Kiss of the Spider Woman (On the Frontline Series)

My name is Dan, and I am an abortion sidewalk counselor in New Jersey. This is my inaugural column for a series I will call On the Frontline. Yes, by the grace of God, and resulting from a lifetime of nagging by the Hound of Heaven, I have moved onto the prayer line at an abortion clinic, and then onto the frontline in the battle to save lives and souls. It’s humbling and even humiliating work.

Yet, at the end of my four hour shift, there is always a story to tell. Of course names are changed to protect privacy, and to keep away lawsuit-hungry attorneys. The human drama unfolds as we watch the unseen world of this killing site through fresh eyes. To start, I will keep it light. I call this piece Kiss of the Spider Woman. Thankfully, there was no kiss, but I did meet and converse with a spider woman. You cannot make this stuff up. Reality is often more absurd than fiction.

—–

Our shift begins at 7:15 a.m. as the first arrivals come. The early arrivals are the most critical. These women will have the procedure “performed” within hours. They get prepped and ready for the abortionist to arrive at 9:00 a.m. and do his work. Later in the morning we see women that come for their initial visit, and also follow-up visits. At about 11:30 a.m. we wrap up.

There is an average of forty visits per Saturday morning, and while we are always on the watch, there are plenty of moments to pray the Rosary – to keep the prayer alive while the unborn are losing life. We never forget we are standing at the foot of Calvary.

On one particular day, the downtown was in a festive mood. A sidewalk sale sponsored by the local merchants brought more pedestrians into the business district. Parking meters were covered and labelled with free parking plastic bags, as even the meter maids were given the day off. More people were walking by the clinic on their way to the downtown festivities, instead of walking to the clinic to search out horrible solutions.

One senior citizen walked by carrying a lightweight collapsible cylindrical mesh cage, about the size of a shoe box. I handed literature to her, and then unlike those headed for the clinic, she stopped to talk to me. “Well, we have to do something about overpopulation,” she said. “There are six billion people living on the planet which is meant to sustain one billion.”

Well, that was news to me that the competition for resources is already six times in excess of the sustainable amount. It must have also been news to the five senior citizens that I pushed out of the delicatessen line for that pound of liverwurst. Let ‘em eat cat food.

The mental flag goes up; this will not be a rational conversation, so just have some fun. I mention that the US, and developing nations, are already below the 2.1 births sustainable level (a true fact). That doesn’t hit home. So I just tell her that there are not enough births, and now not enough working people to pay into Social Security, and the government will soon have to start cutting Social Security benefits. Hello, we all know the ratio of workers to retirees has been decaying for years. Ah, Social Security’s fragility always gets their attention.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the mesh cage. It had a Styrofoam cup at the bottom, with some sort of stuffing material. I didn’t see anything alive in the cage, although I always keep a buffer of 3-feet between me and any stranger with which I am conversing. I asked what was in the cage. She said, “My spider. I’m taking him to the sidewalk sale. I have eight to twelve spiders in my house.”

“You don’t kill them?” I asked.

“No,” she beamed, “I would never kill a spider.”

I remember reading Charlotte’s Web to my sons. Charlotte explained to Wilbur her bio-sustainable rational of a diet of flies and other insects. If Charlotte and her kind did not eat flies, they would take over the world. Our lives would no longer be sustainable, as we were buried under overpopulated masses of pesky flies. This planet can sustain only one septillion flies, and we were already at six septillion. Gotta save those spiders. But Charlotte allays the fears of the piglet destined for my liverwurst by telling him that she really doesn’t eat the flies, but sucks out their blood. She makes it painless by using anesthesia, “A little something extra I throw in.”

It was true, lives were being sucked out of existence as we were conversing, eased with generous amounts of anesthesia.

And now we come to the clincher. “You do not kill spiders, but you think it is OK to have unborn babies aborted.” I say.

Then the standard retort, “It not a baby. It’s a fetus.”

It’s the claptrap to any conversation. Enjoy the sidewalk sale. Hope Charlotte finds some nice shoes. So, there you have it. A perfectly rational argument for saving spiders, aborting the unborn, and keeping the planet sustainable. All this within the mind of one of our fellow citizens that will march into the voting booth and cast her ballot for the pro-spider candidate of her choice. In my New Jersey candor, I want to say, “What, you stupid?

Purgatory is supposed to be a place where we painfully complete our spiritual and emotional growth, and “burn” away our addiction to sin. However, it also has to be a place of some remedial growth of intellect. God has to be doing some serious brain improvement for some unfortunate people in the afterlife. We wonder how they fail to see the humanity of those about to die. So, with my little blue plastic rosary, I pray for the unborn, I pray for those in the abortion industry, I pray for post abortive mothers and fathers and now I have to pray for the terminally stupid.

Keep your prayers constant, and let them multiply like flies. Eventually those pesky prayers will push through the sustainability of their culpable ignorance. We will overwhelm the rational spiders and bury them under the mass of God’s love.

