My Burden Lifted Forever? by Laura Keyness

Fulton Sheen is reputed to have said, "Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn." I cannot remember where I read it or why it stuck in my mind, but the words came back to me as I waited in line to make my first confession in more than 20 years.

It had taken several days to gear myself up for Confession, but when I arrived at the Church a coach load of nuns had just disembarked and got to the confessionals ahead of me. I was at the back of a very long queue and the nuns were taking their time. "What can nuns possibly have to confess?" I thought testily, before telling myself off for ignorance and impatience. I silently recalled Sheen's words. After all that nun popcorn, the priest would not know what had hit him when I walked in with my confession.

I was on holiday in the area. Walsingham was a place my mum used to take me to as a child and we used to have frequent family holidays on the North Norfolk coast. I had always loved the Shrine at Walsingham; its silence and simplicity. So when I found myself alone in the area for a week, it seemed the obvious place to go.

At the time I was being slowly drawn back to the Catholic Church after years of estrangement during my teens and twenties. I had started praying and saying the Rosary again and skulked at the back of the Church during Mass, reminding myself of the liturgy and what to do. The last step before receiving Communion again was Confession. And boy, was it goong to be a big one!

It felt as if I had fallen so far. I knew objectively that God's mercy was assured, waiting for me if only I reached out and asked for forgiveness. But really feeling it - feeling myself truly forgiven - was something I could scarcely believe possible. My sins were just too big. How could he possibly forgive what I was about to confess?

I had killed someone. Worse, in fact. I had killed the most vulnerable someone it was possible to kill: My own baby, at eight weeks gestation. And in the years following that abortion, I had gone off the rails and totally lost my way. The sin just spiralled until I was in such a dark place there seemed no way back.

"Bunch of Cells"
The turning point came one day out of the blue, sitting on my own in a coffee shop, gazing out of the window. As I nursed my latte, a crocodile of primary school children filed past. Suddenly, I burst into tears.

The emotion caught me by surprise. Why on earth was I crying? One minute I was feeling fairly strong and together, the next minute I was crying in public and for no reason I could work out. Then I realised: Those children were about the same age that my child would have been if I had carried on the pregnancy. I was crying for my lost child.

It gave the lie to everything I had been told about abortion by secular liberal culture: That abortion is good for women, a "right" no less; that it is merely a medical procedure with no lasting detrimental psychological effects; that the fetus is merely a "bunch of cells." At that moment I stopped trying to outrun the lies and let the truth sink in.

I thought about the reaction I got when I revealed I was pregnant. "You're not seriously thinking of keeping it?" Someone asked me. I had been, until I heard that. I felt that I'd be getting no support. It made me realise that, while abortion is called a "choice", it is often a choice women take when they feel they have no choice.

As for the narrative about abortion doing no long-term psychological damage, my own experience had shown me otherwise. It was surely no coincidence that within a year of the abortion I was on the maximum dose of anti-depressant drugs, and engaging in self-sabotaging behaviour. Real healing only began when I confronted the shame and guilt I felt, and when I acknowledged to myself that what I'd done had been morally wrong, and had, in fact, been an act of killing for which I had to take full responsibility.

Those given the task of assisting and performing abortions use language to disguise the truth of what they do. For them, there is no "baby", only "products of conception." But women know. Euphemistic language might make it easier to bury the reality of what's happening, but deep down women know that what abortionists and activists call a "bunch of cells" is ultimately a baby.

Watching those primary school children file past, innocently holding each others' hands, I was confronted with an image of who my child might have become had he or she been allowed to live. I realised that the embryo I had been carrying was incontrovertibly human tissue and that human tissue and the human form are the outward signs of human dignity and worthy of deep reverence, gentleness and love. What damage had I done to the dignity of the human person in allowing an embryo, the human form in miniature, to be ripped apart and thrown away like rubbish? The enormity of the sin struck me with full force.

Beginning of a conversion
It was the beginning of a conversion. I had started engaging with questions of faith anyway. But as I became convinced that abortion was a moral wrong I began to think, "If the Catholic Church is right about abortion, what else is it right about?"

Raised with all the assumptions of the secular liberal intelligentsia, I had taken it for granted that the Church was the last stubborn obstacle in the way of a tide of Enlightenment values. Now I was beginning to understand that the Church's stance on abortion was actually protective of women, and of human dignity. My world view was being turned on its head. Shortly afterwards I attended Mass for the first timebin years, hovering at the back, observing rather than participating. That night I had a dream in which I was in a chamber with ceiling and walls covered in soot and dirt. Above me, a hatch suddenly opened, amd the rush of air sucked all the soot and dirt out of the hatch, revealing a beautiful circular stained-glass window at the apex of the roof. It had been there all along, obscured under all that dirt, and now it was revealed. In my dream, I couldn't but be transfixed by its beauty.

