christian. Whether the person being advised chooses to follow the advice is not what the adviser is responsible for.
That is a truly sad story. We’ve had similar in our families. No one is telling you to choose any evil. This article was written by an Orthodox physician explaining how she runs her practice in a way to help her patients (counseling abstinence first) and reducing abortions. Non-MD’s aren’t going to face her particular set of issues. We have the luxury of knowing that whatever we advocate or recommend, we are not responsible for the health and safety of a particular person going forward.
The Church should keep teaching what she is teaching. What physicians do in one-on-one sessions with particular people prescribe…. Not my bailiwick and thank God for that. I personally don’t want the responsibility.
In any case, take a look at the longer response. The focus on birth control is moving off-topic really.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. It is evil to advise someone to do evil, is it not?
Reducing abortions is a concept. If the topic is one baby at a time, then it can’t be about preventing a baby from being created in the first place. What a dismal focus.
It has to be about helping and supporting the individual who is a potential parent to do the good and right thing.
The idea that a physician in a one-on-one situation being exempt from what the Church teaches is absurd. Of course it’s not your responsibility, nor is it mine.
But what we are doing here is essentially the same thing. Whether this physician is interested in hearing it or not, we must advise her to advise young people to cease sexual activity rather than advise them to use “contraception” to “protect” themselves from a baby.
That is the secular response. Not an response that should come from a Christian.
That’s just the thing – it isn’t the focus. You are making it the focus, when it clearly is not. The article isn’t calling for increased contraception. The article actually supports an increased birthrate and policies which increase the birthrate. Multiple people have tried to tell you that. The focus is entirely different – using the tax code / government funding to allow pro-lifers to fund comprehensive alternatives to abortion, focusing on individual cases, focusing on pro-family legislation, getting the Church involved in encouraging families. Those are the topics the article actually focuses on. Editorially, every single line connected to contraception could be cut and the article’s focus would not change. And maybe we should have done just that, since it actually isn’t anything more than background on the way Dr. Irene runs her practice. We thought it interesting as it shows the daily dilemmas that a physician faces. We rarely get that perspective, so it was good (in our opinion) to get people thinking about how all this plays out in the real world of medicine.
Once more – if (as an editor) you can cut every single reference to contraception in the piece and not change the focus or conclusions of the piece, then it isn’t the focus.
Taxation on debt-spending is unethical fraud,period, and the multi-nefarious uses of labor/taxes is criminal. Be where you are, and directly use your God-given spiritual/worldly resources with your DIRECT neighbors and community. To give the illusion that there is a solution “outside” and centralized by politicians and “their” democracy ,or to engineered NGO’s is a man-made pit.Make known that YOU will share your God-given common-sense, and mercy to those in need of such where you are. Yes, pull resources with brothers and sisters and have ORTHODOX charity as well.Do not raise mere $$$ to give to org.s that do not share the TRUTH , and do not ask a secular/anti-christ Government (look up root of this word) to care or know our Christ.
I liked the article but did find some of it problematic. I don’t like the direct encouragement of contraception and the characterization of abortion as a free will “choice”. Also, maternal death stats in illegal abortions are fraught with fraud & inflation.
The more comprehensive approach of the Rosalie Hall would be a good model to study and services here can be available yet fragmented/hard to navigate.
We also know restricting abortion does save lives as we see in TX, so policy matters
Alex, do you really believe that “back-alley” abortions are reported for statistical purposes? I’m fairly skeptical about those TX stats you are quoting…how do you really know that the reduction in the TX statistics are real, and people weren’t just crossing state borders or going to back-alley butchers in order to achieve their outcome? Several years ago, the only reason they caught one of these butchers in Philadelphia is because too many “patients” died…the butcher shop was in business for a couple of decades up until that point, unknown to authorities and statisticians…
To point out the obvious, we have no equivalent of a Patriarch Ilia in North America or most other parts of the world. To compare the situation in Georgia with that in either the U.S. or Canada is rather meaningless. We are,and have always been, secular nations.
Dear Ronda,
I am glad you are finally able to understand the focus of the article. It seems to me that both of us have been traumatized by abortion. Putting it simply, you love babies but became jaded after years of trying to change policies at the government level. I love babies too. I have three that I cherished more than life itself and I wish I could have had more. Although I have never participated in lobbying activities, I was traumatized each time I could not convince patients, sometimes after several counseling sessions, to keep their babies. I have actually never succeeded, except once and not because of anything I did but because the pregnant woman’s mother promised her she would help her raise her fourth child – we’re talking about a married, Orthodox woman on her fourth and unplanned pregnancy.
For those patients who aborted, I would remember their appointment for the procedure like it was singed in my brain, and when the day arrived, I went about my work feeling absolutely gutted, knowing a child was dying that day…I was going to put this in my article but I thought it would have been too emotional.
Just like I have only a handful of virgins in my practice, I also have another handful of people, usually women, who re-adopted a life of abstinence. In my world, people like you are in a tiny minority. I do NOT push contraception on all my sexually active patients – only those who tell me without hesitation that they would not keep a child if they got pregnant.
When you have been in practice as long as I have, you get to know your patients pretty well. You get to know who is responsible and who is not, and who can be persuaded and who cannot – most of the time. You would never think a married, faithful, Orthodox woman with a “supportive” husband would not have an abortion, but you would be surprised.
Because of confidentiality I cannot divulge some of the horrible things some women have done or gone through in my practice because they picked the wrong father, or because their husbands bailed out on them, or because they were in denial for months that they were pregnant, or because their pregnancy caught them by surprise and they just freaked out. None of these women’s children survived.
So, as I said before, I have never been able to convince a woman not to undergo an abortion, and I have never been able to convince a woman to change her lifestyle to revert back to abstinence, and not for a lack of trying. I think i may have been able to persuade some promiscuous women to cut back on the number of their partners – maybe.
From your conversations on this blog, it sounded like you think a nice conversation with someone can make them give up being sexually active because you did it…and indeed, some people have done it, but not because of me…because of their relationship with God.
I am powerless in convincing people, so I have become very good at informing people. By the time people come to me, 99% of the time they have already made up their moral minds. They just want information. If they ask me my Christian opinion on a matter, then I give it, but I cannot moralize them without judging them, and judging a patient is a big no-no. Imagine if your doctor judged you.
So, in the article, when I talk about contraception, it is for those women who WILL BE sexually active and WILL NOT keep a pregnancy. This, and the statistics on abortions was the “fallen world” part. The mitigating part was the funding of more Rosalie Halls AND contraception for those women who WILL NOT change their lifestyle and WILL NOT keep a baby, even if you gave them the moon on a silver platter.
You cannot change people unless they want to change (you already know this, otherwise you would not be cynical or jaded) My job as a doctor is not to change people, but to protect them. Those who want to change don’t come to me. They find a good priest to do that with, as they should. As a Christian, though, I want to help those who want to be helped. Changing people’s minds does not work, but building is a different matter. Building a Rosalie Hall is like building a church. Put it there, and the people will come, of their own accord. So, the question now is, how do we build more Rosalie Halls?
In my dreams, there is one next door to or across the street from every hospital and every abortion clinic, and I would love to put one in full view of Planned Parenthood.
I wanted this article to spark an interest, a dream, a drive, a new direction, a mission. You know what I mean? Because as you said yourself, or perhaps the folks at OR said it, the old methods don’t work.