[box]Daniel Mikulsky is a father of two school age boys, graduated from Columbia and knew Father Ford (who baptized Tom Merton). He has an MBA, helps companies prepare and recover from disaster (a very lucrative field), and is now enrolled for in a MA in Homeland Security. He regularly compares grades with the boys, which tick them off to no end. Family patrons include St Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, St. James the Less and St. Patrick. [/box]

Daniel Mikulsky

Daniel Mikulsky

Daniel is a father of two school age boys, graduated from Columbia and knew Father Ford (who baptized Tom Merton). He has an MBA, helps companies prepare and recover from disaster (a very lucrative field), and is now enrolled for in a MA in Homeland Security. He regularly compares grades with the boys, which tick them off to no end. Family patrons include St Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, St. James the Less and St. Patrick.

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5 thoughts on “Kiss of the Spider Woman (On the Frontline Series)”

  1. I reside in neither the camp of pro-life nor pro-choice. I have blogged extensively on the issue of selective abortion (based upon the results of genetic screening) and pre-implantation genetic screening.) Please see:
    http://healingandempowerment.blogspot.com/2012/02/designer-childrenselective-abortion-and.html I abhor both practices because they devalue the person either based upon gender or a potentially disabling condition.
    That being said, some pregnancies are the result of incest, some are a result of vicious rape, some pregnancies result in life threatening conditions for the mother. These, to me, appear to be appropriate reasons for termination. Or should a 12 year old incest victim be forced to have children based upon someone’s theology? Problematic terminations (for me) are the result of contraceptive failure, not wanting the child, etc.
    To confront a woman with a particular religious bias because she has just been raped is tantamount to re-victimization and simply reprehensible. Walkers, confronters, prayers of rosaries in front of clinics cannot know the heart of women nor the circumstances of their decision…nor is their right to know or inquire. Your god knows, and your god will judge; is not that sufficient? Of all people, men have little right to invade a woman’s body and mind and spirit with their theology.
    Leave the work of judgement to god, or whomever you believe to be the supreme deity. He does not need our help nor has he asked us to intervene in the bodies of women. Women who seek abortions have a right to privacy. Unless you are willing to take in the fetuses as your children and raise them as your own, you forfeit the right to your argument.
    The secondary issue which you raise is over-population. This is fact nor fiction. A diminution of food supplies have resulted in GMO’s which kill people, pesticides which alter DNA. An overabundance of people leads to increased energy consumption which pollutes and kills. An overabundance of people leads in under-developed countries to genocide, to disease, to starvation, to homelessness, etc. The planet can support a sustainable population, period. Global warming is no joke and it is human caused…over-population and over-utilization of limited resources. This is not a spurious situation but a grave moral dilemma, I do not see churches liquidate their riches to feed the poor….I see works of art, lace, gold, etc…while people die. It is all a matter of moral priority. It is not what Christ would have chosen…He dressed in rags and asked people to follow him….hardly the direction churches have taken.

  2. May God bless you in your work. You have more patience and compassion than I do in order to deal with people like the Spider Woman.

    As for the overpopulation people, if they’re that worried about it, why not start with themselves? Would they refuse lifesaving medical treatment or will they let themselves succumb to death of natural causes, since they’re contributing to overpopulation themselves? Are they willing to forego eating an extra burger or taking one less road trip so that resources can be distributed more equally? Not usually. The overpopulation people usually only mean that the world is overpopulated with people that are not like themselves = not worthy of taking up space and resources.

  3. Phil said quite a lot, so let me just address three issues:

    • “Of all people, men have little right to invade a woman’s body and mind and spirit with their theology” – Men have little right? Sorry, I don’t buy that one. Pitting the genders against each other is just absurd; although this absurdity has reigned for quite a while. Invading? Even as a metaphor this is insulting.

    • “Walkers, confronters, prayers of rosaries in front of clinics cannot know the heart of women nor the circumstances of their decision…nor is their right to know or inquire.” – Oh, how I wish we did not have to be there. But let’s face it, abortion is a business, and so many women are not informed of the consequences of their choice. I wish they could receive non-biased education, but this is not possible in a society that has dehumanized the fetus. Besides, I usually let the women counselors talk to the women. I focus on the men. Many are emotionally hurting; legally shut out. Frequently, the men wait outside during the procedure. They tell me that they cannot stand being inside; especially with the joviality and laughter. One woman bragged that this abortion was her fifth. I will tell you that the “repeaters” are far more numerous than victims of rape and incest.

    • Overpopulation – can be a temporary national issue, due to war and disruption. Chad has a population density of 8.8 per km, and is in population crisis. The meager desert land cannot sustain the large influx of Sudanese refugees. Japan has officially 337 per km, but realistically much higher since 85% of the land is mountainous. Japan is now promoting large families. Their replacement rate is approximately 1.2, and their aging population is reaching the straining point for retirement support. Will my spider woman accept lower Social Security? Oh, the second most dense nation? Monoco at 17,929 per km. They’re doing pretty good there. Experience with national policy shows time and time again that abortion is not a solution to overpopulation.

  4. God bless you and your mission!

    In my New Jersey candor, I want to say, “What, you stupid?” >> made me chuckle. As a neighboring New Yorker, I salute you!

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