It seems obvious, really, why the image of taking away layers of dirt to reveal beautifully translucent stained glass beneath should have spoken to me at that particular point in my life. I needed to confess. My soul was in a state similar to that chamber before all the dirt was sucked out. There were tears during and after my Confession. I emerged into the sharp sunshine of a North Norfolk winter's day feeling utterly wrung out,but also lighter and as if bits of my soul had just been pieced back together.

The coach load of nuns milled about. I took myself off to the Slipper Chapel to concentrate on my penance, scarcely believing that I could have got off so lightly with only an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be (*But really think about each and every word). I had been expecting a full rosary at the very least.

In the event, I only got as far as "Forgive us our sins as we forgive..." before the tears came again as I stopped to think about the full magnitude of those words. I was forgiven. God had forgiven me, but had I also forgiven myself? What did God's mercy mean to me if I couldn't forgive myself, or if I couldn't quite believe myself worthy of forgiveness? After all, the prodigal son didn't go back to the father the next day and say: "But father, do you really mean it?" The utter gift of His mercy seemed so large.

The Year of Mercy
And yet the gift was bestowed. When Pope Francis announced that as part of the Year of Mercy he would allow priests to forgive the sin of abortion, where priests have not already been given standing permission by their bishops to do so, I was reminded of the extraordinary grace of that long Confessions at Walsingham

It was the start of real healing for me. As the Holy Father said when he made the announcement, "I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonising and painful decision. What has happened is profoundly unjust: yet only understanding the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope."

Understanding the truth of abortion is just the beginning. With absolution, the weight of shame abd guilt is lifted forever

My Dream

It started as a wish which grew into a dream
Now it occupies the bottom of my heart
Rooted in my sub conscious:
Some may call it a "passion"
While others a "vocation"
It is easy to say I have a dream
To say I want to achieve big
But 'actions speak louder than words'
For it takes sweat and hard work
Reinforced by my determination
At times the body wants to rest
To go out and have a jolly good time
To give up walking in this narrow path
To avoid the unbearable pain that goes within
To divert the sorrows to earthly happiness
But then, I remind myself about 'my dream'
I tell myself that I have to work now
And do my future self a favour
Sometimes the mind wants to race about
To get shelter under certain thoughts
To think about the near and dear ones
To follow what others do:
Yes, I instruct myself to follow the path
That leads to my dream
The dream that will ultimately fill me with joy
My dream is to serve people
To pour happiness into the lives of many
To walk that extra mile
Which no one ever dared
And it all begins with "My Dream"

Spreading your wings

At the edge of the woods, near a small farm, a baby eagle fell out of the nest. The farmer found the eagle, and thinking it was one of his own, brought him to the chicken coop with his other chickens. As time passed, the baby eagle grew up learning to do what chickens do. He clucked, he strutted around the coop pecking at the corn and even tried his voice at the morning wake up call.

A naturalist visited the farm one evening. As he stood by the chicken coop where he was surprise to see the fine-looking eagle among the chicken. "How come you have an eagletrapped in there?" he asked. "Well", explained the farmer, "I found it when it was little and raised it in there with the chicken. It has grown up just like the ordinary chicken." "Doesn't it ever try to spread his wings and fly out of there?" asked the visitor curiously.

"No," replied the farmer, "I doubt it ever will; it is not aware of the power in its wings."

"Would you mind if I try out a few experiments with it?" asked the naturalist.

"Not in the least," said the farmer and added, "But you may only be wasting your time."

The naturalist lifted it to the top of the chicken coop fence and said "Fly!" He pushed the reluctant bird off the fence and it fell to the ground in a pile of feathers. Next, the undaunted researcher took the ruffled chicken-eagle to the farmer's hay loft and spread its wings before tossing the bird high in the air with the command "FLY!" The frightened creature shrieked and fell ungraciously to the barn-yard where it resumed pecking the ground in search of its dinner.

The naturalist again picked up the eagle and decided to give it one more chance in a more appropriate environment, out of sight of its familiar surroundings. He drove the bird in his car to a hilly site outside the village. Carrying the eagle he climbed a steep incline and placed the bird carefully on a large boulder. He spoke gently to the golden bird: "You were born to soar, fly eagle, fly!"

