Anger, Intelligence, and Compassion. Three words that are double-edged swords. Anger can destroy but can also be channeled to right a wrong. The intellect can see truth or it can blind one to the truth. Compassion is a gift when it moves someone to comfort and console, but a weapon when used to enable destructive behavior. I have been discussing abortion with three people who vehemently support legal abortion. Well, discussing is a stretch. Attempting to discuss while being attacked is more accurate. What I found interesting is that each one of the three represented one facet of the “pro-choice” landscape. They illustrate why people are unable to follow reason to its logical conclusions. One person is blinded by anger, one lacks depth of intelligence, and the other allows compassion to override reason. Let’s look at each of these three categories a little closer.

The angry ones are usually women. By nature women feel the most guilt and shame for sexual and reproductive sin. Many women who have had abortions, in order to justify it to themselves, double-down on their abortion advocacy and redirect their guilt as anger against those with a pro-life message. I highly suspect this woman in our discussion has had an abortion or has supported someone who has. She seeks to attack and ridicule the (pro-life) messenger in order to destroy the message, and takes great consolation in the pro-abortion support of others. Such support is important to those not fully secure in their own position but desperately want it to be true.

Lack of intelligence is a second problem. It takes a clear intellect to apprehend the secondary precepts of the natural law which are not visible to the eye, an intellect that is not biased. One must be able to rise above family and societal conditioning to judge things objectively. The one who lacks intelligence in my discussion is stuck on thinking the pro-life position is nothing more than a religious opinion. He is highly influenced by modern progressivism and scientific positivism, and holds religious beliefs to be simple mythology, imagination, or worse. He has no positive arguments for abortion, but is certain that all opposition to killing innocent preborn children comes from some subjective religious teaching that should have no bearing in civil matters. He is typical of what Louis Pasteur said about a little science alienating people from God but a lot of science bringing them back to Him. Those identifying with the leftist progressive movement are stuck in the ‘little science’ they know and cannot apprehend to where it all points. This gentleman represents those who are not educated or deep enough to appreciate the big picture or make proper distinctions on how moral acts are assessed.

Those with misplaced compassion and empathy are a third category of the ‘pro-choice’ population. Compassion is indispensable to a post-Eden world where pain and suffering are so ubiquitous. However, reason must govern compassion in order that it be expressed for the good. Otherwise, it becomes a dangerous enabler of destructive behavior. The man in our conversation could not seem to rise above his emotions to see the uncomfortable truth. His disordered love for women advocates for them to act contrary to their nature and objective good in a manner that is gravely harmful.

Guilt, ignorance, and emotionalism undergird three categories of people who support abortion. These correspond to three imbalances incurred by original sin. Yet they also correspond to three avenues of grace offered by Christ for healing and wholeness: forgiveness (for guilt), light (for ignorance), and strength (for the emotionally and psychologically weak). The real problem here is, these people do not know Christ.

I do not expect any of them to change their minds immediately. They are dug in. Angry people will call you demeaning names to divert from having to look honestly at the question, ignorant people will not be able to follow your arguments or see the bigger picture and will make false conclusions, and emotionally disordered people will be unable to think through their feelings of sympathy to see the place of legitimate sacrifice for the greater good. All of them may call you names and make false accusations against you.

Despite all this, don’t give up. Don’t return anger for anger, or show frustration to those unable to think deeply or rise above their emotions. Remember, you’re advocating for the truth, not for yourself. Not returning evil for evil is a powerful witness in itself. The weapon you have is in seed-planting. Seeds of truth will eventually come to their fruition, usually long after you have had your discussion. You will not know in this life the impact you have had with your perseverance in defending the truth. But heaven knows, and one day you will too.