Catholic Connection

Why was she calling me?

I didn't understand why she was calling me. She was an employee of my company, young, unmarried, and quite popular with the guys in our office. There had been rumors that she was dating one of the managers in the office, but nothing was out of the ordinary. I knew both of them and judged each to be young up-and-comers for the company who liked to talk about their dreams for the future.

    So that particular night on my drive home, this employee called. She sounded frantic with despair, simultaneously rambling unstoppably, then falling into eerie silence, and then back again. Selfishly, I wondered why I had to be bothered by this. When she was able to tell me coherently her major concern my heart sank into my chest.
    She was pregnant! And she wanted an abortion. And in so many words, she said that my approval would help her decide. How dare her dump this burden onto me, I thought. Then she immediately rattled off all of the reasons she should get the abortion. All of the same reasons, I suppose, any young woman would consider appropriate: she was too young; the couple wasn't in love; there was too much living to do before the burden of childbearing; her job might be at stake; on and on and on. In her mind, she had made a logical case for herself.
    So just when it seemed she would hang up without even asking me what I thought, she stopped, and asked "Don't you think that's the right thing to do?" My heart was broken for this young lady. Because I didn't understand why such a burdensome question was being dumped on me, part of me wanted to just get out of such a huge and heavy conversation and get back to my life. Thankfully, reality hit me like a light, and I answered her, "Listen to what you just asked me. 'Don't you think it's the right thing to do?' Is the right thing to end the life of a baby, the living human being in your womb, that is a child of God since conception?"
    The question flipped her into a totally different mindset. Through the grace of God, she was able to bring herself to a different place; to talk herself into the beauty of the entire situation. Sadly, it felt to me like our conversation was the first time anyone she had talked to previously had said that abortion is murder. She seemed relieved to hear an external voice making her aware of what surely had to be her internal voice, telling her to trust in the God who can do all things.
    She chose life. She married the father, and now they have two children.
    Pray for the respect of all human life from conception to natural death.

Anonymous business man, Louisville, KY