Then he slowly pushed it out of the boulder top. Instinctively, the eagle spread out its seven-foot wing-span and drifted gracefully in the air. Then, carried by the wind, it flew further... out of sight.

The naturalist returned to the farm jubilant.

Misunderstood Right

"The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away her reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the goverment can force a woman to continue a pregnancy, what about forcing the issue of abortion?" There goes one argument advocating of abortion.

Another argument comes from a lady doctor who confronted the speaker on the evil of abortion with a barrage of objections. "How can abortion be wrong when I have a right over my own body? I am not hurting anyone. Can I not take away a part of my body when I want to? When my hair grows long I cut them, just as I trim my fingernails when they overgrow. So, I can do the same with a foetus. It's my human right!"

Abortion Defined
Abortion is defined clinically as the expulsion of a non-viable foetus before the twenty eight week of gestation, ex: when survival outside the maternal womb is imposibble. This period has been reduced today because medical advances have lowered the limit of viability. There are already cases of 20 week foetuses born alive with favorable evolution.

When the fetus is already viable, we call it premature delivery. But what really characterizes abortion from the moral standpoint is not so much the premature expulsion of the fetus but its death. Logically, when the fetus is not viable, its expulsion is always followed by death.

Euphemisms are used to disguise the real essence of abortion. Terms like "termination of pregnancy", "elimination of an unwanted baby", "pity for malformed fetus", "saving the victims of rape and incest", etc. All of these boil down to killing an innocent person. This is what abortion is plain and simple.

"Right over my body"

"My body belongs to me...! Our abdomen is our possession!" These are some outcries of feminists who consider the fetus as a mere appendage of the mother's body which can be extirpated according to her free decision.

The agurment merely demonstrates a crass ignorance of biological facts. The new human being in the maternal womb possesses its own genetic apparatus distinct from that of the mother. The DNA is self replicating material which is present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information. If a fertilized ovum has its own distinct DNA from the mother, how could it be considered as simply a part of the mother? It is a separate life. It is another person. A pregnant woman has two lives in her body.

An expectant mother may have the right to her own body. To this we all agree. But she does not have absolute right over the unborn, who is in fact another human being and not just a part of her own anatomy. Terminating the life of an incinient person absolutizes a right which, by its nature, is finite and limited. The right to one's body is never absolute. It is always a limited right. Why is this so?

Nature of a right
A right is something that "is due". The original term comes from the Latin word ius, which in turn became the root of iustitia or justice, ex: the virtue of giving someone what is his due (his right). When that right is given to him we say "we do him justice".

Rights are not just sets of items that are due to me, those that I can demand. Neither are they juxtaposed to me as a human being. They spring rather from the very nature of beings themselves as designed by the Creator. Thus, what is due to someone is likewise something that is good for him, it is what perfects him. Since humans are born imperfect, they have to perfect themselves by receiving from others what is due to them. Those rights are permanently linked to certain goods, such as life, health, education, upbringing etc.

Here we can glean another notion related to the concept of right. Rights serve to develop and perfect humans. They normally refer to realities that improve, enhances and enriches a person. Thus, there is no right to be ignorant, to be lazy, to be cruel, to lie, to murder, etc.

The very first right of a human being is the right to life. This was recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.

Article 3 of UDHR  states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." The right to life is enumerated first since without life nobody can be a subject of any other right whatsoever. It is the first and most fundamental.

Rights are limited
"Everything that is received is received in the manner of the recipient." Applying this principle, we say that God who is infinitely good and eternal shares his life and goodness to his creatures in a limited way. This finite sharing is not due to God's omnipotence but on the limitation of the receiver.

Thus, whatever we receive from God is partial and imperfect since humans are finite beings. Humans are gifted with freedom and rights. It follows therefore that the exercise of rights and freedom is confined to certain limitations. While it is true that women have rights over their bodies, we have to recognise that those rights are limited by the natural purpose or end of a woman's body. For instance, it would be immoral to use her body for commercial purposes or for mere pleasure.

A woman's right is restricted like all other rights. The rights and freedom of each individual end where the rights of another begin. On one hand, a pregnant woman has a right over her reproductive powers but the fetus in her womb is another person who likewise has his rights. He has the right to life. Thus, a woman cannot affirm her rights to the detriment of a higher right of the child in her womb.

Abortion is actually taking the life of a human person since the fetus is a human being. To claim that it is a part of the mother would be incorrect. Though dependent on the mother in the incipientstage, the fetus has its own life and genetic makeup distinct from that of the mother. Invoking a right to abort it life through manifests a mistaken understanding of what a right is.